Title. Need some examples of games that had lefty politics and leanings and weren't too ashamed to hide it. Platform/country of origin is irrelevant. I know about FF7's support for ecoterrorism, and even the nuance about the people caught up in the middle, and there's plenty of games that take an anti-corporate stance, but that can be easily brushed aside.

I'm specifically interested in this era as it's when games first acquired the ability to become fully immersive in their narratives with the adoption of multimedia melding into the core gameplay loop via the use of full motion video, voice acting, detailed images and so on.

Reminder: all games are political; even abstract puzzle games.

  • kidleviathan [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This a great writeup and interpretation, I had never drawn the connection between STARS being called in only once the bioweapons threatened the manor property.

    The later games are pretty much a (very convoluted) continuation on the same themes. The villain in RE4 wants to use the plagas for financial profit and political influence, Wesker starts a company to funnel money into perfecting his doomsday eugenics. RE6 is definitely a turd but iirc bioweapons have gone from potentially apocalyptic to commonplace tools of capital. Corporate espionage leads to outbreaks a few times throughout the series.

    That said, there is a lot of really dumb shit in the middle games and re 7 and 8 really shy away from anti-capitalist themes by comparison.

    • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Ok, thanks for providing further context. The only resident evil games I've completed post-nemesis are 6 and revelations 2 so I wasn't sure if the series kept up its themes.

          • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            You could tell it had tons of money and time put into it- it's not like it was some cheap piece of shit the studio crapped out. It was just clear that Capcom had no confidence in the franchise's identity with both RE 5 and 6 being attempts to desperately marry the RE4 formula with then-current gaming trends.

            7 and RE2:Remake were a spectacular return to form (though the Revelations games were decent too)

            • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]
              ·
              3 years ago

              6 definitely had an identity crisis. Imho revelations 2 had a more clear vision of what it wanted to be, but the episodic structure wasn't handled particularly well and hindered the plot structure and pacing.

      • ElGosso [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Is 6 the one where he punches the boulder? That owns.