Summary
War, what is it good for? It’s certainly good for selling video games. Even people who have never dipped a toe into gaming have heard ofCall of Duty.,a franchise that has undoubtedly profited from reiterating the Hollywood vision of war ad nauseum. It’s a world where thousands can be blasted from the surface of the Earth without much thought, torture always yields results, and nobody is ever traumatized by PTSD, no one is ever really scared by war.
Some games seek to address this imbalance and bring the “Hell” of war to the forefront. Sometimes, this is in the vein of the monster of the week approach, exploring the horrors while having fun with it. Other games delve deep into the traumas wrought by war, with many of them creating unique creatures or gameplay scenarios from this exploration.
Genre
FPS, Survival Horror
Shellshock 2: Blood Trailsis, in many ways — in most ways — not a good game. However, the argument that something does not necessarily have to be good to be enjoyed is often well employed in the horror genre. Many a horror film has become a renowned classic due to a low budget, awful acting, and a schlocky plot. It’s all shlocky on the western front with this one.
Zombies in wartime Vietnam. That’s the setup, that’s the plot. The guns sound and feel cheap, it’s extremely gory but in a way that’s more reminiscent ofPlanet TerrorthanWe Were Soldiers,and every character is a stereotype that was dated ten years before it came out. They don’t make them like this anymore (for good reason), but it’s a goodHalloweeny laughof a game.
NecroVisioNtakes the statement “War is Hell” very literally, and places the player in the shoes of Simon, for whom the Somme is not Hellish enough apparently. Instead, taking on a legion of skeletons, vampires, and demons will have to suffice. Perhaps there is some deep metaphor within the game that the Somme was a battle only fit for demons and no person should have had to suffer such horrors. If so, that certainly came after the thought “How can we make WW1 fun to play?”
All in all, this is quite a mental game, but the developers at The Farm 51 sure know how to make games riotous in both concept and gameplay.
A game that purposefully places the player in the shoes of non-combatants in warzone, the horror inThis War of Mineis very much based in the real. The tension among a group ofstrangers trying to survive together, the hard choices of who will be sent out to scavenge for supplies tonight, and who gets to sleep in a bed or have a meal, are all represented here.
It plays on the fear of and responsibility towards strangers very well, with players never knowing who to trust and who is best avoided, or when to intervene and help and when to be selfish and focus on survival. It embodies its setting well and gets across what a sad state it is when a simple knock of a human hand on the door is the greatest jumpscare available. And scare it does.
In what is the peak of theDark Pictures Anthology,House of Ashesmay even beat the studio’s other big hitters,Until DawnandThe Quarry. It stars a great squad of characters whose differences and relationships, and the problems these could present, are quickly established. It also has its own very cool and unique take on vampire mythos.
Not only the funnest, but arguably the most thoughtful of Supermassive’s games, the setting, characters, andantagonistsinHouse of Ashesall play into one another incredibly well, and present a nuanced perspective on the conflict that is gradually unveiled.
The most modern-set of theAmnesiaseries, the player takes control of Henri Clement, who finds himself trapped in the confines of a desolate abandoned bunker during WW1; his only company, “The Beast”. Appropriately for the setting,The Bunkeris the first of theAmnesiagames where the player has any option of fighting back. Also appropriately, fighting doesn’t accomplish much. Henri is only able to stun The Beast, which allows the player a few valuable seconds to escape.
The attention given to the claustrophobic surroundings, and the growing dread experienced by just being there, bombarded by the terrifying audio before the Beast even rears its head, is enough to get across what asoul-shaking placethe frontlines of WW1 must have been.
War forces an early end to childhood. It forces children to be very brave and to witness unspeakable things that no one should ever have to. This has always been the case, as presented inA Plague Tale: Innocence. Taking place in themid-14th Centuryand inspired by the true horrific combination of endless war followed by plague that France suffered at the time, this war story follows a group of those who often suffer most from the horrors of war: children.
Taking control of Amicia De Rune, who must protect her little brother Hugo as they journey across Aquitaine, the player is faced with one apocalyptic scene after another. While there is a large supernatural component to the story in the form of a (literal) army of plague spreading rats,A Plague Talecrafts a sympathetic and honest narrative with its cast of loveable stalwart children.
To tackle WW1, in any medium, is a difficult and brave thing to do. That is clear through comparison of the scant few WW1 depictions that exist, next to the almost endless takes on WW2 that exist in all forms. It’s even bolder to stick to aretro survival horrorstyle for such a venture. It’s the kind of bravery that informs players thatConscriptwas not made to appease the masses; this was a story the creator needed to tell.
Taking place in the trenches of Verdun, this is a game that does not shy away from its position. The monster is war, a merciless and inescapable beast whose shadow looms over every second of the experience.
Spec Ops: The Lineis not just about the horror of war, but also — and perhaps much more — about the horror of video game war, about the person playing the game and the actions that they take, which contribute to the worsening situation. Making this all bleaker is the fact that the players are the ones making these calls, again and again. This is a brilliant narrative thatbleeds through the fourth wallin the subtlest of ways, questioning the automatic distance that most video games put in place to separate the player from the actions of their character.
Spec Ops: The Lineis bursting at the seams with touches, little and big, that contribute to its greater themes. The journey taken is always a descent, the ammo count is low, so it plays more like survival horror than a military shooter, and the choice of whom the player is shooting at is a very deliberate and thought-provoking one. It never states that violence in video games is bad. The game, of course, is full of violence itself, but it masterfully puts its argument forward nonetheless. Just because violence is virtual, should it be thoughtless? Is it truly harmless?
