I will admit up front that I’ve never been one for the shooter genre of video games. The Infernal Arms—which is essentially a gun—was even my least favorite weapon, by a long shot, in Hades. To quote my BFF Obi-Wan Kenobi, “So uncivilized.” But, watching the Summer Game Fest presentation on June 9, I was presented with shooter after shooter after shooter. Faced with this barrage of digitized semi-automatic weapons, I realized something. In the midst of an unceasing wave of mass shootings in the real world, the appeal of shooters feels even more distant to me than usual. I really do not want to play a game with guns right now.
The kickoff Sumer Game Fest Presentation started with Street Fighter 6. Punching! Excellent, love it. But then it was a parade of games that followed men (and a small handful of women) slinging guns across their backs: Aliens: Dark Descent, The Callisto Protocol, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Stormgate, etc. etc. I was bombarded with first-person shooter POVs. When the trailer for Goat Simulator 3 appeared, I wanted to cheer. You mean there’s a game where I can ram someone as a goat, and not shoot them? In a game in the year of our lord 2022? Wow. Amazing. Even Neon White—an indie game I was looking forward to when it was announced last year—hit me differently and felt much less appealing. It felt more like “just another shooter” than it did last year.
The botched landing of this parade of trailers is entirely because of the present moment we’re in. We’re living in the vivid aftermath of mass shooting tragedies, in a country where politicians can’t even agree that if you have to be 21 to drink alcohol, maybe you should also need to be 21 if you’re going to buy an AR-15. (Not to mention whether or not you should be able to buy an AR-15 in the first place, but I’m already wincing at the thought of what delights will find their way into my inbox after this article, so I’m not going there).
Look. I’m not arguing that video game violence causes an uptick in real-world violence. We all know that’s bullshit. Despite Republican politicians pointing their fingers towards that tired excuse (or towards the existence of doors) to divert attention away from the need for gun control, study after study after study has proven that video games do not cause gun violence. If there were, common sense goes, how is there not more gun violence in countries like Japan? I am saying, as a person living in America, I already have to worry about a shooter appearing if I go to the grocery store or movie theater or wherever. Getting behind a gun in a video game doesn’t feel like a release from that ambient fear—it feels exhausting.
I’m also not saying this to wag my finger at the Summer Game Fest or even the developers for this lineup of trailers. These games have been in development for years. But, going forward, perhaps it would be nice if movie studio and game developers reconsidered constantly making guns look cool. I, for one, am tired of seeing guns continually glorified when, in the real world, I could flick through the news on any given day and see that there’s been yet another mass shooting. Maybe I’d feel different if our government actually did anything to solve the issue, or if our president wasn’t going on late night shows and saying, “Wow, I wish someone would do something!” But we’re stuck in this gun-touting hell. I’m sick of it. I play video games to escape reality, thank you very much. I would much rather deck out my Tarnished with Wolverine claws and go to town in that fashion.
I’m not trying to shame anyone who’s into shooters and who does find escape in them. You do you. But even in chatting with peers, I know I’m not alone in my gun gaming fatigue. Watching the Summer Game Fest felt a little like turning on Stranger Things 4 a few days after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas and being greeted by an opening scene graphically depicting dead children. Even the DIsney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series started with images of slaughtered kids. I just … come on.
(featured image: Activision)
