![]() ![]() So not only do modern shooters lack context to explore their themes properly because of the conflict being on-going, they actively create false pretenses by way of boots-on-the-ground perspectives, historical revisionism, and gamifying the murders of Middle Eastern folks of all creeds and cultures, while the real life equivalent is happening simultaneously. This gets at the heart of the dangers of these modern shooters - they are proactively creating a framing and context for the public at large, subconsciously, by placing the player of a massively successful gaming franchise in the shoes of American military in these settings, garnering sympathy for their cause and experiences. But we don't have the historical context and fallout of the wars to yet engrain that in the modern populous. Now how do you extrapolate that to an ongoing conflict, especially one as asymmetric as the current War on Terror the US is engaging in perpetuity in the Middle East? Who will history see as the aggressor, the victor, the side deserving of sympathy? My guess, although it's predicated on the good faith of a lot of people that don't always provide it, is that America will almost certainly not be seen as heroes in this conflict. It's a universal truth that if you see the Nazi swastika in a film, the men bearing it are intended to be villains. It may have been pretty obvious early on to many or most, but that framing has persisted from generation to generation, which creates context that people are willing to play around in as artists. Crucially, though, we as a society had enough time to digest the fallout of WW2 over the last 70 years to arrive at that conclusion. In Medal of Honor, one can feel eventually desensitized to the violent acts they are committing against the Axis Forces, as they were bound together by ideals of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and rampant imperialism - by nearly every Western account, they were the enemy of the world. Even more disgusting than the historical misrepresentation, though, is that this was the first wave of games, ever, to desensitize the world to violence that was still being actively perpetuated. ![]() This type of historical revision is much more popular than one discrete example, as even things like playing adrenaline-pumping music and altering the tone of these engagements as "fair" also count as foul play by the developers. Take 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which framed the real-life American-led bombings and killings on the "Highway of Death" just outside of Kuwait as something that Russia did, and that the good guy Americans were acting on to stop. But even things we do know about are recklessly and blatantly distorted to obfuscate the United States' involvement in the atrocity. So what's the challenge with portraying these wars in a game, then? For one, historical accuracy is out of the fucking window, because a lot of the truth of certain battles and engagements won't be declassified for a long time. There is no draft, it takes place in a far-away place, and the "bad guys" have a totally different culture and way of life - it's a perfectly docile war that does not linger much in the back of the average American's mind. Making a game about a modern setting, such as the Gulf Wars or the "War on Terror" post-9/11 is a lot more challenging because it's both too recent for the full public to get a handle on the seriousness of, and far more insidious than the US government would like you to believe. Historical shooters, like the WW2 shooter craze that lasted for a ridiculous amount of time in its own right, have the story told, and can work around that to create setpieces that match or are inspired by the stories we are taught in school. As just about everyone reading this is aware, Yager created this game as a commentary and critique of the military shooter genre that had become wildly popular ever since the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007. ![]() Spec Ops: The Line is a game with a complicated legacy, especially for those who were not around or paying attention during its initial release. ![]()
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