It's a cry you may have come across: "Keep politics out of games!" Some are more guilty of being politically charged than others but there is just no need for personal political agendas to appear in works of art or in our brainless pastimes. Ultimately, we just want to sit down and play video games, not be preached to about how the right wing millionaires profiting off our hobby are all evil control freaks. Some games exist solely as vessels for political statements, like the latest Deus EX or FIFA 17 the Journey, but for most the politics are utterly unnecessary and should be taken out. Here's a list of the seven worst offenders.
1. DOOM (2016)
DOOM (2016)'s anti-hell agenda is disgusting. The game is little more than a gory anti-satanist campaign with its central hero, the all-American superhero with no personality Doomslayer, clearly driving a propaganda train akin to the 1930s Nazi party.
The demons' personal struggles are completely disregarded and despite them being welcomed by an outstanding member of the community, whom the Doomslayer murders in protest (like a fascist), they're persecuted by the 'hero'.
Olivia Pearce opens the gates and welcomes the demons of Hell with a kind heart only to get brutally murdered by the Doomslayer. This, however, isn't enough for the terrorist; he not only bans demons from Mars but also invades their home. A truly appalling narrative that adds nothing to a game that could've simply been a very fun arena shooter. Sad!
2. Papers, Please
When I first heard about the immigration office simulator I was teeming with excitement. I thought, "Finally, a game about doing a job and doing it well." I convinced myself I was in for a good old office simulator perfect for blowing off steam. Instead it was Steam that blew me off!
The game shamelessly flaunts political propaganda like "Aristrotzka is the best!" even though Aristrotzka isn't even a real place and never has been. It just sounds like a rubbish made up name for an Eastern European autocratic state and not a real place you might visit for a weekend like Croatia or Uzbekistan.
You get given a wife, son and uncle; further fueling the political tensions and nonsense this game desperately doesn't need. A gender specific partner and a gender specific child in this day and age are nothing if not begging for an endless argument. Having the uncle as an oppressive male influence on an unformed child is another obvious criticism of the Balkan culture that is just not welcome in an otherwise cheerful office sim.
3. Assassins/Assassin's/Assassins' Creed
You might expect an assassin's creed to read like "kill for a living, no remorse" or "no one's wanted dead for being innocent" but Ubisoft reckons it would be "nothing is true, everything is permitted." And that's not even the half of it. This should be a series about jumping off rooftops and diving into people's necks blade first, (and to be fair to poor old Ubi, to some extent it is) but it's laden with BS political agenda like the notion that the XBOX One camera constantly watching what you're up to is a breach of civil rights and your privacy. Boo hoo.
The game boasts two secret societies - the assassins and the templar, a very vague not entirely associated group and a very specific group based on a historical organisation. As obsessed with left-wing politics as it Ubisoft is, it obviously hands player control of the anarchist mess that are the assassins and tasks the player with ancient terrorism. Not to get political myself here but I expect no less from French Canadians. Oh, wait; that's not political, just bigoted. That's fine.
4. Democracy
There's so much more to democracy than just politics. Great shows like House of Cards and The Thick Of It have shown us just that. How great a game could democracy have been if it focused more on the mechanical than the ideological? Bribes and coercion, public image and the burying and digging up of compromising information, earning and returning favours, bending the rules to achieve a goal against all odds.
Instead we have a shallow game purely about policy, more concerned with "politics" than the democratic machine. Using sliders for all policy making was a nice but faint touch at hinting the great cogs and chains of parliaments and congresses. A game where your success is dependent on your politics and not your skill at convincing people that you know best, it's a poor and unrealistic attempt at a political simulator.
5. Shadow of Mordor
What started out as an amazing Lord of the Rings spin-off, soon descended into political hell. A game that should be about revenge and murder is instead completely enveloped in orc politics.
The orcs have a hierarchy of warlords directly affected by your actions, forcing you into the political machinations of the greenskins. See, the orcs are savages and should just be left to it really, but instead the player is expected to help some rise in the ranks while exterminating others; and all that to further their own agenda and schemes.
A fantasy game about slaying orcs is instead a dreadful simulation of subterfuge and espionage weighed down with its overbearing political message nobody wants to frigging hear.
6. Metal Gear Solid
The only thing that can ruin sneaking around and fighting massive machines is, you've guessed it: politics! Hideo Kojima is a great mind and with a name like Hideo, he was obviously destined to make video games for a living and coin the phrase Hideo Games (which astonishingly he still hasn't done). Instead he decided that a name like Kojima (small island) lends itself better to a political preaching career but the sun does indeed set on old Hideo.
Each game features needless political discussions between characters that are nothing but mouthpieces for Kojima furthering his own agenda. In typically awkward Japanese fashion, the first game in the series was originally the third game in the timeline and eventually the sixth game in the timeline. Confusing chronology is just a political tool for Kojima who bangs on about how bad war is and how those who fight it are never really the ones with a vested interest in it and don't stand to gain a profit but all we really wanna do is pretend to be a cardboard box and leave nude magazines around to distract guards before he choke them to death; you can stop with the preaching already.
A series that gives you massive robots, stealth suits, half-naked female spies, eating snakes and ballooning goats, also decides that it needs to bear you down with 30 minute lectures about nuclear deterence and nationalism. Kojima could truly be one of the greatest game-makers in history if he could just let go of his political hang-ups.
7. Civilisation
Politics have ruined Civilisation. A game about our steady progression from a small nomadic people into the rulers of planet Earth divided into tribes-come-nations and fighting to be the dominant one RUINED by "diplomacy" and "politics". You can't go two turns without some nation or other saying "ooh, we dislike your warmongering, we're not gonna trade with you" or "ooh, look at you and your culture trying to infiltrate our country with your pop stars and whatnot." Sick of it. It's just music and dress sense and language and social habits, nothing to do with culture!
A splendid series of deep and interesting games ruined because someone decides to throw their own agenda in there. "War is bad" mechanics and "globalisation is the death of nationalistic competition" win conditions ruin the strategy game of the ages. This is where something completely apolitical like Red Alert or Age of the Empires excels and runs circle around the old Civ.
Politics has no place in Civilisation, it's needless and corrupts the otherwise spectacular experience. Wouldn't a world with no coffee shop debates about the morality of eating cuisine one has no genetic link to be much better?
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