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Helldivers 2’s Politics Appear To Be Flying Over The Heads Of Some (www.forbes.com)

submitted 8 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/games@sh.itjust.works

201 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.

The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.

Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.

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[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I remember when some of them kicked up about Far Cry 5 because the villains were all white (which was relevant to the games setting) and they accused the devs of demonising white people LMAO

[–] carpelbridgesyndrome@sh.itjust.works 29 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The complaints about Wolfenstein becoming political really took the cake for me.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

What? Wolfenstein the Nazi killin game is political? /s

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 9 points 8 months ago

Next thing you'll say BJ wasn't killing Nazis for Jesus

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 28 points 8 months ago

More because they were a white Christian doomsday cult.

Clearly a little close to home for some people out there.

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Most of the bad guys in Resident Evil 5 were black because of the relevancy to the setting, and people were similarly kicking up.

Is getting up in arms about one of those any different to the other?

(And just to be clear, I'm not taking about the tribal depictions, I'm referring to the reaction to the early trailers)

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 8 months ago

I mean, a white guy going into a village of black people and shooting up the place is just colonialist history. There's some potential racism to unpack there, so it's not surprising that people's first reaction was "what the fuck."

This was people freaking out about a white guy shooting up a bunch of other white guys who were part of a Christian extremist militia in South Dakota or something. This was people being angry that the bad guys were white Christians, a group that could never be in the wrong.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 8 months ago

Yes, the difference is called historical context and the people mad that other people might be upset by the imagery of a white guy shooting up a town full of black people basically define their views on a willful ignorance of historical context.