Tell Me if This is a Good Game Idea

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, thanks to my ADHD and sometimes writing helps. Now before I start I want to make a point that I am not an anti-Semite, racist, or some kind of Nazi sympathizer. This has probably already been done , but I still want to share.

What if you played on the side of the Germans? From maybe a little bit before Judea declared war on Germany. Showing maybe a man in his early thirties. He and his family are impoverished due do the inflation and barely any worthwhile work to a good deal of the 60 million Germans at the time. In their own country the own majority had to bottom level work due to the oligarchical control of most media and economic assets. After a prologue the Judea declares war on Germany as you join the Wehrmacht.

At first you could be a low level foot soldier and then by completing missions you could get further into the campaign and your character can go through the ranks unlocking new weapons, theaters, higher ranks allowing you to make important tactical decisions that could make the mission end in one way or another. Your tale will not be one with a light at the end of the tunnel though. To tell a true gripping story the characters have to be shown who they are as people. What is under the battle attire. You also have to feel and experience the powerlessness as you go through the campaign. that even though your character gets better individually as you progress the situation around him slowly deteriorates. You see your side slowly losing and ultimately your campaign has to come to an end in one way or another.

The story can end either in your character commiting suicide when he finds out the Fuhrer died. Or You can witniss the loss of the war, and the story can end showing your characters life in a montage type thing ending with a grave and his name on it.

Don't be too hard on me i'm sensitive, And I bruise like a banana so you better not start, know what I'm saying Jack?

I've had similar ideas for stories and movies. I wouldn't push for that with Nazi's (although there have been some films that explored this concept with Hitler specifically) as that's a difficult hill to climb.

My concept was for Vietnam. I am always fascinated by the concept of a story from the "villains" perspective (one of The Last of Us' few interesting narrative choices), but using historically vilified characters can be complicated.

Despite it's complications I still think the concept is interesting. To get back to mine, I always thought it would be fascinating to know what the war was like on the side of the Vietcong. Not because they should be liked (although it's a controversial topic but it's hard to say they were the "villians" per say) necessarily, but because it would be interesting to know that viewpoint. Even what history, or people with their agendas, considered "villains" don't look at themselves as villains.

For a Nazi, they are clearly villains if only because they consider themselves superior so much so that they hurt others to achieve power. The Vietcong is more complicated. They did what they did (at least initially) for their own reasons that mainly implied their own freedom to do what they wanted with their lives. I don't think they would consider it evil. Honestly no villain generally thinks what they are doing is evil, anyway, and the reason they are as passionate as they are is because they truly believe what they do (misguided ideals or not) is righteous.

I don't know, though, if the world is quite ready for this complicated story telling in video games, yet. It's hard still to tell these types of stories in film and prose. It's hard to tell a story from the perspective of someone people do not like, and even more complicated to put aside your ideals just to read what it was like for someone on the other side of a conflict you feel strongly about. Even if the idea is just to see what it was like and nothing more, ultimately ideas and actions will win over and people will feel strongly (negatively) about humanizing their enemies. It's easier to accept they are evil than to understand why they are or at least why we perceive them that way.

Anyway, ya it's a concept I've thought about. While it has been done, it's very hard to do and most will disregard it due to strongly held beliefs (for right or wrong, really). In time I hope we get to a place where games can portray that, but I don't think that time has come yet. You'll notice most movies with "villains" as the focal point are more "anti-heroes" than "villains" and they always end up doing something that makes you respect them even if you don't like them- this leads to you feeling like you can understand them and maybe even relate.

True villainy cannot be respected.

I think that a WWII game from the German POV could be fantastic... but that is a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!REALLY FRIGHTENINGLY QUESTIONABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! way of describing how that war started.

I don't know about this. I'm all for twisting the narrative to the other side, but I feel like it's REALLY difficult to explore the progression you're suggesting without stepping on a cultural "mine", so to speak. Like, it'd be really tough to make that stuff worthwhile while also avoiding getting too...brutal.

Maybe a Civil War concept with the perspective from either side that you could pick that was similar. Or the American Revolution playing as a British soldier drafted to go to America and fight the Americans. But WWII was so brutal, and the crimes committed were so heinous that to get into that would be like one large "No Russian" (Modern Warfare 2) game. And that's not something I think I could stomach for 10 hours.

I think you could make it a fascinating look into idealism. Your character could be a completely well meaning person who is just striving to help get Germany out of their brutal cultural and economic depression partially through military force. As you rise in rank, you begin to be confronted with more high ranking folks and slowly realize that the effort has been twisted from your country simply regaining its glory, to your country destroying others in the process.

To work at all, I think you would have to take the easy way out and end with a small fight trying to foil some smaller plot internally, also relatively early in the war. But still there are a ton of intensely emotional places to explore that could say more than, "Not all the German soldiers in WWII were nazis."

An American Civil War or American Revolution game from the "opposing side" could be interesting as well, but there couldn't really be actual combat involved. The thrilling finale where you stand in a rectangle in a field in broad daylight and load your musket a few times until you get shot out of nowhere and killed... might not be very exhilarating. ;)

@joshwent: Yes and no. At a certain point, what becomes too much? In 1939, much of the brutality involved rounding up people into ghettos and camps. In mid-1940, they began killing in the villages, loading onto train cars, and putting into death camps. So, if you don't go that route, the only other route is fighting on the front lines. But that would be just as boring as showing the same type of desperation story as an American or Brit trying to escape poverty in the depression they were facing, as well. Because at that point, it's COD with more cinematics and plot choices. If you want a Mass Effect level of decisions or a TLOU level of storytelling, you almost have to go the brutal route, which I don't know is appropriate yet.

Just to clarify, I like the idea. But I think it's hard to pull off without either being too monotone and "wimp out" by avoiding the tough issues or without going too far and showing mass brutality. The OP is right with the "show that not all Germans were Nazis", but to do that, you have to recreate those Nazi extremism moments. And that might be a tad over the line right now. I mean, you'd almost have to have it happen, but then have the character say, "This is horrible!" and commit treason. It would take a very good writer to pull it off without going too boring or too brutal.

@mbradley1992: Yeah, great points. Maybe all of the horror involved in those potential narratives is just to extreme to make you a believeable playable character involved with it.

I seek out media that makes me uncomfortable and forces me to examine my reactions, so I hope someday a dev cracks this awkward nut, but as you say, it's damn tricky.

@joshwent: My problem with your plan here is that you are playing the "anti hero" card.

If you want to make a game about playing an historical villain it would be my preference that you not sugar coat it. A nazi is a nazi. While there may (and I believe have been) nazi's that don't actually like the ideals they ended up serving at the end of the day they still attempted to commit genocide in the name of a fascist leader and everything they did was devoted to this singular cause.

I'm just saying. If you're going with this plan (hypothetically speaking of course) jump in or don't dive in at all. Don't do it by trying to make it "Oh, I had to be a nazi, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but this now seems bad" or you'll just piss people off more.

But again, like I said in my other post, I think doing something like this with nazis would be very difficult if not impossible. There are other wars (even brutal ones) with enemies that would make more sense.

That's just my opinion of course.

There are estimated to have been over 18 million solders who served in the Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1945. It's impossible to think that the precise thought you mention above didn't actually happen to many, many German recruits.

I'd say it's less of a "He's a Nazi... but he's sad about it" cheesy anti-hero, and more of just a straight up human experience. The risks of lending your life to a movement you don't control, and your ability/inability to leave or end it if you want to. We had soldiers who expressed that feeling throughout the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and they're lauded as heroes who helped more quickly end that devastating mistake. There could be a very emotional and revelatory story with a similarly-minded German boy who is conversely utterly unable to express those feelings at the risk of being jailed or killed.

Still, as you said, and I agree with, it would take some amazingly deft writing to keep any game appropriate having you play as a soldier in the most despised (and rightfully so) military force in history.

@joshwent: I'm kind of in the same boat as this duder. Many Germans were oblivious to the extent of the military took anti-sematism. To make the plot shine, the character could be be piecing clues together because he's not directly involved and exposed with the concentration camps. You could have a climax of revealing what the players are expecting, or play it subtlety and have the dialogue in pace with the character piecing the clues together coming to the conclusion without saying it directly and having the players infer that he has had the realization. This latter would be more work but might turn out some good writing. How the character reacts to the realization and what he does about it would be up to you (as in you, the topic creator).

I think it would be powerful if the character in the end were digging his own grave while the player listens to an internal monologue in which the character reflects on his past.

This idea really has some great potential and obvious risk, but if done correctly could turn out very powerful.

@joshwent: My problem with believing that some majority of nazis had a problem with the ideals they were following is that if so many did than why did they not rebel? I can assume an answer to that, but I just don't suspect that was the case.

Some did, I am certain (I don't know if there is record of that but I like to believe that is true), but I believe most believed what they were following.

Like I was saying before we see them as monsters, but they saw it as the proper way to live.

I haven't known nazis, but I have unfortunately had to deal with neo nazis, and let me tell you they don't think what they do is wrong in any way. It's not because they're particularly crazy or evil, even if we label them as such. They believe it. That's the strongest word you can use for it- it's ingrained in who they are. Much like believers in Christianity or Muslim- they believe they are better than other races and killing them is no different than putting down a rodent.

Having been around certain racists as I have, it is not hard for me to believe a vast majority of nazis were 100% compliant in what they did and they did not have a problem sleeping at night because of it. They truly believed it was right.

That's all I'm saying. If you look at something from the villains perspective things that we see as horrendous is not horrendous to them. It's the only course of action and they are ok with it- it's normal.

Would people be ok with following the exploits of a protagonists who is for all intents and purposes "evil"? No, that'd never fly. Is it an interesting story? Hell ya it would be. At least I think it could be if given proper context and thought.

Also I should note to me that nazis may be Germans, but Germans are not nazis- if that makes sense. It's not a German (race) thing to me, it's a nazi thing. It's an ideal.

Hopefully, that makes sense.

Exactly! But I think this is where we still aren't really connecting. A Neo-Nazi believes they are fighting for what's right because they chose to accept that philosophy. In Germany in 1933, some portion of boys weren't enlisting solely based on Nazi ideals. That's just a fact. Not to mention that Hitler also reinstated conscription, so a major portion of their military didn't even choose to join.

But the more insidious side (and the side that I think could make a great game) is the people that did think they were fighting for right. But that's still very different from a neo nazi. Hitler's horrible genius was propaganda. He effectively brainwashed the majority of an entire nation into thinking that they were on the side of good. The difference is that those weren't people who were directly convinced that exterminating all non aryan humans is a good idea, as neo nazis choose to now. The Nazi regime never outlined their grand disgusting plan and every citizen just said, "Sounds good. Let's do it!". They were molded by the promise of escape from poverty and demise, and then intentionally impregnated with the assurance that any lengths the country had to go to to ensure security were absolutely necessary. For example, this was a country that was eventually convinced that euthanizing their own people who didn't fit the right mold was a positive thing, and hundreds of thousands of Germans themselves (children included) were murdered en masse.

As to why a larger rebellion didn't take place, that's a question that I'm not at all learned enough to answer, but there are many well documented cases of widespread attempts to obstruct and dismantle the Third Reich, even assassination attempts on Hitler himself. For an overview, check out the wikipedia page dedicated to Nazi rebellion specifically.

Anyway, I'm really stretching the limits of my WWII knowledge and I think we actually mostly agree, so we can agree to disagree on the finer points. ;)

@joshwent: Your argument precludes the basis of belief- which is essentially brainwashing. I mean everything we believe, fundamentally, is a form of brainwashing. You are also simplifying the nazi regimes control quite a bit.

All I can say is I can come at it from a place of some knowledge (both life experience and being a veteran of two wars myself) and this discussion is much deeper than I seem to be able to explain right now.

Needless to say, as I expressed, I do not believe the vast majority of nazi regime conscription believed what they were doing was wrong. Point being if you want to tackle a story from the nazi perspective go in whole hog or don't bother. Tip toeing around it just becomes crass and the story is more interesting if tackled as a human actually operates- a nazi didn't think what he was doing was wrong so that isn't the focus you want in the story.

Anyway, ya, no worries. I have just thought about this and other things similar to this a lot for years as I have wanted to attempt a story from that perspective. I think it would be fascinating as well, but it would be really hard to keep it from insulting a lot of people and I worry I wouldn't pull it off so I never officially attempted it in any meaningful length.

I like the idea of player success ultimately falling flat in the face of a failing war. This is a really powerful theme that can lead to a serious re-examination of methods, goals, even ideals over the course of the game... when winning battles just isn't enough. But in my view, the Korean War (especially the disastrous first half) might be a better way to depict it.

Also, not nearly enough Korean War games out there. That's my rant done with

For real. That is some revisionist bullshit that has been used in the past by Holocaust deniers to justify Hitler's actions leading up to, and during, World War II. Describing the calls to boycott German goods and services in protest to Hitler seizing control of the German government in 1933 as a "Declaration of War" is a gross mischaracterization of what was actually going on at the time. By 1933, Hitler had a proven track record of anti-Semitism dating back well over a decade, and the calls for economic sanctions were a last resort when it was clear he would soon control not only the German government, but it's military as well.

@krakancat, please be extremely careful about the direction you intend to take this conversation on Giant Bomb.

@cornbredx: Having heard stories like Daryl Davis's KKK story (edit: link to an article added, for those wondering), I can believe that too. I don't know much about the relationship between the German military and the Nazis, but good people can believe bad things.

And I agree, it would be cool to see a game that could get people to empathize an "evil" character. I like the idea of a game in which characters honestly believe their "evil" cause with good non-obviously-evil reasons, since those anti-hero and conflicted hero stories are already pretty common. I mean, it's why I love that Daryl Davis story, for example. It is really, really dangerously thin-ice territory though. One wrong move and it'll become a Nazi-sympathizing/glorifying game itself.

@audiobusting: Ya, exactly.

Thank you for linking that story, by the way. I haven't read that before. That guy sounds amazing. What a great story.

@joshwent: Perhaps, to avoid glorifying things which would be distressing from any perspective, a game based on Operation Valkyrie? (less Tom Criuse, more meticulously planned assassination that only failed in the final few seconds) after all, the people involved believed themselves to doing what was best for Germany.

I'm really troubled by the OP's use of terminology. I think there are lots of anti hero stories you could make from the WW2 and early Cold War periods (the Cambridge 5 is another good example) but you have to be so careful.

With the state of the game industry I can't see anything so risky ever getting greenlit for AAA.

Everything else in video games is a crafting survival simulator, so if you could find a way to turn this into a crafting survival simulator that would be greeeeat...

In all seriousness though this is pretty touchy ground for good reason, there are plenty of other scenarios you could potentially have the same ideas at work though.

I didn't play it, but i understand spec ops did the whole wheels falling off thing?

It's more about a soldier's descent into madness than anything. I won't spoil too much because I think it's worth a play, especially since you can rip through it in just four or five hours and it regularly goes on sale on Steam for $5.99. The shooting is decent and it looks alright, too. I'm sure it'll hit 90% off in one of these Steam sales someday.

@mb: Yeh i keep missing the sales for this one! Definitely picking it up next time it comes up.

If I offended anyone I apologize. English is my second language so my vocabulary may be a bit limited. It was inevitable at least one person was going to call me an anti-Semite or holocaust denier. However I never even mentioned the concentration camps or the holocaust.

Lets take away the labels of Jew,Nazi, German, etc and just call them people. It is a fact that a small minority of 500,000 people rebelled against and committed treason against a 60,000,000 person majority. I personally don't care one way or another what label a person chooses to put on themselves. I see them all as people plain and simple. Yeah it sucks, but aren't we all being a bit prejudice if we dismiss a whole 60 million people based on a countries government. I sure hate to see what the world thinks of us in 100 years.

Help me out here, what rebellion are you referring to? The only one i know of is the "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". But that happened well into WWII, and was certainly not treasonous.

And i would also like to point this out:

@krakancat:

Alright, time to be a little bit controversial, but I suppose that fits nicely.

I think pussy-footing around the subject-matter, taking great care not to offend anyone, is the wrong way to go. You mean to portray someone who's been drafted into, or opted to join, the military, based on false beliefs instilled through propaganda. A man whose view of the war is warped by ignorance of what's taking place under the tread of the SS. Any information he might have gleaned about the atrocities committed will be coloured in his beliefs, which considering the social situation in Germany pre-war, completely disregarding Propagandra, would almost surely be tinged in racism. Having your main character unexplicably be the only one who sees the light will ruin any immersion, and end up giving a biased, false impression of what those times were like.

The situation you're suggesting would basically just to squeeze in a western perspective on a German perspective, which ends up missing the point.

The character himself may ofcourse, and should in my opinion, be put in situations where his beliefs are challenged when presented with the reality of events, but that'd have to come later on in order for the story-telling to be effective. Portray how his world, and what he was basing his life on, would come crumbling down.

This would also create some interesting possibilities in terms of video-game writing, as allowing the player to have some agency of his characters decisions, the game could take different directions from that point onwards, either having the character do his best to help people he comes across, very similar to the officer in the movie "The Pianist". There's a lot of potential there for interesting interactions, between the wary, downtrodden masses and this unlikely saviour. Or you could have your character, if you so desire, continue down this path of evil, which is a fascinating study in it's own right, as long you take care to show the contrast between the behaviour of "good" people on the side-lines, so that your own characters actions will be villified by comparison.

You're ultimately going to have to engage in some awkward-ass writing in order to make this effective, you're going to have to praise the German government at the time and their efforts. The night of the long knives, huzzah, etc. You're going to have to be patient, and not be overly judgemental early on, in order to allow for the contrast later on, once many of the actual facts of the time have been revealed, to portray these previous events in a different light. This is going to rub some people the wrong way, it's going to be tough to swallow, and it should be. Painting this black and white will only cheapen it.

We tend to focus on how horrendous these actions were from an objective stand-point, and never stop to consider what the people comitting them were thinking at the time. That's the aspect that you've got to explore.

Ultimately, this is a very difficult subject-matter to treat right, and you're going to have to make sure you get your facts right before diving in. If I were you, I wouldn't do it unless I was very confident in my writing skills.

For the record, I want to go out of my way and say that there's no condoning these events. I fully believe that the Nazi ideal is among the most disgusting the world has ever seen. I only make these controversial suggestions because I believe it'd be the most effective way of telling a story about a horrendously complex situation which so few of us understand beyond the obvious, it being pure evil.

@krakancat: I think you maybe need to do some reading on a lot of the issues and thoughts you're portraying. And I mean that in a nice way.

Because a lot of what you're purporting is false. Te large, and by large I mean 90%, portion of the German population was very much pro-Hitler BEFORE THE HATE CRIMES. That's an important distinction to make. The people of Germany didn't realize that German soldiers were massacring civilians until nearly 1942-1943. When the Nazis went into the Rhineland, Austria, and Sudetenland, they were hailed as liberators. All through the 30s, the German public loved and believed in Hitler. When the Allies discovered the massacres and when the German soldiers began writing home in 42-43 with news that the commanders were ordering massacres, that's when the population began to see Hitler for what he was. Even then, the bit that was against him was a small percentage, mostly due to fear for their own safety.

So before you make this premise that the Nazis were a small part of the German culture at the time, do some research because the premise is wrong. Only a small number of the German army was assigned for massacres and death camps. The rest were kept in the dark for the most part and supported the war effort.

This topic is finished for now.

Krakancat, if you wish to have this reopened or ever discuss this premise and your ideas about WWII, Germany, and Jewish people again on Giant Bomb again, send me a PM before doing so. We need to have a little talk.