Playing the Victim

Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte

Jorin Carpels

Playing the Victim

War Representation and Perpetrator Trauma in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Spec Ops: The Line

Masterproef voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Master in de taal- en letterkunde Engels - Scandinavistiek

2015

Promotor Prof. dr. Stef Craps Vakgroep Letterkunde Copromotor Prof. dr. Tobi Smethurst Vakgroep Letterkunde

Acknowledgements

First of all I would like to thank both of my promotors for their support. I am especially grateful for their endless patience. I am also grateful for the support from my friends and family, for staying supportive even when I missed deadlines, and sticking with me until the very end.

Preface

It was only last year that I discovered the field of game studies, and that I would be able to write this thesis. Since I have played video games for as long as I can remember, I was immediately motivated to approach them in an academic fashion. Especially Spec Ops: The Line had fascinated me ever since I had played it in 2013. It had made me think about other military video games, and how those had never seemed to question any of my actions in-game. Spec Ops: The Line was a very different experience. While I was playing the game specifically because it had been praised by so many critics, I did not expect the game to make itself not fun. It was this that made me reconsider my ideas about violent and military video games. With this in mind I approached my promotors, who suggested analyzing Spec Ops: The Line in the context of trauma studies. This is when the final puzzle pieces started falling into place. By learning more about game studies and trauma theory, I started to understand how Spec Ops: The Line was more than a story about a ruined Dubai and collateral damage. It became clear to me that the game also formed a solid critique of other military video games, while still telling a compelling story. I decided to also analyze Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Both of these games are quintessential military video games, having achieved enormous popularity. By studying these games I could discover why Spec Ops: The Line was such a fundamentally different experience for me, and show at the same time how video games have matured as a storytelling medium. With all of this in mind I have tried to write a thesis that can be informative for both the field of trauma studies as well as game studies. Ultimately, my hope is that my thesis can also be informative for readers from other fields, and can help show that video games are a worthwhile subject in academia.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ...... ii Preface ...... iii Table of Contents...... iv

Introduction 5 Chapter 1 Playing War ...... 7 1.1 Games and War ...... 7 1.2 Game Studies ...... 10 1.2.1 Procedures...... 10 1.2.2 Identification ...... 12 1.2.3 Violence ...... 14 1.3 Trauma and Perpetrators ...... 18 1.3.1 History and War ...... 18 1.3.2 Literary Trauma Theory ...... 19 1.4 Methodology...... 23 Chapter 2 Analysis ...... 25 2.1 Introduction ...... 25 2.2 The Workings of War ...... 29 2.2.1 Technicalities ...... 29 2.2.2 ‘Friendly’ Fire ...... 30 2.3 The Good, the Bad, and the Civilians ...... 32 2.3.1 The Good ...... 32 2.3.2 The Bad ...... 33 2.3.3 The Civilians...... 39 2.4 ‘Death From Above’ ...... 44 2.5 Playing the Perpetrator ...... 48 2.5.1 Walking Through Dubai ...... 48 2.5.2 Fighting Through Dubai ...... 50 Conclusion 53 Bibliography 55 Word count: 22721

Introduction

Video games have become an increasingly popular source of entertainment, and thus an important storytelling medium. With the growth of this popularity has also come a growing need for the field of game studies. Game studies research allows for better and more worthwhile academic research on video games. However, the field is still lacking in certain areas. The intention of this thesis is to start addressing one of these gaps. The particular gap I hope to deal with is the lack of research on the narratives and rhetoric within military video games. Specifically, I hope to look at how war and warfare are represented in certain video games, and how this representation makes claims about the world through the use of procedural rhetoric. Hopefully, this thesis can be the start of more research on the stories in military video games. While video games are different from literature, I believe literary analysis can provide useful tools for video game analysis, in addition to game studies theories and methodologies. It is also worthwhile to study video game narratives for traces of literary traditions and how video games use writing as part of storytelling. I will be analyzing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Spec Ops: The Line. Both Modern Warfare games are both excellent examples of the popularity of military video games. Both games have a single player campaign in which the player plays as several protagonists in a story about terrorism and international intrigue. They are good examples of military AAA1 games, but are not necessarily completely similar in their ways of storytelling or rhetoric. I hope that my thesis can stimulate further research that encompasses more games, in order to produce a more accurate analysis of current military video game narratives. I will also analyze Spec Ops: The Line, because I will argue that it deviates from the usual narrative in such a way that it can even be considered a critique of games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. As such, this thesis will be structured around this dichotomy, and will take on a somewhat comparative nature. My intention is not necessarily to dismiss any of these games for having ‘bad’ or less

1 Big budget games.

interesting narratives, but to be critical of the implied arguments about and representation of war and warfare. I will also look at Spec Ops: The Line from a trauma studies perspective, since its story deals with the issues of perpetrator trauma. I will attempt to place the game as part of the tradition of American trauma literature, by analyzing the characteristics of its trauma narrative. I also intend to analyze how trauma forms a part of how Spec Ops: The Line represents the experience of a soldier in a military conflict. First of all I will outline the history of the military and video games, in order to provide a historical framework for my analysis. I will also discuss how the military industry and the video game industry have grown closer, which has created the need for critical analysis of military video games. Following this I will discuss the theories from the field of game studies which I will use throughout my analysis. The third part of the first, and theoretical, chapter will discuss the history of trauma and war specifically. It will also concern literary trauma theory, and American trauma literature in particular. As the last part of this chapter I will outline my methodology. I will then move on to the analysis of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Spec Ops: The Line. I will first discuss the basic mechanics of these games, to clearly demonstrate the basic similarities and differences between the games. Following this I will start discussing the rhetoric in the games’ narratives by analyzing and comparing their processes and representations of conflict zones and warfare. First of all I will look at how these three games deal with so-called friendly fire. Secondly I will look at the way the several groups of people involved in conflict are represented. Then I will discuss two particular missions from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Spec Ops: The Line in order to highlight the differences between these two games, and how they handle the player’s violence, and justify or condemn the actions that the games require them to carry out. The last part of my analysis will concern the representation of perpetrator trauma in Spec Ops: The Line and how it specifically relates this to the player’s actions. This will be divided into two parts. The first part will be an analysis of the game’s trauma narrative without relating it to the player’s experience. Consequently, the second part will relate the first to the player’s experience of the video game. Lastly I will provide a conclusion which summarizes my findings.

Chapter 1 Playing War

1.1 Games and War

Video games, and their predecessors (board games such as chess and go, as well as miniature simulations featuring toy/model soldiers) have a long history with war and the military: “as long has [sic] humans have waged war, they have also played it” (Halter 5). The connection between video games and the military is not surprising as the first computers were mainly developed for military purposes, or by scientists who worked for the military (Halter). In 1958 William Higinbotham created Tennis for Two, a video game simulation of tennis. Only four years later, in 1962, Spacewar! was developed by a group of young programmers at MIT. The game consisted of firing points of light at other points of light on a screen. However simplistic and unappealing that may sound now, Spacewar! became enormously popular during the ‘60s in North America. Thus Spacewar! became the first electronic simulation of (futuristic) war for entertainment purposes. Instead of calculating the trajectory of actual missiles, computers now calculated the trajectories of imaginary missiles. In fact, this is no coincidence. As Halter succinctly explains “Mapping the movements of bodies in space was one of the raisons d’être for the development of computers, a function that can be traced back to their very origins in the military needs of World War II.” (87-88) Effectively, the step from computer simulation to computer game was very small. In fact, developing computers that were better at running more complex video games in turn were also useful for the military. Since both tasks were essentially the same, there is no barrier for the military to adopt newer, more powerful computers. As a result, simulations of war that can serve both militaristic and entertainment needs are a recurring theme in the history of military video games. In some cases this has been entirely intentional, with mixed results. Halter gives the example of Battlezone, developed in 1980 by Atari, which was an arcade video game where the player controlled a tank across a flatland while destroying hostile entities. The game was controlled using two joysticks, instead of just one, to better simulate a tank’s driving. That same year Atari was contacted by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, who wanted a more realistic version of the game, as a means to train tank drivers. This version was developed but ultimately never put into use. However, it was the start of military interest in video games as

training tools for new soldiers. 24 years later Full Spectrum Warrior was released by THQ, fully funded by the American Army. The game was a military project to develop a training tool that could also be released as entertainment for the general public. In such a way, the game doubled as a source of information about the Army for gamers, and as propaganda. Halter mentions while it has been denied that Full Spectrum Warrior was intended as propaganda, the video game’s official website nevertheless featured a link to the recruiting website of the American Army. Whether or not the Army intended this particular video game as propaganda, there was certainly no need for it as a recruitment tool, because two years prior to the release of Full Spectrum Warrior, America’s Army became available to the public. Arguably, it has been the most successful recruitment tool in the Army’s recent history and was downloaded by more than two million people in the first weeks after its release (Mead 74). America’s Army represented the Army’s values and way of warfare. It taught a new demographic how ‘cool’ and ‘exciting’ the Army could be. The video game itself used a great deal of discipline and rules, supposedly simulating what the Army would be like for young gamers. Interestingly enough the game was adapted later on, to be used as a training tool for new recruits (Halter 205-207; Mead 100). As America’s Army exemplifies, video games have become an important part of training soldiers in the US. In an interview with the team leader of a virtual training program, Mead was told that the training sessions using these video game-derived simulations are “the first time that they realize they might die” (114) for some of the new recruits. There is a sense of irony in the fact that the same medium used to make the Army attractive to young people also confronts young, new soldiers with the reality of war. It is also important to point out that the military has partnered with many companies that develop and publish video games and video game consoles. Even though the military may have once been the main innovator for computer sciences, it has long since been surpassed by the entertainment industry (Halter 236). Now, the entertainment industry is paid in exchange for its technological expertise. Many authors (e.g. Halter, Lenoir & Lowood, and Mead) have called this collaboration the "military-entertainment complex. It is obvious that in this way the military has become an influential factor in the video game industry, and the entertainment industry in general. Therefore it is important to remain critical of the narratives in military video games and not dismiss them as mere entertainment. Since video games have become incredibly popular, they can influence public opinion and the views of certain demographics on war, especially because military video games seem to be more accepted by society than other violent games (Kocurek). The fact that state condoned (and conducted) violence remains acceptable is an issue I will discuss later on, in the chapter on violence. Military video games have also consistently been a target of controversy for a long time. With the rising popularity of arcade games during the latter half of the 20th century came “a

growing popular sentiment-among concerned parents, at least-that games were unnecessarily violent, even militaristic” (Halter 2006; 140). Developing video games around real events has also proven to be controversial. A recent example is Six Days in Fallujah, a video game that was supposed to retell the Second Battle of Fallujah. However, the game was postponed indefinitely after public outrage at the game in 2009 (‘Outrage Over Konami’s “Six Days in Fallujah”’ gamepolitics.com). The game was seen as disrespectful towards the soldiers who had fought in Fallujah, and presenting their suffering as entertainment was deemed insensitive and immoral. More importantly, many found that making video games about such recent events in a war that was still on-going was inappropriate. However, other video games about war in the Middle East are not met with similar reactions. This is understandable, given that games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (which story partly takes place in the Middle East) are usually presented as fiction. Still, the fictional nature of certain video games has not always protected them from controversy. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the subject of much debate due to one particular mission, called “No Russian”. The mission involves the player in a terrorist attack on a Russian airport, in which hundreds of civilians are killed. If the player so chooses, they can participate in the shooting, or simply stand by as it happens. The controversy surrounding this mission is anything but surprising. While violent video games have always been criticized for their subject matter, the killing of defenseless civilians in video games has often proven to be far more controversial. Following the controversy, the developer added the option to skip the mission. In some countries the game was modified to stop players from shooting the civilians, or the scene was even outright removed from the game. Whether or not this mission is distasteful will not be discussed here. I will discuss this level later on, however, as part of an analysis concerning the death of civilians at the hands of the player. Clearly, military video games walk a fine line of controversy and provocation. While violence in other media is generally tolerated, video games seem to be regarded in a different way. Even though more and more games attempt approach violence in a critical way, the general opinion does not seem to change much. Of course, the obvious reason behind this widely held suspicion is the fundamental nature of a video game: the active participation of the player. My intention is neither to condemn nor validate the use of violence in this popular medium, but to look critically at the way it is used and presented. And while finding out why certain video games become so controversial is not within the scope of this thesis, the analysis below could serve as a starting point for such a discussion.

1.2 Game Studies

This chapter will outline the theoretical framework that I will use to analyze two Call of Duty video games and Spec Ops: The Line. As I have already provided a brief history of the relationship between video games and the military, I will discuss some theories from the field of games studies. Additionally, I will discuss several theories from other disciplines, in order to build a better argument and provide a more thorough analysis of the subject at hand.

1.2.1 Procedures

One of the fundamental concepts that my analysis will rely on is Ian Bogost's "procedural rhetoric" (Persuasive Games). Bogost continues in the tradition of visual rhetoric, and the more classical oratorical rhetoric. He argues that video games have opened "a new domain for persuasion, thanks to their core representational mode, procedurality" (Persuasive Games ix). While images, music, and the spoken word may still be used in video games as a form of persuasion, procedural rhetoric is "the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions" (Persuasive Games ix) or shortly "the practice of using processes persuasively" (Persuasive Games 28). Instead of expressing ideas through words or images, rules and boundaries are used. Procedural rhetoric is built up out of procedural figures, which are similar to their literary counterparts (e.g. metaphors) (Persuasive Games 13). Usually these kinds of figures are represented graphically or textually. A relevant example could come from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, in which the player is given a textual warning when they commit friendly fire. This text represents one of the restrictions of the game, and thus one of its rhetorical figures. Other figures can be less noticeable, such as movement or gravity. The nature of procedural rhetoric means that it can be used “to make claims about how things work” (Persuasive Games 29, emphasis in original) By representing real world processes inside the virtual world of a video game, an argument can be made about that process. At the same time, this may happen unintentionally. For example, in a sports video game, the way the player can manage their personal team could have been modeled based on the way sports managers manage their teams. However, a developer could consciously decide to alter this, perhaps to make the game less tedious and thus more enjoyable. As such, it could be said that an implicit argument is being made in the game, either a critique on the boring aspect of sports, or that sports management should be carried out differently (i.e. the way the game represents it). Since it is nearly impossible to grasp authorial intent, any implicit procedural argument cannot be dismissed on the grounds of possibly being unintentional. Especially when reality is

simulated, we cannot disregard any procedural rhetoric present in the game because it may be unintentional or a consequence of technical limitations. At the same time, we should not take this to the extreme opposite, and interpret any and every process as a strong claim on how the world could or should work. How I intend to apply the concept of procedural rhetoric in my analysis will be explained later in the chapter on methodology. Interestingly, there are cases where the authorial intent behind certain representations of processes are known. For example, several good examples of this can be found in America's Army. The Army specifically implemented rules and restrictions in their video game similar to those that exist in the US Army (Mead). This way, they could provide players with an experience that reflected the real world; they used procedural rhetoric to make a claim on how the world works, and specifically, how the Army works. The first example of this is how friendly fire is punished. When the player is carrying out a mission, and accidentally or intentionally commits friendly fire2, they are timed out from the game and put into a virtual cell for a short amount of time. From there the player cannot do anything else in the game and has to wait out the punishment. This is an excellent example of procedural rhetoric. Instead of presenting the player with a textual warning, or showing an image explaining what they did was wrong, the video game outright restricts the player's ability to play the game. This effectively tells players that what they did was wrong, and their actions will have significant consequences. Since players (presumably) want to keep playing, this deters them from committing friendly fire, and motivates them to avoid this from happening accidentally. It is doubly effective as well, since it effectively conveys that friendly fire is not tolerated in the actual Army, and if it happens, soldiers are punished for it. A second example from America's Army is perhaps not so obvious. Before players can take part in the online multiplayer, they must complete basic training. These are simulations of how training would work in reality, where the player is shown how to handle weapons, when to fire, and how to react to certain situations. America's Army also has several playable classes; that is, different kinds of soldiers who perform different functions. Only when the player successfully completes these training missions, can they participate in the rest of the video game. The entirety of this process teachers players that in the Army, soldiers are not sent into the field untrained. It also shows players that if recruits fail basic training, they will not be allowed to be a soldier. It is impossible (without recourse to cheats, hacks, or mods) to avoid these restrictions put up by the video game. Of course, this kind of procedure can serve multiple purposes. It ensures that all players have a basic level of understanding of how the video game works and how they should

2 The act of accidentally or intentionally assaulting a member of the player’s own team.

play it. Consciously or unconsciously players also learn about the structure of the Army: first a soldier goes through training, then into some kind of specialization. Again, the intentional implementation of existing rules into the virtual world of the video game constructs a claim about the workings of the so-called real world. This is not to say that video games do not employ other kinds of rhetoric. The player can still be informed through textual and visual clues, and in some cases procedural rhetoric may not even be used that often. Nevertheless, looking at the restrictions and rules in video games as a reinforcement of certain ideas or concepts is extremely useful in the analysis of their narratives. Especially in the case of military video games, we should be critical of the arguments that are created with the help of procedures, whether the rhetoric is intentional or unintentional. I will attempt to demonstrate the existence of these kinds of procedures in my analysis. By discussing the rules and restrictions concerning friendly fire in both the Modern Warfare games and Spec Ops: The Line. The different ways these games punish the player or construct consequences for this kind of action will have implications for these games’ claims about the real- world nature of friendly fire.

1.2.2 Identification

Another crucial concept in my analysis is James Newman's distinction between On-Line and Off-Line engagement with games. As Newman describes it, "On-Line refers to the state of ergodic participation that we would, in a commonsense manner, think of as ‘playing the game’ (2002). Contrastingly, Off-Line describes the moments when the video game stops registering the player's input. More importantly, “On-Line and Off-Line engagement should be thought of as the polar extremes of an experiential or ergodic continuum” (Newman). A good example can be found in the beginning of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The player’s character is the president of a fictional Middle Eastern country, kidnapped during a military coup. Instead of being able to walk around, the player is stuck in a car and only able to look around. So, clearly, in this part of the game the player’s engagement is located somewhere between the two extremes. While the player can control the head of their character, any other input is ignored (aside from pausing the game). Newman’s theory extends beyond identifying different kinds of engagements with video games. Playing a video game is a highly complex interaction with “a continuous feedback loop” and the player is an essential part in “the construction and composition of the experience” (Newman). Newman argues that when the player is engaged in On-Line play, “videogames are experienced by the primary-player first hand regardless of the mode of their presentation or

content mediation.” In other words, the player becomes part of the experience, immersed in what happens in the constructed video game world. Making this argument, he also downplays the importance of “graphical nuances and […] glitches” (Newman), given that those do not prevent the player from properly playing the game. For Newman, segments tending more to the Off-Line end of the spectrum are support for On-Line moments, and contribute to the sense of achievement a player may receive from a game. Newman takes the idea of On-Line play even further, when it comes to identification with the player’s character. He argues that “during On-Line engagement, the appearance of the player’s character is of little or no consequence” (Newman). What matters is the character’s functionality; the collection of capabilities that the character encompasses. This is most apparent when applied to video games where the player gets to choose which character they want to play as. In America’s Army, the choice between certain classes of soldiers is not based on how much the character model looks like the player, but on what that particular character’s skills and weaponry are. Simply put, during On-Line play, the player’s character is not much more than the extension of the controller (or mouse and keyboard) into the game--a manifestation of the player’s control. Severing this connection would render a video game into little more than a pure Off-Line experience. These ideas are complemented by Collins’ (‘Making Gamers Cry’) research on game sound and its impact on player identification with video game characters. She uses a combination of neurological and philosophical concepts to explain the impact of sound on the player. Most relevant to this thesis is her analysis of dialogue. She concludes that voice acting devoid of emotion can be detrimental to the player’s empathizing with characters. Even more importantly, she uses several examples to argue that the absence of a character’s voice increases empathy by the player, as there will be no risk for disruption between the player’s expectations and their character’s dialogue or voice. This idea will come into play during my analysis of Spec Ops: The Line. So far, I have only discussed identification and empathy in the context of video games. The reason for this I described above, using Newman’s theory. However, this does not offer much explanation for the Off-Line experience of the player. While I could argue that the Off-Line experience is not relevant for the discussion of procedural rhetoric, I believe that some traditional ideas can be taken into account for a more complete analysis, especially when it concerns Spec Ops: The Line. In order not to lose focus too much, I will discuss identification mostly in relation to trauma fiction. Dominick LaCapra mainly warns for “unchecked identification, vicarious experience, and surrogate victimage” (40). While this is a legitimate argument, I will explain in the following chapter on violence why players usually have the necessary tools to distance themselves from what is happening in the game. This danger is also lessened by the On-Line/Off-Line aspect of video games; as I have already mentioned that identification with the character is mechanical rather than emotional during On-Line play. In such a way, identifying vicariously with a game’s

character during Off-Line moments will inevitably be hindered when On-Line play returns. This is not to say that it would impossible, but I believe the risk of this happening is severely limited. Additionally, LaCapra mentions Kaja Silverman’s idea of “eropathic identification, in which emotional response comes with respect for the other and the realization that the experience of the other is not one’s own” (40). Because a character is perceived significantly differently between Off-Line and On-Line play, this concept seems particularly fitting. Even if the player identifies only mechanically during On-Line play, they may still develop this eropathic identification during Off- Line moments. Specifically because the player’s character becomes separate from the player during these moments, the player will be distanced from that character, and thus prevent “unchecked identification” (LaCapra 40). Of course, if Off-Line moments are sparse in a video game, there may be few or no opportunities for identification by the player. In the context of this thesis, I will mainly analyze how the video games facilitate identification, through the use of dialogue, and transitions between On-Line and Off-Line play.

1.2.3 Violence

Given that during mostly On-Line play, the player’s character becomes an extension of the player, and no longer a character in a story who can make choices, certain actions may cause a moral conflict on the player’s part. Because I will be analyzing video games that revolve, for the most part, around violence, I will introduce a theory that proposes several methods of dealing with these moral problems. Christoph Klimmt et al. propose Moral Management Theory, based on Bandura’s Moral Disengagement Theory (as cited in Klimmt et al.)

 As mentioned earlier, most violent games lay out a narrative framework that provides moral justification for violent action, most typically good-versus-evil stories that assist players to cope with ruminations about the sense and appropriateness of violence (‘defend freedom’, ‘protect the weak’).  As the majority of violent games utilize military contexts and scenarios (Kuhrcke, Klimmt and Vorderer, 2005), typical strategies that commanders apply to stimulate moral disengagement in their troops, such as euphemistic labeling of violent action (‘eliminate the enemy’), can also be found frequently.  The worlds of most violent video games are full of creatures that perform extremely crude violence. They serve several functions in respect to morality, such as ‘attribution of blame’ (see below) and the creation of a projection screen for advantageous comparisons of violence committed by the players. Compared to these creatures’ brutal behavior, players’ violent actions are framed as ‘moderate’ and ‘not exaggerated’.

 Violent games that feature military, police or intelligence contexts frequently provide narrative cues for the implementation of the diffusion or responsibility strategy, as they introduce higher authorities (such as government officials) that demand the execution of violence and/or free players from the perceived responsibility for violent incidents.  Cues that refer to the disregard of consequences occur in virtually any violent video game at the narrative level (for example no widows or orphans appear after an opponent is killed).  Dehumanization of victims is also facilitated by most violent video games. For instance, some games (Resident Evil, 1996) introduce monsters and other fantasy creatures that differ in some respect from humans. More implicit dehumanization cues build on outsider group perceptions and stereotypes (for instance, by designing opponent characters to meet the ‘Arab terrorist’ cliché).  Support for the attribution of blame strategy of moral management is also typical for many violent video games, most often through creating situation of self- defence. Game characters that attack the player (or her/his) character obviously deserve violent treatment, as do victims who ‘deserve’ punishment, as they are themselves perpetrators of unjustified violence.

Moral management strategies as described in Klimmt et al. (115-116)

In this theory, Klimmt et al. “differentiate two basic strategies of overriding moral concern” (113). The first strategy is the simplest, and stresses the difference between the video game and reality. Video games present a virtual reality, visually built up out of pixels, and as a result “moral concern is not ‘necessary’, applicable or rational in respect to violent game actions” (Klimmt et al. 113). As I have explained before, an important aspect of On-Line play is the player’s character becoming an extension of the player, and thus the separation between character and player--video game and reality--becomes faded. Consequently, the aforementioned strategy is fairly flawed. When players engage in On-Line play, we cannot expect them to constantly maintain a conscious realization that what is happening in the video game is not real. Therefore a second strategy is necessary, based on the processes from Bandura’s Moral Disengagement Theory. Which process is unconsciously at work for the player may vary throughout the duration of the video game, meaning that dealing with moral problems can happen quickly and easily. In such a way, we can assume that players can deal with moral conflicts even “when a game is seen as ‘real’” (Klimmt et al. 115). Of course, since violent video games are usually intended as a source of entertainment, games can aid the player in dealing with these moral conflicts. These “moral cues”, as Klimmt et al. have coined them, can easily be derived from

Bandura’s processes. Consequently, the player is only required to accept the video game’s justifications for the use of violence. As will become clear, a video game can also do the opposite. Another character in the game may point out the death and destruction the player has caused through their actions in order to, for example, beat the antagonist. In this case, the game can manipulate moral management strategies to mislead the player into disregarding their actions as harmful, only to condemn their violent behavior later on. Additionally, I would like to mention one of Judith Butler’s ideas as proposed in Frames of War. It complements the Moral Management Theory as described above. In Frames of War, Judith Butler discusses why certain lives are considered precarious and others not, in terms of war. She presents several theses as to why certain acts of killing can be considered acceptable, and others cannot. One she seems to largely agree with, and nuances later on, is that of Talal Asad:

"His thesis is that we feel more horror and moral revulsion in the face of lives lost under certain conditions than under certain others. If, for instance, someone kills or is killed in war, and the war is state-sponsored, and we invest the state with legitimacy, then we consider the death lamentable, sad, and unfortunate, but not radically unjust. And yet if the violence is perpetrated by insurgency groups regarded as illegitimate, then our affect invariably changes, or so Asad assumes." (Butler 41)

Butler explains further that this kind of thinking is framed "by tacitly differentiating between those populations on whom my life and existence depend, and those populations who represent a direct threat to my life and existence” (42). Because these populations are experienced as hostile, they cease to be recognized as precarious lives. As Butler also accurately points out, this kind of thinking is only supported by the notion that certain religious or ethnic groups are barbaric and dangerous (in this specific case, Islam). This is part of the construction of nationalism, and especially that of the USA. Nationalism creates an image of the subject (in this case, the USA), which is strengthened by media and, while not real, it is given a sense of reality in the attempt to "render the subject's own destructiveness righteous and its own destructibility unthinkable" (47). Butler links this to lives being representations of different states, where some states are seen as threats, "so that war can then be righteously waged on behalf of some lives, while the destruction of other lives can be righteously defended" (53). Most importantly, the biggest threats are those states which supposedly endanger democracy itself. This is particularly relevant for the Call of Duty games I will be analyzing, as they largely take place in either Russia or the Middle East. The antagonists are also almost exclusively Russian or Middle Eastern, with one exception at the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. If we take into

consideration the moral management theories and Butler’s ideas on precarious lives, a very dangerous problem arises: if these games are generalizing the populations of these two countries, and framing their deaths as acceptable, they may be contributing to the creation of a dangerous xenophobic worldview. Especially in the context of the current and recent wars, this possibility cannot and should not be ignored. It is for this reason that I intend to critically analyze the implied rhetoric in these two Call of Duty games. By also analyzing Spec Ops: The Line, I aim to demonstrate that there is also a possibility for video games themselves to be critical of this issue. I want to determine whether or not Spec Ops: The Line is successful at this endeavor, and how it has used procedural rhetoric and aspects of trauma theories to construct its narrative. As such, I believe this is an apt place to start discussing the trauma section of this theoretical chapter.

1.3 Trauma and Perpetrators

1.3.1 History and War

Since this dissertation focuses on trauma and war, it is necessary to discuss the relationship between the two. This history will be based mostly on the first chapter of Roger Luckhurst’s The Trauma Question and Allan Young’s The Harmony of Illusions. They provide a comprehensive and complete overview of the history of trauma from the beginning of the industrial revolution until the most recent decades. The rise of trauma is linked closely to modernity and the advent of industrial technology. In The Harmony of Illusions, Allan Young points out that it was not “until the nineteenth century, when [trauma] was, for the first time, extended to include mental injury. In fact, historical accounts of the traumatic events routinely trace this innovation to the publication of On Railway and Other Injuries of the Nervous System by John Erichsen, a professor of surgery” (Young 13). The 19th century saw the growth of the railway industry, and with it, many fatal injuries and accidents. Even the idea of an accident is itself also a product of modernity, according to Roger Luckhurst (26). It is the result of society trying to process the violent consequences of industry. Railway accidents were, however, not the first instances of industrial accidents. Those took place inside factories, hidden from the public, in contrast to railway accidents, which were all too public. Additionally, victims of railway accidents were mainly travelers, and not laborers, which sparked public debate on the nature of injuries. Young discusses this in relation to “the Campbell Act, which compensated families of persons killed in accidents resulting from the negligence of a second party” (17), which later included those involved in railway accidents. This led some to conclude that “people involved in railway accidents were now unable to think of injuries in isolation from their possible monetary significance” (Young 17). Ultimately, accidents began to be seen in the context of contracts between individuals, and thus "the accident must immediately invoke questions of responsibility and liability" (Luckhurst 27). While the nature of trauma may have been disputed, there was a consensus that where there was a trauma victim, someone else was at fault, and thus a traumatizer. To this effect, the responsibility for trauma shifted away from the individual, whether they were a laborer or innocent bystander, and towards the companies in charge of the new industrial technologies. This is also relevant for the soldier. Soldiers go to war, knowing they may never return, and this is completely acceptable for society. Those who die in war are grieved, but their death is not blamed on the army they fought for. But World War 1 brought unforeseen side effects to the

regular “accidents” of war. Soldiers with (and often without) physical injury suffered from psychological problems on a scale never seen before. The attempt to explain this phenomenon led to the coining of the term “shell shock.” As the name implies, the issues were initially linked to the proximity of soldiers to explosions, but the diagnosis became widespread and an "estimated 200,000 British soldiers were discharged for suffering shell shock" (Luckhurst 50). The parallel with industrial workers is made by Luckhurst, who points out that "the front line was a mechanized factory of death" (51). By the time World War 2 came around, the concept of shell shock had been criticized, mostly by the military, and was abandoned as a diagnosis. Instead, “battle fatigue” or “exhaustion” now became the descriptor for soldiers’ mental issues. It was only after the Vietnam War that serious attempts began to define and treat the trauma of soldiers. Finally, this led to the coining of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD). While PTSD was initially used to diagnose veterans of the Vietnam War, it quickly became linked to survivors of other traumatic experiences, e.g. Holocaust survivors. However, the military remains ambivalent towards trauma, as demonstrated by the fact that “Gulf War Syndrome has remained a disputed entity since 1991” (Luckhurst 58). As such, during the 20th century, trauma and war have been inextricably linked. Unsurprisingly they have become important subjects in both literature and popular culture (e.g. Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy and Saving Private Ryan). The proliferation of trauma has continued into the 21st century. Both the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War have seen soldiers return home, traumatized by their experiences abroad. This is reflected in the representation of these wars across literature and other popular media. More importantly, these representations have drawn attention to the concept of perpetrator trauma. Alan Gibbs notes that “a clear demarcation between perpetrators and victims” (161) should not be hard to draw. However, he found that many a narrative in American literature “attempts to overturn perpetrator status” (161). There is no denying that the writers are sufferers of trauma, but they are most decidedly not the victims they may make themselves out to be. I will discuss these narratives later on.

1.3.2 Literary Trauma Theory

In Contemporary American Trauma Narratives, Alan Gibbs discusses some of the most paradigmatic texts for US-American trauma literature. He discusses several novels that revolve around the US’ history of warfare and armed conflicts. While his entire book is extremely informative about modern trauma theory, I will concentrate mainly on those specific stories, since the aim of this thesis is to analyze military narratives. One of Gibbs main intentions is to criticize

Caruth’s concept of Nachträglichkeit. Instead he offers that “these texts often depict post- traumatic reactions as a constant, insistent, and conscious presence” (48). Additionally, he also discusses “insidious trauma” (48), which seems to be represented more than sudden trauma. Gibbs analysis of 20th century American war novels starts with Salinger’s For Esmé, which as “fragmented, non-chronological narration, and shifts in narrating subjectivity” (49) at times, and mentions that this become common in trauma narratives in general. In fact, in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, he describes “circling as a form of evasive narration [which] becomes a classic trope of trauma narratives” (52). Similarly Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 has “fragmented subjectivity”, as a way of deconstructing escapism as a useful response to trauma (58). Tim O’ Brien also “employs a spiraling narrative structure” (Gibbs 67) in his works as a way of representing the haunting nature of trauma. This also builds up as an argument against the idea that a notion of truth cannot be maintained after a traumatic experience in a war zone. This idea of repetitive trauma, that slowly builds up to a crisis for the traumatized, seems especially prevalent in these war narratives. At the same time, Anne Roth warns for “trauma kitsch” (45), which seems to be a disingenuous genre of trauma narratives. She argues that the mass (re)production of certain trauma stories has completely derived them of their honesty and transformed them into something mundane. More importantly, she argues that “trauma kitsch narratives ostensibly represent an apolitical world” (Roth 45) by leaving out important contextual factors, and thus they “covertly [reinforce] the power structures that have created the represented injustices” (45). This relates back to the issue I presented at the end of the last chapter, as trauma kitsch could possibly be another factor that contributes to a problematic narrative in a video game. I return to Gibbs, who has also noticed some traces of perpetrator trauma in some of the works mentioned above. In Slaughterhouse 5 he notes the idea that “refusing agency is […] an ultimately futile response to trauma” (61) and in O’ Briens work the “issues of perpetration and guilt are sometimes muddied, repositioning invading US forces as the victim, albeit with a measure of self-conscious irony” (64). These hints to perpetrator trauma narratives seem to have been indicative of later works discussed by Gibbs. Despite these kinds of stories existing, Gibbs explains the reluctance of academia to acknowledge and discuss perpetrator trauma (166). According to him this is the result of the moral obligation to condemn perpetrators and their actions. However, he claims that certain academics seem to have forgotten that analyzing and empathizing are two separate things. Finding out how perpetrators have been traumatized by their own actions does not equal justifying those actions, or empathizing with those perpetrators. Additionally, the categories of victim and victimizer (or perpetrator) are impractical. Kalí Tal succinctly mentions that "the soldier in combat is both victim and victimizer"(kalital.com). Tal points out that those in the army often come from powerless positions. Her argument shows that it can be impossible to draw a

clear line between victim and victimizer. The so-called waters of traumatic events are murky, and there is little we can do to make them clearer. Alan Gibbs also notes “that the general status of soldiers as comprising an uneasy admixture of victim and perpetrator has become a staple of war narrative” (177). Interestingly enough “a common way of attempting to cope with perpetrator trauma […] is to suppress the knowledge of oneself as a perpetrator and instead appropriate victim status” (Gibbs 177). When it comes to US war narratives, this tends to result in a victimization of the US, under threat by a barbarous enemy. However, this does not mean that analysis of these kinds of narratives equals accepting their appropriation of the victim status. In fact, this appropriation makes it all the more crucial that we look critically at these narratives, rather than dismiss them outright. Apart from its effect on reluctant academics, perpetrator trauma distinguishes itself in another significant way. The way that perpetrator trauma manifests goes against the idea "that trauma is always the result of a single, shattering and overwhelming event" (Gibbs 168). Perpetrator trauma is the result of several actions, during a period of time, rather than one action, suddenly. Gibbs explains that this is partly the result of the perpetrator's struggle between silence and confession. More importantly, "latency periods in perpetrator narratives may occur because of the lack of an appropriately receptive audience" (Gibbs 171). Gibbs underlines the relevance of this fact for war narratives. Popularity of the war at home influences how well soldiers’ actions are perceived upon returning from the war. As a result, soldiers may only start to feel guilty or become traumatized by their actions when they return to their own society. For example, Raya Morag argues that a perpetrator has a “relationship with society [that] is inherently irresolvable” (215), because the perpetrator also reveals “society’s indirect complicitous guilt” (215). As a result she suggests the existence of direct and indirect involvement (216). Gibbs concludes that this conflict between perpetrator and society may be a greater cause of trauma than the actions themselves. In his analysis of two stories by soldiers who were part of the Iraq War, Gibbs notes that slow build ups of trauma are linked to the “steady attrition of the US forces’ Rules of Engagement” (182). These rules become problematic when the line between civilian and hostile become unclear. In fact, they can be used to justify questionable actions, as well as cause doubt when something has gone wrong. This leads me to the concept of an “atrocity-producing environment”, as suggested by Lifton (‘Haditha’). In this kind of environment, violence has become normalized, and brutality is no longer exceptional. This leads otherwise morally conscious persons to commit morally despicable acts. In the article Guilt and Perpetration in Spec Ops: The Line Tobi Smethurst analyses how this is an extremely relevant concept in Spec Ops: The Line. I will return to this article during my analysis of Spec Ops. At this point, I do want to mention that the idea of an atrocity-producing

situation is not supposed to remove agency from perpetrators, but rather explain how it is possible that they ever became capable of their traumatic actions.

1.4 Methodology

The intent behind this chapter is to make clear the way I have approached the materials (i.e. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Spec Ops: The Line) of my analysis, and make transparent the process of the analysis itself. Since I am an English literature student, it could be said that I have “read” these video games, as much as I have played them. While I had already played these video games before, I had not closely examined them, nor paied attention to the details of their stories and fictional worlds. Whereas these games used to be products of entertainment, when I played through them with the intention of thorough analysis, they became literary objects in a sense. Consequently, my methodology is linked to close reading. At the same time, ignoring the difference between literary texts and video games would be problematic. Because video games are minimally textual, there was a need for me to find a theory which complements the methods of close reading. For this reason I will explain Bogost’s theory of unit operations (Unit Operations). "Unit operations are modes of meaning-making that privilege discrete disconnected actions over deterministic, progressive systems" (Bogost Unit Operations; 3). While Bogost states that it is a move away from system operations, he does admit that systems operations have not disappeared. The idea behind system operations was that a video game could be analyzed through the lens of its explicit intention. In this way, everything within a game would be explained in relation to the perceived overall narrative. Unit operations construes video game analysis the opposite way. In a sense it is similar to the change in literary theory, where authorial intent has been mostly discarded, and individual interpretation has become essential. Bogost (Unit Operations 3) sees the old system operations as holistic, absolute interpretations of complex wholes. Unit operations, on the other hand, are the smaller parts of those complex wholes. They can be interpreted or analyzed, and this can inform a system, but a dynamic one, depending on how those single units are regarded by the person interpreting or analyzing them. This could, again, be applied to America's Army. The consequences of friendly fire, and the need to complete basic training both inform different aspects of the army, but also reinforce a larger system of the necessity for discipline in the Army. In this case, America's Army is trying to simulate how the Army should, or could, work. Every unit operation in the video game can be interpreted as supporting the larger system operation that is a simulation of the workings of the Army. However, one can also interpret the basic training as a simple measure against players who refuse to take some of the video game's rules seriously. And the punishments against friendly fire can be interpreted as a way to keep the video game enjoyable for everyone, and to prevent players from sabotaging their own team. Or, ultimately, these unit operations can be

regarded as fulfilling both those purposes, where good video game design has provided game mechanics which can both make the game enjoyable, and also support a certain representation of the US Army and its values. In other words, not unlike the procedural figures that were mentioned in the chapter on processes and procedural rhetoric, a unit operations is a singular part of the greater system that is a video game. It is similar to the analysis of themes and motifs in literature, similar to analyzing the particularities of the language use in narratives. By analyzing the unit operations of these three video games, I can attempt to construct a dynamic system of meaning within them. In addition to this, I contend that my analysis will not be the only possible one. In the tradition of reader-response theory (Iser), my interpretation is just one of many. How I experience the games analyzed in this thesis can be entirely different from other’s experiences. This is also the appropriate time to mention some technicalities. I played all three video games on medium difficulty (or the equivalent setting for each respective game), on a PC. While this may seem trivial for some, I want to be as transparent as possible on these matters. How one player experiences a game on a console, may be entirely different from another player using a computer.

Chapter 2 Analysis

2.1 Introduction

Before I begin my analysis I will first introduce the three video games I am going to discuss. This will mirror the structure of the analysis itself: first the Modern Warfare franchise, and Spec Ops: The Line second. After this brief introduction I will begin my analysis by discussing the games’ basic mechanics. Following this, the main analysis of the three games will begin. Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 were developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, in 2007 and 2009 respectively. The first game sold over ten million copies in one year, and consequently became an instant bestseller (Terdiman). The sequel followed in its footsteps, being sold nearly 5 million times within 24 hours of release (Johnson). Obviously both games were enormously popular, and have had a lot of influence on the gaming industry. Again, this is the most important reason for a critical analysis of the implied rhetoric and inherent ideas presented in the game, especially regarding warfare and soldiers’ lives. These games cannot be dismissed as mere entertainment, as they have become such prominent cultural phenomena. The sales of Spec Ops: The Line is a different story, with an estimate of less than one millions sold copies (Bassett). It was developed by Yager Development, and published by 2K Games in 2012. However, my interest for this video game arose for a different reason than financial failure. As will become clear through my analysis, Spec Ops: The Line can be seen as a critique on franchises like Modern Warfare. At the same time, its narrative fits well into the tradition of American trauma narratives. This is unsurprising as there are intentional similarities to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (e.g. the main antagonist was called Konrad, after the novel’s character). My intention is to look at the Modern Warfare franchise as popular examples of military video games, and use the analysis of both games as a contrast for the discussion on Spec Ops: The Line. Following the theories I have presented above, I will try to show that the representation of war in the Modern Warfare franchise on the one hand, and in Spec Ops: The Line on the other hand,

is fundamentally different. Specifically in the sense that the latter deals with the traumatic nature of a soldier’s profession, whereas the former is devoid of almost anything that could be perceived as traumatic. Besides this specific issue, I will also attempt to show that both represent certain aspects of modern warfare in drastically different ways. As the last part of this introduction I will attempt to briefly summarize the stories of these three games, starting again with the Modern Warfare games, and ending with Spec Ops: The Line. The story of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (hereafter simply Modern Warfare), follows the perspective of different characters within related events. In this sense, the player takes part in all the relevant and important moments of the story. While the game itself starts with a training mission, and the takeover of a ship in the Bering Strait in order to stop essential defensive information from being stolen, the following level or mission is perhaps a better beginning to the story. This mission is almost entirely an Off-Line experience because the player controls the leader of an unnamed Middle Eastern oil state, who is in the process of being deposed and will be executed. Consequently, the only control given to the player is the movement of his head. This gives the player the opportunity to witness a violent coup, which ends in the very execution of the player’s character. What follows is a military intervention by the US Marine Corps, and covert operations by the SAS, to stop and apprehend those responsible for the coup. The player is in control of one character in each organization. Initially, the main antagonist is believed to be the Middle Eastern Assad, but later it is discovered that the Russian ‘Ultranationalist’ Zhakaev is the mastermind behind everything. This discovery is accentuated by the detonation of a nuclear warhead within the capital of said Middle Eastern country, killing most of the US troops present there. When Zhakaev is final cornered, he launches more nuclear warheads towards the US. During the fight to stop these, and the subsequent escape of the player, Zhakaev is killed. This is where the game ends. This story continues in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (hereafter Modern Warfare 2), five years after the events in Modern Warfare. It is revealed that Zhakaev has become a martyr in Russia (which has been taken over by the aforementioned Ultranationalists), as all the events from the first game have been covered up. One of the player’s characters, Joseph Allen, is a member of the US Army Rangers, who are trying to liberate a city in Afghanistan. Afterwards this character is recruited by a certain General Shepherd, who has founded Task Force 141 to carry out covert operations around the world. These operations mostly consist of chasing after Zhakaev’s successor, Makarov. One of these missions is the controversial “No Russian” level, in which the player’s character is part of a terrorist attack on a Russian airport. This incident sparks a Russian invasion of the US. The player takes part as a US soldier, desperately trying to fend off the Russian forces. At the same time, Shepherd’s Taskforce (which the player is still part of) continues to chase Makarov, leading to violent chases through a favela in Rio de Janeiro, and the liberation of a

character from Modern Warfare from a Russian prison. The Taskforce then launches a ballistic nuclear missile, detonating it above Washington D.C. in order to disable the Russian communications, air support and tanks. This gives US forces the upper hand, who consequently reconquer the occupied parts of the US capital. Finally, as the Taskforce closes in on Makarov, General Shepherd turns on them, and reveals his orchestrations behind some of the events leading to the Russian invasion. The player chases after Shepherd, who ends up being killed. The game ends with the player’s character, who is heavily wounded, being carried away by his only friend. Spec Ops: The Line (hereafter Spec Ops) has a far more small-scale story. The events in the video game take place in the near future, when Dubai has become victim to devastating sandstorms, and was hastily, and only partially, evacuated. Colonel Joseph Konrad, who was on the way home from Afghanistan with the 33rd Battalion, volunteered to carry out a rescue mission for those stuck in Dubai. However, shortly after contact is lost, and the 33rd seemed to have failed their mission. This is why the player’s character, Captain Martin Walker, and his two Delta Force team members, Lieutenant Alphanso Adams and Staff Sergeant John Lugo, venture into Dubai on a reconnaissance mission. The first On-Line moment of the game starts with a helicopter air battle, ending when a sudden sandstorm causes a crash landing. At this point, the game returns to the first moment when Walker’s team nears Dubai. On the highway to the city, they encounter the bodies of US soldiers, and are simultaneously attacked by what seem to be the local inhabitants. As they press further into the city, they discover that someone is broadcasting throughout the city, acting as the voice of the remainders of the 33rd. Simultaneously, they discover that Dubai has become a conflict zone, between the dictatorial 33rd and rebellious civilians led by CIA agents. Walker decides to venture further into the city and attempt to resolve the conflict, instead of turning back and informing his superiors of the current situation. However, the presence of the Delta Force team causes the escalation of the existing conflict. Moreover, Walker (and thus the player) commits war crimes in the process of locating and stopping Konrad, by using white phosphorus to clear an encampment of hostile soldiers. At this point, Walker starts receiving messages over a handheld radio from Konrad himself, who antagonizes and judges the player’s character. Walker then aids a CIA agent in capturing the city’s only water resources, which are destroyed during the consequent attempt to escape with the water. This spiral of violence and destruction leads to the destruction of the radio tower, which was the source of the broadcasting, and a repetition of the helicopter battle from the beginning of the game. However, after the crash, the story continues as the team tries to regroup. Before they are successful, one team member is lynched by an angry mob. Walker decides to keep going, and as they reach the last stronghold of the 33rd, Walker’s last team member sacrifices himself so he can reach Konrad. Finally, Walker discovers that Konrad has been dead for a while, and that he has hallucinated several events. Ultimately, the player is

presented with several options to end the game, which I will discuss below. It is important to mention that Walker experiences obvious hallucinations through the later parts of the game, indicating that he is suffering mentally under the consequences of his actions.

2.2 The Workings of War

2.2.1 Technicalities

Despite the vast thematic differences between the Modern Warfare games and Spec Ops: The Line, their basic mechanics work more or less the same. Sicart describes these “as methods invoked by agents, designed for interaction with the game state”. In other words, it means the actions that are used by any one agent in the game, including non-human agents, in order to interact with the game world. These actions are of course limited by the existing rules and boundaries of the game. Sicart also proposes we can use verbs to describe these actions. For example, he lists several mechanics for Gears of War: “cover, shoot, reload, throw (grenade), look (at a point of interest), use, give orders, switch weapons”. His definition is extremely useful thanks to its clarity. While Sicart also suggests a distinction between primary and secondary mechanics, I will not be using that distinction, since I believe it not to be relevant for my analysis. I can now discuss the mechanics of the Modern Warfare games. The player can only use the game mechanics can only happen during On-Line moments, when the player is in control of a character who is, usually, a soldier. The player is free to move within the space that the video game provides, mostly to maneuver around enemies and reach objectives. When moving through the game world, the player has a choice between a standard running pace, and a sprint, which can only be used for a limited amount of time. The player can make their character crouch and lay down, unless obstacles within the game world prevent that. Besides this, the player can also look around, aim, shoot, and stab. From this follows as well that the player can reload, throw grenades, and switch weapons. In particular cases, exceptional weapons are provided, that use a different point of view than the player (e.g. using an air strike, or guiding a long-distance missile). Lastly, at several points in the game a mechanic is provided to the player which can only be described as ‘interact’. Usually, the game tells the player that by pressing F, an action will be performed, such as descending a cliff, taking control of a certain weapons system, or taking seat in a vehicle. In some rare cases, the player may be prompted with different controls, but this is still the same mechanic: an action which cannot be performed outside the given context of a particular moment in the game. In Spec Ops: The Line, seeking cover is incorporated into the mechanics. By approaching an object that can provide cover, and pressing a certain key, the player’s character will automatically use it to protect themselves from enemy fire. In this way, the game can be called a cover-based shooter, mainly because of the specific way taking cover works. In Modern Warfare (and Modern Warfare 2) the player can hide behind objects as well, but the game will not let the player do it

automatically and does not provide a specific mechanic for it. Apart from this, almost exactly the same mechanics exist in Spec Ops as do in Modern Warfare. The ‘interact’ mechanic I described for Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 also exists, but is used far less frequently. Additionally, in Spec Ops the player can give orders to the other two team members, such as singling out specific targets for them, or ordering them to move to a certain position. It may seem redundant to point out the simple aspects of these video games, as ostensibly, that is the sort of experience players come to expect from video games. However, it shows the limited amount of actions and choices a player has during On-Line play in any of these games. It is important to keep this in mind, because a game must keep providing the player with situations where these actions are valid and appropriate responses to what is happening. As we will see, Spec Ops aptly highlights the problematic nature of this kind of gameplay. Lastly, a player’s character can also rapidly heal when they avoid being wounded for a short amount of time. This could be seen as extremely unrealistic (and it is), but I consider it as a necessary concession to keep these video games accessible to a large audience. This mechanic does not make the player invincible, as it does not take long for the character to die on anything higher than easy difficulty. However, it leaves room for error, and for the player to not become frustrated quickly.

2.2.2 ‘Friendly’ Fire

In addition to these game mechanics, the video game imposes more rules and restrictions on the player. As I have described before, these rules are what make up the processes that I will be analyzing. The first of these processes that I will analyze, is friendly fire. In both Modern Warfare games friendly fire is discouraged and punished. When the player accidentally shoots a friendly soldier, they are given a warning. If they kill a friendly soldier, the game resets to the last checkpoint or save point, with the message that friendly fire will not be tolerated. As I have already pointed out with regards to America’s Army, this can reflect the attitude of the actual American Army about friendly fire. However, this process of resetting the game when the player commits friendly fire implies something else as well. While it rightly punishes the player for friendly fire, it does not do so in a constructive manner. Restarting the game from an earlier point assumes that the player has failed to pay enough attention to their surroundings, or is willfully trying to harm their allies. However, at several points in the game, the player is fighting in close quarters, where confusion about who is friend or foe easily arises. As a result, the game fails to acknowledge that friendly fire can simply be an unfortunate accident, instead of the failure of the player, or a soldier.

A different implication of the process is that friendly fire should not, or could not, happen if the soldier is capable. This may not seem obvious, but it is related to the way the game handles the player’s in-game death. When the player’s character dies, the game is reset to the last checkpoint. This way, the game tells the player they have failed, and must try again. By resetting, the event of the player’s character dying is erased from the game’s story. Relating this to friendly fire, it is clear that the game considers (fatal) friendly fire a failure. The implicit argument is that a soldier who commits friendly fire has failed and is thus not a good soldier. On the other hand, it could also be an argument that professional soldiers simply never do this. However, by imposing these rules, the Modern Warfare games at least acknowledge that friendly fire exists, and will happen. Spec Ops deals differently with this problem. Outside of combat, the player can very easily kill either of the soldiers that are accompanying you. In this case, the game will respond similarly to Modern Warfare; the game is reset to the latest save or checkpoint. However, during combat, the two colleagues will tell the player to “watch your aim” if they are hit by friendly fire. The player can even shoot their squad mates until they are incapacitated without the game doing anything about it. At this point, it becomes impossible for that particular character to be killed, because the player must help them recover, or otherwise they will die, and the game will reset to the last checkpoint. This constructs a completely different representation of friendly fire. Out of combat, the player rarely needs to fire their gun, and in those cases it is never in the direction of the friendly characters. Killing them in these situations would rightly be the player’s fault, which means the game is rightly punishing the player by resetting. The argument is being made that outside combat, there is discipline in the use of guns, and killing fellow soldiers in those situations would be extremely disruptive. The fact that the game does not punish the player for friendly fire during combat situations reflects an understanding that it can be accidental. The game also lets the characters reflect that fact, rather than putting a message on the screen. Friendly fire can still be detrimental to the player, but they can also solve that problem. By simply letting team members become incapacitated, the player gets to find out that friendly fire should be avoided, not because the game will punish you, but because your team members will need to be saved. It shows that the game focuses on the injury of the fellow soldier instead of the player’s failure to shoot at the right target. Perhaps it is not the perfect portrayal of friendly fire, as the player could easily miss one of the verbal cues, but the underlying arguments are less problematic. Spec Ops acknowledges that friendly fire can be unintentional, and simply lets the player deal with the consequences. This is also an effective and non-intrusive way of dealing with the injury of characters who are essential to the story of the game.

2.3 The Good, the Bad, and the Civilians

What I will discuss now is far more extensive and requires a more in-depth discussion of the games’ stories, and how they portray the world and its agents. It mainly concerns the portrayal of the protagonists, the antagonists, and, in extension, civilians.

2.3.1 The Good

The protagonists in Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 are of course the player’s characters. Except for the leader of the Middle Eastern country, all of those characters are soldiers, either in the US military, or the SAS. Only at the end of Modern Warfare 2 do the protagonists start working independently. However, the player’s characters are never shown, and they never speak. They are effectively blank slates. Unsurprisingly, they are the perfect tool for the player to play the game. Even during Off-Line sections, the player’s characters never speak. In Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 Off-Line moments are limited to loading segments between levels or missions. It consists of dialogue, usually with visual information displayed on screen. Usually maps, military vehicles or equipment, and pictures of important characters are shown to the player, while team members or other characters discuss on-going events or details of the coming mission. While the player could empathize with the protagonists’ friends or colleagues, there is very little the player can learn about the characters they are playing as. In this way, Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 are not trying to use the player’s characters in any way to make an argument. There is no conflict between the player’s actions and their characters’ actions, because the only person doing anything is the player. However, we can look at the player’s allies, and the soldiers they fight along with. A conflict between their actions and the player’s beliefs is always possible. However, whatever they say and do always serves the purpose of advancing the mission. They may give instructions, or explain what just happened, but they are not so much characters as they are sources of information and support for the player. Consequently, the only moral evaluation of events comes from the player. The game itself does not make many direct statements, beyond explaining its own rules and restrictions. In this regard, Spec Ops is quite the opposite. The game is filled with Off-Line moments where the player is simply watching Walker and his team have a conversation, or observe a certain situation. Early in the game, Walker is narrating what has happened in Dubai, and what has led

him and his team there. During this exposition, he already breaks the forth wall by addressing the player. He accuses his audience of sitting at home, while soldiers like him are solving problems in the world. Additionally, Walker also speaks during On-Line play. This has one significant effect, following from Collins’ findings: the identification described by Newman cannot be the only identification the player has with this character during On-Line moments; the player does not control what he says, and therefore they must be aware that Walker is, to some extent, more than just the player’s tool to exercise their influence in the game world. On the one hand the player is progressing the game by carrying out the necessary actions to complete each level, but on the other hand, the character Walker makes most meaningful decisions in the story. He decides to go further into the city, to help the CIA capture the water supplies, to do everything in his power to reach Konrad. Meanwhile his two team members are also constantly commenting on his actions, either positively or negatively. They function as moral commentary on Walker’s actions, since he clearly has lost track of what is right and wrong. Both Lugo and Adams regularly argue over Walker’s decisions, and sometimes express their frustration over fighting other US soldiers for example. However, they always to decide to continue with him, which somewhat compromises their criticism of him. At the same time, this shows the conflict between their conscience, and the duty to obey their superior’s orders. Ironically, they are following the orders of a person who ignores his own directives. Instead of carrying out his reconnaissance, he decides to launch his own personal rescue mission for the people stuck in Dubai. Clearly, in contrast to Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, Spec Ops has protagonists that have personalities and flaws, which serve as a moral framework for the player. At the same time, in Spec Ops the player can actually empathize and identify with their character, because they are more than just a body for the player to control. Walker struggles with his actions, which are effectively the player’s actions. This is one way the game tries to make the player aware of the consequences of their actions.

2.3.2 The Bad

The story of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 is rather black and white. The main antagonist in Modern Warfare, Imran Zhakaev wants to disrupt the Middle East and take over Russia with his Ultranationalist forces. When his son commits suicide to avoid being captured by the player and his allies, he launches ICBMs towards the USA. Imran Zhakaev is not much more than a Bond villain, and Modern Warfare very much relies on the idea that there are ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. Of course, the game carefully steers clear of racist stereotypes, by not having Middle Eastern terrorists be the main antagonist. Instead, the game presents Russian nationalist extremists as the ones in control. Even in the beginning of the game, the Middle Eastern

antagonists are part of a military coup, and religion is never brought up. It is also revealed that the Middle Eastern leader, Al-Assad, was working for Zhakaev. At the same time, throughout Modern Warfare, the player and their team cooperate with governmental Russian forces, who are not hostile towards the Western soldiers. Some nuance is made in this case. Unfortunately, in Modern Warfare 2, not much of this nuance remains, as the Russian government has fallen under control of said nationalist extremists. The only friendly Russian character, one of the soldiers from the first game, is now operating on his own. This leaves the question what the main goal of these characters was. The military coup in the nameless Middle Eastern country was set up to fail, since a nuclear bomb was brought to the capital to be detonated when US forces invaded to intervene. It seems strange that someone would start a coup only to destroy the capital of their own country and seemingly antagonize the entire world by using nuclear weapons. However, as he was working for Zhakaev, his motivations would have mostly been egotistical. Zhakaev’s own motivations seem to be a desire to take over Russia and restore its position as a former global power. His plot in the Middle East makes sense in only one way; Zhakaev desires war between Russia and the US. The death of a large amount of US soldiers could only lead to a heightened US presence in the region, with great efforts to find the culprit, which is the exact task the player’s character and his team are entrusted with. Because the player ultimately succeeds at stopping Zhakaev, his plans never come to fruition, which leaves us only to guess what would have been the next move. Modern Warfare’s story may be very one sided and driven by a conflict between good and bad, but it makes sense to a degree, if we accept that all the ‘bad guys’ are driven by the desire for more power. In this kind of story, the US and its allies are the ‘good guys’ who try to maintain world peace, and fight constantly against ‘bad guys’ like Zhakaev. In Modern Warfare the US’s actions seem relatively justified; a military coup takes place, and the US intervenes to put a stop to it. While questions could be raised about underlying motivations, the US’s main goal is to restore the existing power structures in a foreign country, and prevent a military dictatorship. In the fictional world of Modern Warfare, the US has done nothing wrong, but becomes the victim of extremist terrorists. Such a story would perhaps not be so problematic if the game had not been published during the Iraq War. While the story would like to pretend that Russian extremists are behind all the events that occur, it is hard to ignore that part of this game is an invasion of a Middle Eastern country, ruled by a military dictator. While I will not engage in an exposition on the motivations behind the Iraq War, I would like to point out the problematic nature of a story where a militaristic leader in the Middle East is deposed by the US military, and it is presented as a completely justified action. Nothing in the game puts these events in question, and those who carried out the military coup are framed as badly as possible. While the player’s character is the deposed leader of that country, the player can witness executions in the street, violent destruction of people’s homes,

and nothing but excessive violence. Obviously, within Modern Warfare’s world, there are few arguments that can be made against an intervention that stops these kinds of actions. However, it is impossible to ignore the possibility that such a story could have an impact on the perception of an ongoing war. More importantly, if it was not developed independently from the military, it could easily be considered propaganda. Apart from this, the narrative is problematic because it suggests that one country can justifiably invade another country because of political instability. In this way, Modern Warfare’s portrayal of a black and white world becomes a problematic issue. While it could be argued that nuance is too much to ask for in an action driven game, I would propose that it is all the more important, because the implications of these kinds of narratives are far too problematic. Perhaps, given the complexity of geopolitics, creating a nuanced story which involves global military action is harder to develop. Though that is certainly no reason not to try. If the player decides to take Modern Warfare’s story at face value and accept the black and white contrast, it functions perfectly with regards to the moral disengagement theory (Klimmt et. al). In fact, moral justification of violence is inherent in good-versus-evil stories. If the antagonist is willing to sacrifice millions of lives for their own goals, is it not the moral obligation of the player to try and stop them? Additionally, the player’s enemy has used a nuclear bomb to kill thousands of US soldiers, and potentially hundreds of thousands of civilians. In comparison, the player’s violence will seem relatively moderate. This also allows the player to blame the enemy soldiers for their own demise. If they are willing to work for an extremist terrorist, their death is not regrettable, and the player is in the right when they kill them. Unfortunately for Modern Warfare, this reasoning is not possible in the very beginning of the story, when no characters have been established yet, and the player has to rely on only diffusion of responsibility. In the first level of the game (that is not a tutorial level), the player is tasked to recover a stolen nuclear device from a ship on the Bering Strait. The leader of the SAS task force tells his team that the crew is expendable. The player is given no other information about the ship’s crew, who are shot down on sight. At this point the game reveals that there will be little characterization of the enemy; they are all expendable. However, moral disengagement is a necessary feature of Modern Warfare, as the player has to kill hundreds upon hundreds of enemy forces in order to progress through the story. Every strategy that was listed in the chapter on violence is applicable to Modern Warfare. As I explained above, there is definitely moral justification; the player is saving millions of lives, thus everyone who opposes them is obviously expendable. Euphemistic labelling is also used frequently in mission objectives, for example in the mission The Bog, the player must “Eliminate enemy forces in the apartment”. Often, the objectives simply do not mention killing, but the action may be implied, for example in Death From Above the player must “Provide AC-130 air support for

friendly SAS ground units”. Similar objectives are “Escort the M1A2 Abrams tank to safety”, “Defend the southern hill approach”, and “Gain access to the launch facility”. Clearly, all these objectives require the death of enemy soldiers. At the same time this is also diffusion of responsibility. These objectives are seemingly given by superiors, to the player, who is a soldier with the responsibility of carrying out these orders. Dehumanization is also part of Modern Warfare’s moral cues, but it is rather implicit. The enemy forces exist out of multiplicities of a few character models. Consequently, all enemy forces start to look the same, and simply become a mass of clones that the player should dispose of. I have also already discussed attribution of blame. The soldiers that oppose the player and their allies are supporting the antagonists who are willing to kill millions. If those soldiers support these actions, their deaths would logically also be acceptable. Specifically, in the second mission of the game, when the player witnesses the military coup, they can see the future enemy soldiers lining up civilians for execution. The game explicitly gives good reasons for the death of these soldiers. They are guilty of murder and the destruction of families and homes. At the same time, the game also never tries to refute this kind of logic. The player’s agreement to the death of enemy soldiers is expected. If this was not the case, players would not continue playing. Lastly, there is a disregard of consequences. In Modern Warfare we do not see the consequences of the player’s actions: in the game-world nobody grieves the death of these soldiers, society does not suffer under the player’s actions. Unsurprisingly, the opposite is true, as the player can see during the coup, when a Middle Eastern society is clearly disrupted by the country’s army. In summary, Modern Warfare does not make it very hard for the player to justify their actions, which reduces the consequences of war at the same time. While Modern Warfare’s story is continued in Modern Warfare 2, the black and white reality undergoes changes. In the opening cutscenes of the game, the player is informed that the general population does not know anything about the events that occurred near the end of Modern Warfare. Surprisingly, Zhakaev has come to be revered as a martyr in Russia. At the same time relations between Russia and the US have soured, and Zhakaev’s old right hand man, Makarov, has taken his place as the main antagonist. While the player could take these facts at face value, the character who is narrating is General Shepherd. This character betrays the player later on in the game, and consequently, the player could start doubting whether or not the narrator was lying from the very start. However, there is evidence in the game that the narrator is not lying at the start of the game, because more than just narration is provided: images are also shown to the player, one of which shows a statue of Zhakaev on the Red Square. The events that follow later in the game also do not contradict the early narration. After the US is framed for a terrorist attack on an airport in Moscow, Russia launches an invasion of the US. This indicates that the country was

waiting for an excuse to attack the US, supported by the fact that they possessed a security module which allowed them to bypass a large part of the US’s defense systems. Instead of an extremist organization, Modern Warfare 2’s threat is a militaristic nation, where extreme nationalism has taken hold of the population. Modern Warfare 2 seems to try to present a slightly more complex world, where the line between friend and foe is blurred. To this effect, the extremely nationalistic Russia and Makarov are presented as the greatest threat. Russia wants war, and gets it, and Makarov is willing to help. Throughout the game, the enemy remains the enemy. While it could be argued that Makarov tricked Russia to invade the US, the game does not attempt to nuance Russia’s actions. Similarly, when Makarov offers the player information about General Shepherd’s whereabouts, it is clearly an action motivated by self-preservation, since Shepherd desires Makarov’s death. What is different from Modern Warfare, is that Modern Warfare 2 turns an ally into an enemy. Even before Shepherd betrays his Taskforce, the game seems to present some criticism of the US’s extreme militarism. When the player assaults a Gulag in Russia, with air support from the US, another character remarks the aggressiveness of the US forces. Modern Warfare 2 seems to slightly criticize the size of US military actions, but this falls short, because the player is part of these actions for most of the game. Even later on, when the player is fighting US forces, they are using excessive violence themselves. It is hard to accept the game’s implied criticism as valid, when it requires the player to perform the same actions that are being condemned. This shallow criticism is understandable because the game is trying to maintain its moral cues for the player. For example, the game presents Shepherd in a similar manner to the antagonists in Modern Warfare. Like Al-Asad, he kills a character while the player is watching from the character’s perspective. Besides this parallel in actions, Shepherd is also an overzealous nationalist. As a result of the Russian invasion, he is given more powers by the US Secretary of Defense. Later he says “Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots.” He is willing to go great lengths to obtain more power and lead his country to war. After the reveal, the player is pitted against the soldiers under Shepherd’s command. These are American forces, which the player was fighting alongside of only 3 levels earlier. To make the lines between enemy and foe even blurrier, the player’s character receives Shepherd’s location from Makarov. Seemingly, Modern Warfare 2 attempts to create a more complex reality than its predecessor, but at the same undermines its own moral cues. When General Shepherd is revealed to be complicit in the Russian invasion, the game starts to frame him as an antagonist, but earlier he functioned as the figure of authority, who gave orders to the player’s characters. By putting Shepherd’s actions into question, the game puts the player’s obedience to his orders into question. While this would be an interesting argument, the game does not follow its own logic. The objectives given to the player before and after this twist in the story

do not change. The game still provides the possibility of diffusion of responsibility, even though that responsibility has just been put under a spotlight. In a similar vein, the dehumanization of the soldiers who work for Shepherd becomes problematic. The game may portray them like any of the other hostile forces the player faces, but the moral cue is compromised. At the same time, most other moral management strategies are still valid. If the game intended to question the player’s actions, these would have to be addressed as well. In conclusion, Modern Warfare 2 attempts to reflect a less black and white reality, but fails to adjust its moral framework within which the player is supposed to operate. In Spec Ops, none of the antagonists can be called ‘evil’. The 33rd had the good intention of trying to evacuate Dubai’s remaining population, but failed. Following this they do establish a violent dictatorship, but at the same time they keep the population alive by rationing water supplies and keeping some sense of order in the destroyed city. More interestingly, these are US soldiers, whom the player must kill. Whereas Modern Warfare 2 silently ignores this fact, Spec Ops puts this fact under the spotlight, and makes sure the player is well aware of what is happening. All three Delta Force soldiers are openly affected the necessity of having to kill other US soldiers. They rationalize it using attribution of blame, by claiming they must defend themselves, as the 33rd tries to kill them. In this way the game provides moral cues as well. The player can justify their own actions by claiming self-defense. Dehumanization is harder, because dead bodies are left behind on the ground and usually have faces that are twisted in pain or horror (Smethurst 18). Of course, moral justification is always an option. Walker, and thus the player, are trying to save the lives of Dubai’s inhabitants. Ultimately, even this strategy fails, as the player’s actions will lead to the death of most people in Dubai, directly or indirectly. I will discuss the intentional failure of moral management strategies later on in relation to the representation of trauma in Spec Ops. There is one group in Spec Ops which walks the line between ally and enemy. The CIA help Walker, and vice versa, but at the same time some of the agents lead Walker to destroying the city’s water supplies. Their hidden motivations make them the real antagonist in Spec Ops, but their actions mislead Walker, and perhaps the player as well. Only when it is too late does the player find out what the CIA’s real intentions were (i.e. to cover up the 33rd’s failure). However, they would not have succeeded without Walker and his team, and thus the player becomes complicit in their actions. In conclusion, Spec Ops plays with the player’s expectations, and complicates the initial assumptions about the several factions in Dubai. Those who are initially seen as the enemy, turn out to have better intentions than those who Walker decides to ally with. But good intentions do not lead to good consequences for anyone involved. Arguably, in Spec Ops there are only ‘bad’ guys. The death and destruction that is brought on by the player surpasses anything the other

groups have done before. This is how Spec Ops questions the usual narrative where the player is doing the ‘right’ thing, despite killing hundreds upon hundreds of other people.

2.3.3 The Civilians

It may seem self-evident that I discuss civilians in military video games. However, if this were an analysis of just the Modern Warfare games, there would be very little to analyze. In Modern Warfare, the only civilians in the whole game are those seen during the military coup in the Middle East. Civilians are rounded up, and in some cases, executed. Later on, during the US invasion, they have all seemingly disappeared from the city. In Modern Warfare 2 the presence of civilians becomes more important, but remains marginal at best. In most instances, civilians are used as a way to increase tension, or frame the antagonist as morally despicable. When chasing a weapons dealer in Rio de Janeiro, the dealer shoots into a crowd of passers-by to cause chaos and hinder the player. Moments later, the player is in pursuit, and the civilian casualties are forgotten and never mentioned again. Only during the mission ‘No Russian’ does the death of civilians play an important role in the story. I will discuss this more below. Consistently, in Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 civilians are never present during combat. They may be seen in the combat zone, prior to any fighting taking place, but once bullets start flying, they vanish from the scene. While civilians would obviously try to stay away from combat, it is rather unrealistic that none fail to escape or get caught between the crossfire. While Modern Warfare 2 seems to attempt better representation than Modern Warfare, it is still flawed. It clearly shows that civilian casualties are not uncommon during military conflicts, but at the same time, it seems to deny that this collateral damage is caused by both sides. Civilians’ deaths are usually the consequence of the antagonists’ actions. At the same time, the complete lack of civilians throughout Modern Warfare is not entirely unreasonable. When the player is fighting in areas under the control of Russian Ultranationalists, it is not unlikely that the Russian civil war has been going on long enough for the local population to have fled to safer places. It is also not abnormal that there are no civilians in military bases. However, it seems odd that there are no civilians present in the Middle Eastern city that comes under attack by the US. Given the fact that it is the capital city of the country, it seems strange that absolutely no one was still living there when the US invasion started. In this way, Modern Warfare is lacking in its representation of civilians in war zones. Consequently, the game implicitly argues that civilians do not get involved in military conflicts. More importantly, one of the reasons for the US invasion is protecting the local population, which the game calls the player’s attention to by

showing public executions early on. Because that population is not present during the siege of the city, this seems to imply that this military action by the US has no negative impact for them. I will now discuss the instances of civilian presences in Modern Warfare 2 a little more in- depth. During the second level of the game, “Team Player”, the player is part of an assault on an Afghan city. After restoring a bridge, US forces enter the city in Humvees. The player’s character is operating a mounted gun on one of the vehicles. A sergeant reminds the soldiers (and the player) to “keep an eye out for civvies” and that they are “not cleared to engage unless they fire first”. At multiple points civilians can be seen running away into alleys and buildings. If the player shoots any civilians, the game responds like it would to friendly fire, with the message “You are not authorized to fire on unarmed targets” and resetting to the last checkpoint. Before the convoy comes under attack, three men dressed in black can be seen standing on a balcony, overlooking the street. Other soldiers in the convoy describe them as militia, and remark that they are probably spotting for other militia members further down the road. Opening fire on these men is also not allowed. Clearly, the game is trying to simulate the frustration of seeing hostile forces among civilians, but not being allowed to deal with them. Unfortunately, the game fails to address the actual problem of not being able to tell the difference between civilians and hostile forces. Instead, it makes it very clear to the player who is simply trying to run away, and who is waiting for an opportune moment to attack you. Only mere seconds after passing by those men on the balcony, the convoy comes under attack. At that moment, all civilians have disappeared, and anyone who is not a US soldier is a killable enemy to the player. Modern Warfare 2 seems to want to deal with the problem of civilians in combat zones, but does not actually address the problem when it becomes relevant. The game presents a clean version of reality where no civilians get caught in the crossfire, collateral damage does not exist, and soldiers do not have to worry about civilians while fighting in an inhabited city. The game takes a similar approach to civilians in a later level as well. During “Takedown” the player is trying to apprehend weapons dealer Alejandro Rojas, who is connected to Makarov. During the beginning of the level the player is sitting in the front passenger’s seat of a car, while it approaches one of Rojas’ assistants. At this point, other cars are driving in the street, and civilians can be seen walking through the street. When the assistant tries to flee, he shoots into the street to create chaos and hinder the player. Consequently, the player has to make their way through a group of civilians who are trying to run away. In this case, the civilians are little more than set pieces. There is some tension in the fact that the player cannot open fire on the target, because the civilians are in the way, but this stops being a problem only seconds later. When the assistant is caught, the player must chase Rojas through a favela. One of the other members of the task force warns the player that “there are civilians in the favela”. Effectively, there are only civilians at the entrance of the favela, but they are scared away by the task force. Once the player comes under

attack by militia, some civilians can be seen fleeing the area. After that moment there are no more civilians and everyone is part of the militia that is attacking them. Again, the game wants to address the presence of civilians in a combat zone, but seems unwilling to actually risk the player killing innocent bystanders. Even if the player were to shoot civilians, the game would simply reset to the last checkpoint, instead of it having effective consequences. Modern Warfare 2’s skirting around this issue would not be particularly surprising, if there was not a level where the player becomes complicit in the mass murder of civilians. In “No Russian” the player’s character is Joseph Allen again, now working undercover as a member of Makarov’s crew. The level is a terrorist attack on the Imran Zhakaev airport in Moscow. Makarov, the player, and three other characters enter the airport’s main hall from an elevator. Then Makarov and the other three characters immediately open fire on the people present in the airport. The player can chose whether or not to fire, although either decision leads to the same outcome: everyone in the airport (who does not escape) dies. Makarov’s team continues to slowly make their way through the airport hall, while killing any wounded survivors. The player can see several wounded civilians who try to drag themselves away, or are begging for mercy. In the end, everyone in sight is dead. The player has to briefly fight more heavily armed security forces before the end of the level, when Allen is killed by Makarov. By leaving Allen’s body behind, Makarov successfully makes Russia believe that the terrorist attack was supported by the US and carried out by Americans. Unsurprisingly, this level caused a lot of controversy in the media, and in response an option was added to skip this particular level. The game even asks the player twice if they want to play this level, first when the player starts a new campaign, and another time when the player reaches the level in question. However, it is clear that “No Russian” is supposed to be part of the game. It is an important event in the story, and explains the sudden Russian invasion of the US. As such I will analyze this level as any other part of the game. “No Russian” ends up being one of the more interesting parts of the game. In this level Modern Warfare 2 lets the player decide whether or not they want to actively be a part of a massacre (besides the option to skip the level entirely). If the player so chooses, not firing on the crowd in the airport does not hinder progression in the level. The mass murder will still be carried out by the other gunmen and Makarov. However, the game does not allow the player to try to stop Makarov and his men. When aiming at Makarov, or the other gunmen, the player cannot shoot. It is still possible to shoot those characters by firing in a different direction first and then pointing the firing gun at any of the Russian terrorists. However, this results in those characters yelling “Traitor” and opening fire on the player, who then dies immediately with the message “You blew your cover” displayed on the screen. It is impossible to kill any of the gunmen, as the player immediately dies when shot by the terrorists, and they do not seem to be wounded by the player’s attacks. Accidentally shooting the gunmen is allowed, but the player is reprimanded immediately,

similar to how the game handles friendly fire. So, in the end, the player has two options: shoot the civilians, or simply follow Makarov until the end of that part of the level. Regardless of the choice, Modern Warfare 2 uses this level to show why the player must stop Makarov: he is evil, and a mass murderer. This is similar to how Zhakaev was characterized in Modern Warfare, and also gives the player moral justification for the violence that is used to try to stop Makarov, and later Shepherd. If the player decides to actually be an active participant in the massacre, the video game provides several moral cues. During the cut scene before the level, General Shepherd tells Allen (and thus the player), that “the war rages everywhere. And there will be casualties” and warns him that working alongside Makarov “will cost you a piece of yourself. It will cost nothing compared to everything you’ll save.” Simply put, the game provides the player with a diffusion of responsibility strategy to justify what happens in “No Russian”3. Supposedly, Joseph Allen is only doing his duty in that Russian airport. While the game does not explicitly order the player to kill any civilians, the game’s theme that good soldiers do the right thing, is contradicted. Arguably, Allen is misled into thinking that he must do this in order to stop Makarov, yet the morally correct decision would be to attempt to kill Makarov and his men to stop them from killing so many people. Seemingly Modern Warfare 2 attempts to show the player that soldiers can make mistakes, with terrible consequences, but by doing so, it creates a disturbing argument. Because we discover that General Shepherd has misled the player’s characters in order to gain more power, the game makes the player complicit in any immoral actions they may have committed. In this case, the player’s participation in the attack on the Russian airport is a problematic event for the player. However, because the player has no other option than to participate, or simply stand by and watch, the game argues that the player must always stick to the mission. The player cannot stop the attack from happening, and similarly, the player cannot disobey mission objectives. Thus the game makes the argument that soldiers must follow their orders, and perhaps deal with the consequences later, but disobeying immoral orders is not an option. Joseph Allen is framed as a victim in the ‘No Russian’ mission, instead of being another perpetrator. According to the game’s story, he was only doing his duty, and therefor did nothing wrong. In Spec Ops, civilians are far more prominent and important. In fact, the first time Walker and his team are attacked, the enemies are local inhabitants. This happens just after the Delta Force team discovers the body of a US soldier. The player may start to think that the city will be full of hostile locals. This expectation is later overturned when the player is attacked by the 33rd, but only after having fought several other local armed groups. Spec Ops creates an atmosphere of

3 If the player decides not to shoot any civilians, they are still implied to be complicit because they are not allowed to stop Makarov and his men.

doubt around the innocence or complicity of the civilians in Dubai. This doubt extends also towards the 33rd, as explained earlier. They may have had good intentions, but have started using excessive force towards the local population. Whereas the local inhabitants may first be perceived as antagonists, the player can only conclude they are acting violently out of self-preservation. At the same time, the player will see many civilians in Dubai who are clearly not involved (at least not militarily) in the on-going conflict in the city. They are the ones who get caught in the crossfire, who are the real victims of the events that take place. Walker wants to save them from the 33rd, but fails. In fact, he causes even more death by destroying the water supplies in the city. The decision to use white phosphorus leads to the death of a large group of women and children, who are burned to death. Later on, when an angry mob threatens to attack the player, they can choose to open fire on them. Alternatively, a warning shot may also be fired, though the game does not explicitly show that there are two options. Simply because that option exists, the game argues that there are choices in these kind of situations. These choices may not always be obvious, or have significantly different outcomes, but they exist nevertheless. As such, the game presents a reality where the right choice is not evident, or even exists. It shows that civilians will be present in conflicts, and most likely there will be casualties among them too. The game’s argument is that despite good intentions, keeping an eye out for civilians constantly is near impossible, and collateral damage is inevitable.

2.4 ‘Death From Above’

There is more to the representation of war than the representation of certain groups in war zones and conflicts. Continuing from the discussion above, I will now discuss two particular missions, one in Modern Warfare, and one in Spec Ops. Both put the player in command of destructive artillery. In the case of Modern Warfare the player controls the powerful weaponry on board of an AC-130 gunship. In Spec Ops, the player launches white phosphorus at an enemy encampment, killing a group of civilians at the same time. I will analyze how these two events are framed differently by the two games, and what it informs us about how they represent war, and the implicit arguments that follow from this. Once more, I will start with Modern Warfare, and analyze Spec Ops last. In ‘Death From Above’ in Modern Warfare the player is tasked with protecting the SAS team as they try to escape Russian Ultranationalist forces through the countryside. To this end, the player is given control of a gunship’s long distance weapons: a 25mm Gatling Gun, a 40mm Bofors Cannon, and a 105mm M102 Cannon. This exact information is displayed during the loading screen prior to the mission. The player can observe what is happening on the ground through thermal imagining, meaning everything is displayed ranging from bright white to dark gray. Friendly units can be distinguished from enemy units by their flashing white color, whereas enemy soldiers are simply static white dots. At first the player must defend the team, while they try to escape by jeep through several villages. This means the player must bombard several vehicles and buildings that contain enemy forces in pursuit. Later on, the team is forced to continue on foot, through an area where the buildings are located more closely together. At this point, the player is constantly killing soldiers, while trying to avoid hitting the team. Of course, the violent nature of the player’s actions is disguised by the thermal display, as most of what the player sees is bright white spots running moving across fields or between buildings. In this sense, dehumanization is an important aspect of the level, because the player never sees the caused destruction or injuries. Again self- preservation and moral justification can be valid moral management strategies for the player. In the context of Modern Warfare, the moral cues and rules do not change. The player is even encouraged to be an effective killer. Following kills, or effective hits, the player is encouraged by other personnel who say phrases like “Good kill, good kill”, and “Woah” over and over. At some point another remark is made, which demonstrates the exact nature of this mission: “This is going to be one hell of a highlight real.” This is an important aspect that needs to be pointed out. The player can destroy anything in sight, as long as they do not harm the SAS team. This follows the usual rules of Modern Warfare,

although in this particular case, the player controls extremely destructive weapons. In the rest of the game, the most destruction the player can cause, is the killing of other soldiers, and perhaps vandalize furniture inside houses. At rare occasions, the player can take down a helicopter. But in this mission, the player can destroy nearly every building in sight. The fact that the game does not provide restrictions projects a troubling message. As Bogost (Persuasive Games) suggested, it is the rules and restrictions that construct a rhetoric in a video game. While it would be unreasonable to say that Modern Warfare is arguing that the operators of heavy artillery should cause as much destruction as possible, this level seems to suggest that this kind of destruction is acceptable. It justifies this kind of excessive violence by not reprimanding the player for causing unnecessary damage. In a sense it also glorifies the use of this kind of weaponry by encouraging the player to use it. The use of thermal imaging conceals the actual effects of these kinds of weapons, and instead makes it look more spectacular. Additionally, the player never sees the actual devastation they have caused on the ground. Thematically, this fits Modern Warfare perfectly. The player is saving “good” people, who are trying to stop a dangerous terrorist. They are given powerful weapons, and plenty of moral cues to perform this task. The games tries very hard to make this an enjoyable experience for the player, despite the rather grim nature of what the player is actually doing. This mission in the game highlights what is so problematic in the Modern Warfare games, and what they exemplify for military video games in general. The subject matter of these games, war and the military, are reduced to an exciting and entertaining activity, which fails to represent the actual nature of warfare. This aids in the construction of an unrealistic and problematic image of the military in popular culture. Given Modern Warfare’s popularity, its representations and implicit rhetoric are certainly complicit in the construction of this image. This, hopefully, highlights the significance of Spec Ops as a counter-cultural phenomenon. In Chapter 8 ‘The Gate’, the player will commit, what is essentially, a war crime. While venturing deeper into Dubai, the player encounters a small army, which they must defeat to progress. The solution to this problem is presented as a pseudo-choice. Either the player tries to defeat the hostile force using only guns and grenades, or they employ the white phosphorus which happens to be lying around. It is not a real choice, because the first option inevitably leads to failure, as the game will endlessly spawn enemy soldiers. The player can try to last as long as possible, but will eventually run out of ammunition. Consequently, if the player wants to progress, they must use the white phosphorus. When the player is launching the phosphorus, the game briefly seems very similar to Modern Warfare’s ‘Death From Above’. The player can see the enemy encampment through a camera which is slowly descending via parachute. Any living entities are reduced to bright white shapes. When the player launches a shell, it explodes into a cloud of white smoke, extinguishing

any of the shapes within it. It is a very easy and efficient process. Similar to Modern Warfare, this way of visualizing the attack provides some temporary moral cues to the player. The reduction of enemy soldiers into white shapes provides an easy way for the player to not think about the consequences of their actions. However, this is where Spec Ops handles its subject matter drastically differently from Modern Warfare. The white phosphorus attack ends only after the player has killed everyone in sight, including a large group of people in the back of the encampment. Following this, the player must walk past the bodies of the dead or dying soldiers. The game presents the player with the consequences of their actions: here they can see the scarred and burned bodies of soldiers who died a painful death, their faces contorted and condemning. What is worse, when the player has finally passed this, they discover a group of civilians, who were also killed by the white phosphorus. The game changes to an Off-Line cutscene, in which the game shows the body of a mother clutching her child. Both are scarred beyond recognition, and serve as an accusation towards the player. Not only has the player given their opponents a cruel death, they have also killed the very civilians they were trying to save. Spec Ops thus takes away all moral cues from the player. At this point in the game, it becomes extremely difficult for the player to excuse their actions. Only the moral management strategy of stressing the virtual nature of the game (Klimmt et al.) can now be used to reduce any moral conflict within the player. However, as mentioned before, during On-Line play this is an unrealistic strategy. Spec Ops reminds the player often and directly of their actions, not only in loading screens, but also by being reprimanded by other characters. At the same time, the player knew what consequences their actions would have. Right before this chapter, the player encounters victims of white phosphorus, and witnesses their scarred bodies. Only the civilian casualties could not be predicted. The first time I played the game, I did not notice that I had attacked a group of people in the back of the camp. When I played Spec Ops a second time, I only detected the group because I was actively looking for the civilians. Strangely enough, the game will not let you continue without killing these civilians, whether you have noticed them or not. Because the game takes away the player’s choice to use the white phosphorus, or not to kill the civilian group, some would claim (Parakenings) that this weakens the game’s argument that atrocities are easily committed. However, I would like to argue that this non-choice makes a different, and double, argument. First of all, the player uses the white phosphorus despite knowing the consequences. I see this as a critique towards players of military video games, who do whatever is necessary to progress through the game, without being aware of the nature of their actions within the game. The player may complain that Spec Ops reprimands them for actions which the game has forced them to commit. Clearly, no one would actually enjoy this part of the game, but why does the player continue anyway? Should the player not just stop playing when a game forces them to do things that make them feel bad? As Parakenings says, the game makes the

argument that it should not played. For him, this is disappointing. So, the morally correct choice to make is to stop playing, to not continue into Dubai. Similarly, in Modern Warfare, the player destroys villages and in Modern Warfare 2 the player is complicit in the murder of hundreds of civilians, merely because it is a requirement to continue the gaùe, but is never confronted with the consequences of their actions. Just like Spec Ops, Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 offer no choice in these actions. The player could stop playing, but probably does not do this. So why is it wrong for Spec Ops to accuse the player of wrongdoing when they had no choice? In exactly this way, Spec Ops demonstrates that the player’s actions in a video game matter. The player does not want to commit immoral actions, but does it all the time in games like Modern Warfare. Spec Ops makes the argument that the player should question video games like Modern Warfare, because the actions that are required for the game to be completed are problematic. The white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops is an accusation of both other military video games, and of the player’s decision to keep playing. Both those games and the player ignore the unpleasant and problematic nature of their actions. Secondly, Spec Ops’ non-choice may be seen as a form of realistic representation. Only in a video game could three Special Ops soldiers defeat a small army in a direct confrontation. In reality, the white phosphorus would be the only option, if the intention of the Delta Force was to find Konrad, and help the civilians. However, in reality, the team would have ignored their primary objective already, which was merely to carry out reconnaissance. Parakenings makes a valid point when he points out that the game cannot make an argument about the ease with which horrible deeds happen, since the game gives the player no other option. Perhaps a more valid argument presented by this situation in the game is that humanitarian aid should not always be carried out by the military. At this point in the game it becomes very obvious that the 33rd have failed evacuating the city, but Walker’s attempt to correct that failure is no better. He does not have the capabilities to deal with the situation in Dubai, and only makes it worse. Walker decides to ignore what he was ordered to do, with disastrous consequences. Basically, Spec Ops constructs a story where everything goes wrong, where there is no happy ending. Instead of a narrative like in Modern Warfare, in which the protagonist eventually overcomes the challenges presented to them, in Spec Ops there is no victory. It shows the ‘atrocity-producing situation’ (Lifton) where almost anything is doomed to fail. This leads me to the final chapter of this thesis, in which I will discuss the trauma aspects of Spec Ops: The Line.

2.5 Playing the Perpetrator

I will now analyze Spec Ops: The Line from a trauma studies perspective. This analysis will be twofold. First of all I will discuss how Spec Ops represents the perpetrator trauma that Walker is suffering from. My intention is not only to describe the trauma aspect of the game, but also to compare it to the literary trauma narratives that were discussed in the chapter on literary trauma theory. Secondly, I will also argue that Spec Ops is able to connect this trauma to the player, through identification, and the undermining of moral cues. This will rely heavily on the first part of my analysis, and is also intended to serve as the tying together of everything that has been discussed previously. This way I will attempt to finally combine trauma studies and game studies for my analysis of Spec Ops.

2.5.1 Walking Through Dubai

The construction of a perpetrator trauma narrative in Spec Ops begins early on in the game. During an expository Off-Line cutscene, Walker is explaining what has happened in Dubai. During this monologue he breaks the fourth wall, and addresses the player. “Remember when the first storms hit Dubai? You were probably all safe and sound watching TV. Well, Konrad was leading the Damned 33rd out of Afghanistan.” He proceeds to explain how Konrad attempted to help with evacuation. Accusingly, he points out: “And all you did was send a check.” This displays some discontent of Walker with the population at home. Perhaps they were critical of how the situation in Dubai was handled, or are unsatisfied with the military actions of the US in the Middle East in general. As Gibbs (171) explains, one of the causes of perpetrator trauma can be that the soldier does not receive support from home, but rather is criticized for what they did while deployed. Not only does the soldier have to deal with their own actions, they are simultaneously confronted with the condemnations of the very people they were fighting for (or believed they were fighting for). Walker may find himself in a similar situation. At another point early in the game, Lugo describes the sand as an “enemy insurgency”. While it might be considered humorous, it is surprisingly similar to a motif that Gibbs (178) found in Jarhead. The characters would describe the desert sand as invasive, over and over again. This was a mechanism to reverse the roles of invader and invaded. While Lugo’s comment is not repeated at any time, sand also plays an important role in Spec Ops. At several points in the game, the player can shoot glass windows or roofs to collapse large amounts of sand on top of enemies. If sand is symbolic for invasion, than the sand in Spec Ops is symbolic for the several parties that have entered Dubai after the destructive sandstorms. The 33rd tried to save the population, the CIA is

trying to cover up their failure, and, lastly, Walker and his team invade the city to find out what is going on and become the catalysts for the final destruction of the city and its population. Like a repetitive sandstorm, US forces or agents come to Dubai, and leave only more death. In this context, Lugo’s comment is also a reversal of the perpetrator role. The sand is bothering them, even though they are the ones who have come there in order to enter Dubai. Sand is not the only environmental representation of Walker’s role in the story. His figurative descent into madness and trauma is also symbolized by Spec Ops’ level design (Extra Credits). Throughout the game, the player is always descending lower and lower into Dubai. Even when the player reaches the ground, the game will put them higher up a building again after a loading screen. Consequently, the player is always descending. Walker’s descent is thus not only figurative, but also literal. While he moves deeper into Dubai, he also becomes more traumatized. His decisions to move deeper into the city, lead him to becoming a perpetrator, and becoming mentally affected by his actions. Even at the end of the game, when Walker finally finds Konrad at the top of a building, he ends up back on the ground when the military shows up to rescue him. His meeting with Konrad may have been a moment of clarity about the nature of his actions, and his own role in the demise of the city, but afterwards he is not freed from his trauma. When a soldier asks him how he survived, all he says is: “Who said I did?” The story ends with Walker at his lowest point. He is traumatized by his own actions, perhaps beyond the point where he wants to keep on living. This is foreshadowed with the very first moments of the game. Walker and his team are in a battle between helicopters, and crash when a sandstorm takes them by surprise. Even before the player knows what will happen, Walker is already crashing downwards, losing control. There are also physical indications of Walker’s trauma. Before I move on to Walker’s hallucinations, I will shortly discuss the change of Walker’s face by the end of the game. Smethurst (9) points out that Walker’s face physically deteriorates throughout the game. At the end of the game, Walker’s face is a blackened by burned scars, and his eyes almost seem like small pools of darkness, reflective of his inner turmoil. The deeper Walker descends into Dubai, literally and figuratively, the more he is affected by his trauma, and the more his face shows scars and wounds. Not unlike the literal descent throughout the game, this demonstrates how he is suffering before the player finds out he is hallucinating. These hallucinations are both obvious and hidden at the same time. After Walker has killed the group of civilians using white phosphorus, he starts to receive messages from Konrad. As the story continues, he also encounters obstacles devised by Konrad, to test and antagonize Walker. As it turns out in the end, Konrad is Walker’s hallucination, as the man has been dead for a long time. Effectively, Walker does not realize he is hallucinating these things until the end of the story. However, he experiences very obvious hallucinations before he finds Konrad’s body. After the

helicopter crash, Walker seemingly wakes up in fiery sandstorm, while heavily scarred people run past him. In the distance he can see a tower in flames. On top of this, when the game eventually arrives at the helicopter fight, Walker confusedly says that he has experienced this before. “This isn’t right” he says, but his colleagues do not understand. He could be having a déjà-vu, although it says more about his state of mind. Instead of dismissing this realization, he seems to actually belief that he has done this before. Lugo and Adams dismiss his comment as ridiculous and unreasonable. Obviously, the player knows that Walker has done this before, but logically it would be impossible for one event to take place twice, if the game world resembles the real world. Clearly Walker’s trauma does not fit Caruth’s definition of Nachträchligkeit, because it grows slowly, becoming more and more intense as the story goes on. This fits Gibbs’ idea about perpetrator trauma. Spec Ops also fits in with the literary trauma narratives discusses in the beginning of this thesis. The narrative is not entirely chronological, as it begins with a rather intense and destructive battle, and has a narrator who is subjective, and not always reliable. He is also eager to shift the blame away from himself. Walker holds on to the idea that he had no choice, that the destruction he has caused was not his fault. Ultimately, the hallucinated Konrad confronts him with the reality that he is, in fact, responsible for his actions, and could have decided to leave Dubai multiple times. Before this, Walker believed that it was Konrad who was leaving him no choice. His own hallucination helped him avoid responsibility, but at the same time made him painfully aware of his own agency. Instead of taking responsibility for his mistakes (such as the white phosphorus attack), he decided to blame Konrad, and press onwards. Again and again, Walker makes the wrong choices, which worsens his trauma, and forces him to indulge his hallucinations to avoid responsibility. Combined with the repeated literal descent into Dubai, this is definitely the narrative of a perpetrator who spirals out of control.

2.5.2 Fighting Through Dubai

I would now like to discuss how the game evokes a feeling of guilt in the player, and thus connects Walker’s trauma to the player’s experience of the game. First of all, the player can simply empathize with Walker as a character. Unlike the protagonists of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, he actually has a personality, and makes decisions without the player’s influence. The player sees him suffer the trauma, sees the hallucinations, and witnesses Walker’s deterioration throughout the game. Even though Walker is a perpetrator, it is not hard to understand his actions and develop some sympathy for this tragic character. At the same time, unchecked identification is hindered. Even during On-Line play, Walker tends to talk with his team, which is not something the player can influence at all. This is combined with a third-person perspective. Both of these factors would mean that the player has some awareness of Walker as a character, and not only a

tool for them to play the game. Throughout the game Walker as a character remains a separate entity from Walker as the player’s extension of control in the virtual game world. This is not to say that the game does not imply the player as complicit in Walker’s actions. It is, after all, the player who carries out most of these actions. It is the player who launches the white phosphorus at the group of civilians, and keeps playing the game. During loading screens, Spec Ops directly addresses the player and attempts to cause doubt and guilt in the player. “How many Americans have you killed today?”, “If you were a better person, you wouldn’t be here”, but also “You are a good person” are all messages for the player, shown between On-Line moments of play. While the game rightfully accuses the player of their actions in the game-world, it also reminds the player that it is just a game. It may seem as if this is contradictory, but it highlights the point Spec Ops is trying to make: players care about their actions, and how it reflects on them as moral entities. This is why the player must remind themselves, and must be reminded by the game that what happens is only virtual. In this sense, the game also attempts to stop vicarious identification Additionally, the game takes away any moral cues, making most of the game particularly unpleasant for the player. The enemies the player faces cannot easily be condemned as evil, or bad people, but are ambiguously involved in the conflict in Dubai. All parties have made mistakes and caused the death of others, and ultimately, there is no right side to be on. There is also no moral justification for the player, as the goal to save any civilians has clearly failed, and finding Konrad turns out to be a pointless endeavor. Even diffusion of responsibility becomes difficult, because the player may follow the game’s instructions, but tells them at the same time that their actions are questionable, and perhaps wrong. The player simply cannot excuse their own actions, and becomes a perpetrator alongside Walker. In conclusion, Spec Ops presents a trauma narrative to the player, and at the same time also creates an atmosphere in which the player will also be uncomfortable with their own actions. The only motivation to continue playing is to reach the end of the game, similarly to how Walker’s only reason to continue fighting through Dubai is to reach Konrad. Both of these objectives are disappointing in the end. This ending is one where the player has several options to finish the game. When the player finally finds Konrad’s dead body, they are confronted with Walker’s hallucination. After a brief conversation, Walker ends up in a stand-off with his own hallucination. This is the first choice: the player can chose to shoot the hallucinated Konrad, or be shot by him. If the player is shot, the game ends there. If the player decides to kill Konrad, the game continues for a short time. In this case, the game ends with the arrival of US troops, who have come to save Walker. The player can chose to go with them, or fight them. If the latter happens, the player can win by killing everyone, or lose and die. This is a surprising amount of freedom for the player, given the rather restricted storyline of the game. But, as pointed out by Bogost, restrictions set in

place by the game also inform an argument. In this case, I believe that the given freedom challenges the player one last time. No matter what the player does, the game will end. Any of the endings is rather unsatisfying as well. Either Walker dies, or he continues to suffer under his trauma. There is no solace for Walker, or the player, in Spec Ops. However, the game finally gives the player a real choice between more death or a final end to the conflict. Ultimately, this shows why a soldier’s choices are important: they can mean life or death for others. In the end, this is what makes Spec Ops’ representation of war more acceptable than Modern Warfare’s. The soldier is represented to be what they really are: both “victim and victimizer” (Kalí Tal). Even if the soldier is carrying out their duty, they must still deal with the death they have caused, and accept their own actions. Spec Ops handily involves the player in this process, and produces a story that stands in stark contrast with other military video games, which neglect the inherent traumatic nature of war. This is what is lacking most in Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2; there is absolutely no indication that the player’s characters, or their colleagues, are affected by what they do. They kill hundreds of enemy soldiers, but remain seemingly unaffected mentally. In addition to the simplistic representation of a black and white world, by providing easy moral cues for the player, these games create a questionable representation of war.

Conclusion

With the rising popularity of video games come new and important questions. In this thesis I have attempted to raise these question for modern military video games. War and warfare have always been popular subjects in stories and games, but never before have they been simulated with such graphical realism. While many AAA video games strive for this graphical realism, it is seldom accompanied by a realistic representation of the world. This is what can be seen in Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The player is treated with visually pleasing scenes, a variety of weapons, and a thrilling story, but what actually happens in war is abstracted and reshaped into entertainment. By making the experience pleasant for the player, war in these games becomes simplified. Antagonists become figures of evil with simplistic desires for power. The use of heavy weaponry becomes a fireworks display of violence. At the same time, the brutalities and cruelty of war are removed. The fact that war is a traumatic experience for all parties involved is not a part of these games. Of course, this sounds condemning and accusatory, but simple stories are not necessarily problematic. These remarks are meant to encourage more research into the narratives of similar military video games. This popular genre has given rise to the need for more academic discourse on the narratives of these games. I have demonstrated that Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 clearly have problematic aspects in their representation of war. While they are definitely good examples of popular military video games, I cannot make a claim that they are representative of these kind of games. That is why more critical research is necessary on this subject. With Spec Ops: The Line, the video game industry has already received a critical response to the military video game genre. As I have shown it clearly highlights the problems of the Modern Warfare games. In addition to this Spec Ops undermines the player’s enjoyment of their actions in the game and rightfully questions whether realistic simulation of war can truly be a source of entertainment. Its trauma narrative demonstrates the real nature of war, and shows the player that war is not fun. At the same time it places itself in the tradition of American trauma narrative and constructs a story with literary value. It effectively combined a perpetrator trauma narrative with a gaming experience which involved the player in the guilt of the main character’s actions. Spec Ops enables empathy with the perpetrator, but at the same time actively prevents vicarious identification. Ultimately, Spec Ops presents players with a challenging story, incorporating its subject matter in the player’s ludic experience.

As a last remark, more research is definitely needed on military video games and their representations of war. I hope my thesis can be the beginning of more critical discourse on these games’ narratives, and will serve as a starting point for a more extensive perspective on the genre of military video games.

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