I saw the trailer on the Xbox showcase today and holy shit is it blatant unfiltered propaganda. They have a whole extraction game mode that takes place on the DMZ and if I understand it correctly it is just Tarkov but you fulfill the Amerikkkan power fantasy of killing DPRK citizens, since doing a genocide on them was not enough.
The empire really doesn’t care anymore and will just pump out the most blatant propaganda possible and no one will bat an eye.
Yeah, but recently - perhaps due to global markets, perhaps it’s a vague take on capitalism - it seems like a lot of games favour the backdrop of a mass mercenary war with a vague multicultural assimilation of ‘good guys’ vs bad greedy corrupt mercenaries.
R6, BF6, latest Black Ops - it actually makes me miss the old explicitly partisan games - because at least then in multiplayer I could play as the ‘bad guys’ (anti-imperialists). Now I just have to play as some NATO-coded PMC.
The original Modern Warfare, playing as Spetsnaz and being greeted on the victory screen by the anthem of the USSR
Even as a kid without any context at all, hearing that theme definitely planted a seed at the back of my mind that these guys were cool.
Early call of duty where you can spend unlimited time sniping Nazis in Leningrad.
I like ARMA Reforger for that reason, in the vanilla game you can play exclusively as the Soviet Army and one of the most popular mods WCS (Worst Case Scenario) adds NATO and Russia and modern equipment. Some servers also allow you to be Iraqi insurgents. It is hella janky and bugged though.
It also works as a great filter because all the terrible players never play the soviets because they “want to play the good guys” so you’re usually on the winning side.
Yeah I almost feel bad sometimes, NATO gets steamrolled almost everytime it seems like ahah. They just want to be cool “operators” and take out the bad guys, meanwhile the Russian team actually runs supplies and works together.
Oh interesting. I admit I haven’t really paid attention for like 4 years. They actually pivoted?
Yeah. It’s sort of because a lot of these games got infected by the Hero-Shooter virus. Most of these games don’t let you play as some ground soldier anymore - it’s always some dweeb called McKai or Zeb who’s cracking jokes and being epic on the battlefield, and who has 25 different themed skins. Casual military franchises now dont really stick to the simulation aspects of the old ones, or pretend to be adult games. They’re out and out for kids.