So, there's Outer Worlds.
Dishonoured would be if it wasn't all about saving the monarchy.
Anyone played We Happy Few? Trying to decide whether to buy it.
Disco Elysium - cos you can do fuckin whatever.
Getting the "bad" ending in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in which there's a global leftist revolution and US hegemony is completely destroyed
Outer Worlds is pure liberal hogwash. Anti corporate but without any of the theoretical underpinnings necessary to understand the problems they’re covering.
On that note, this list might be full of just the games for you.
Outer Worlds is pure liberal hogwash. Anti corporate but without any of the theoretical underpinnings necessary to understand the problems they’re covering.
Yeah, I was on board until the "right thing" to do was get the Anarchists to ally with the "good-guy" corporation.
It bummed me out a bit that the first big decision you get to make wasn't "correct" if you told the head of the company town to piss off and shoot him in the face.
Stardew Valley lets you help reinvigorate a small town which in turn kills the Amazon/Walmart stand-in.
Hearts of Iron IV has a vibrant modding scene that allows you to play all sorts of leftist alternate histories. I'd say the stand out mods are The New Order: Last Days of Europe, Cold War: Iron Curtain, and Kaiserreich. Road to '56 is hit or miss with some people but adds a ton of content (of varying quality) to a lot of nations with most having a socialist path.
If you're into political strategy games, all the things made by Kremlingames are good and cheap, if a bit janky. Crisis in the Kremlin has you playing the Soviet Union through the late 80's to 90's. Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall focuses on the Warsaw Pact countries trying to survive the same period, with DLC that adds content for Albania, the DPRK, and Cuba. China: Mao's Legacy is similar to the rest but set in China starting in 76 and going to 85.
Cheers for this. I've played basically just Kaiserreich a thousand times and couldn't be bothered looking into whether there were any other good alternate history mods.
I probably should've said something in the original post but The New Order is pretty unique, it's kind of a visual novel with grand strategy elements in that theres a huge focus on long, very well written events to guide the story. Even though it takes place in a post Nazi "victory" (in quotes because even in victory, everyone, even inside the reich, is suffering) there are lots of leftist paths in the warlord states that make up the former Soviet Union and some in a couple other countries such as England.
stellaris lets you play as communist aliens with dank architecture, hoi4 lets you play as the soviets
https://discord.gg/cStUAmPt
The Chapo game server. The spaceport is still a work in progress, but we are trying to get a collaborative Stellaris game going
Most people just chill and talk about games there lol, it's just a leftist game space really.
Also the first Witcher game can have you aid nonhuman revolutionaries which eventually leads to a revolt/riot where you held them take over the nonhuman district of the main city a la Free Derry.
and in the second you can side with the same revolutionary group, but this time on the side of a peasant revolt where they try and create a country where humans and nonhumans can live together and not under the boot of lords.
I recently played Bioshock 1 and infinite for the first time, great at portraying the insanity of american 'Libertarianism ' but then it does engage in some both-sidesism by making the 'socialists' do red terror style purges and fail to govern effectively once they gain the upper hand
Bioshock Infinity is fucking awesome until the black lady (ultimate personification of non-white man) goes insane with power. It evens feels insincere within the story as well. Almost like the writers knew it was a garbage twist as well
Yeah it surprised me, one minute she's a alienated worker and the leader of a popular resistance, then you switch timelines for the first time and suddenly she's a psycho with a gun to the head of a child, seemed like a massive change in character and jump in logic which they just brush away with the time travel stuff
What makes it worse is that Booker and Elizabeth condemn the Vox before the game decides to make the Vox turn against them or even do anything evil. They bungled "tragically, the resistance has spiraled out of control" so badly it comes across more like the two white protagonists decide it's only okay for white people to shoot racist soldiers with a machine gun, so now the game will accommodate them and magically make the resistance the new bad guys
I'm going to say Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.
Beware, BIG spoilers if you've never played this game and have interest in it. If there are spoiler tags, I don't know how to use them and apologize.
Holy War is often regarded as the finest writing in the Fire Emblem series, and rightfully so. It's pretty much Game of Thrones Fire Emblem, right down to having a Jon Stark and and other similarities.
The game has considerable arguments against imperialism without really cramming it down your throat, and I'll try to explain in short.
In the first generation of the game, you play as Sigurd and there are 2 other important characters alongside him - Quan and Eldigan. All 3 hail from a noble house from their country and have considerable political influence. They are also best friends behind the scenes with Eldigan going out of his way to protect Sigurd early on in the story when he's off fighting his imperialistic wars in the name of Grannvale.
In the first chapter of the game after the prologue, Sigurd invades Verdanne. Before the level starts, he is visted by Eldigan whom asks him; why do I find you about to invade Verdanne and on the border of Agustria? Sigurd explains that a noble woman has been kidnapped by Verdanne and cause they won't give her up, he's going to invade them and conquer them. By the end of the chapter, that happens. Sigurd conquers the entire country under the name of Grannvale (unlike the other FE games, Holy War is notable for having HUGE maps that cover entire countries and usually long battles that involve dozens of units).
As a result of Grannvale's aggressive actions conquering another country, Agustria (Eldigan's country) suddenly feels threatened by Grannvale and they fear that at any moment, they too will declare war and invade them. The next chapter takes place there and Sigurd's actions have snowballed to the point that Agustria has a big civil war between their houses and Eldigan is thrown in prison and deemed a traitor cause he don't throw his support directly behind the prince who killed his father to take the throne. The next chapter, Sigurd wages war and conquers most of Agustria to get to the castle with Eldigan and free him. To his surprise, Eldigan is not happy to get out of the dungeon and realize that half of his country is now under Grannvale's control.
In Fire Emblem, there is a trope of characters named after Camus (as he was the first going back to the very first game). The Camus characters are usually the most well written characters in the games. You meet them when invading other countries and they usually are sympathetic to the protagonist and offer support, but they refuse to betray their country, making them an enemy, usually a boss at the end of a map. These are the characters you end up feeling bad about having to kill to progress through the game. Eldigan is the Camus of this game.
In Chapter 4, the story has advanced several months with Sigurd governing over Agustria and it explains that Grannvale sends their own governors to put in charge of the conquered castles, who now are under their control. The story further explains that the Grannvale governors quickly begin to exploit the citizens of the country and establish their rule to further enrich themselves. Another war breaks out in the other half of the country as the king decides, he's going to push one last ditch effort to try and retake the country. This is when Eldigan calls to arms and decides that he is willing to fight his bestfriend on the battlefield and die in the name of his country for a corrupt king, rather than see his country be turned into a puppet state for Grannvale.
Depending on how you play the chapter, if you put some time into leveling up Lachesis (Eldigan's sister), you can have her approach his unit and talk to him and then you don't have to face him as a boss (and he gives her an Earth Sword which is useful). But if you approach him as Sigurd, Eldigan's text is "I've heard enough Sigurd" and he'll attack you and probably kill you with his overpowered holy weapon.
A lot of fans in the FE communities often argue that Eldigan is the dumbest character in the game, but I strongly disagree. No, he's not stupid at all. Unlike Sigurd, Eldigan can actually see the true intents of Grannvale occupying his country and realizes that they are never going to give the country back. He knows something is up with how they conquered Verdane before they entered his country and Eldigan basically decides he'd rather die for his country under a corrupt king than be stuck in a puppet state to an empire.
As the game progresses though, Holy War shows more imperialistic overtones with how the Grannvale empire is created through Sigurd's wars of conquering countries and how Sigurd more or less, is just a useful fool to the real powers that be that are orchestrating this giant empire.
what's your opinion on the radiant series?, I really liked them but it's been years and I wasn't a leftist then. The main theme seems to be about prejudice, so it seems fine in that regard.
Sorry, I didn't see your reply at first. I haven't played the Radiant games yet. I missed out on the Gamecube and Wii during it's original run and the price for the physical copies of those games goes for outrageous prices online. I wanted to try and emulate them, but don't know if the emulations will run properly on my computer.
They are the only ones I haven't played besides Three Houses. I've played all the old games though. The recent remake of Gaiden, Echoes: Shadows of the Valentia had some good class war elements to it and I quite liked the whole idea of Alm and his friends being these poor villagers who come from a small village and take over the Deliverance and begin a revolution. I would've loved it so much better though had Alm truly been some poor peasant without any holy blood that would make him super special. Sadly that game uses the excuse of him having holy blood to explain why he has leadership skills and is this great fighter.
Thank you for the reply, I agree with you 100%
I think it's at the end of chapter 4, Sigurd has that moment where he says something to the degree of "Dammit! I let Eldigan die fighting a pointless war!" He had been in Agustria "governing" the country for months while the Grannvale governors were clearly exploiting the people. If you visit the villages in chapter 4, some of them say stuff to you about how they wish Grannvale would just get the hell out of their country.
I always find it absurd on FE forums when they have discussions about Eldigan and a ton of posters talk about how he is the quote on quote "stupidest character in the game". Actually, he's the smartest character between Sigurd, himself and Quan. Eldigan is the only one that can see the imperialistic drive behind Grannvale's wars and that they are literally sending this overpowered unit and his small band of friends to your country to completely topple it. (Sigurd is pretty much Fire Emblem Jesus as a unit and can solo most of the first generation, but that's a different discussion)
The problem with the second half of Holy War is that it's just not as interesting or as fun as the first half. It follows the same formula of most Fire Emblem games, where some young prince hiding in isolation rises up to fight an evil empire and routes them chapter after chapter with no real trials and pushback. The stakes are only raised higher cause Grannvale is more properly fleshed out than the empires of the other games.
Stellaris is fun and yeah you totally can be a buncha space communists. I figure most people know about it but its a big strategy game set in space.
Fallout series. With the later ones you have to do some digging because it's less explicit but if not actually communist the series certainly sets its sights squarely on criticising and lampooning American Exceptionalism and capitalism.
State of Decay 2. A group of survivors band together to not only survive but attempt to rebuild society. There's no money, influence is gained by helping other enclaves and can be used alongside barter to get stuff. The military faction is dubious and at worst uses slave labour and the network, a group of loosely associated bands of survivors seems to be the best bet. Cooperation and mutual aid is underlined as the key to survival.
I'd say Fallout 2 and 76 are the two games that have the narrative that deal with that stuff more directly as opposed to it being more hidden narrative. NV has it a bit but that's more to do with new factions rather than a global hegemony like the US.
76 even does the correct thing as well where, when the bombs hit, people are actually kind and helpful to each other with some exceptions. Oh, and the raiders in the game are (or descended from) rich assholes who were in a skiing resort when the world ended. The world only really falls apart due to the actions of a crazed anti-Communist and the scattered groups general distrust of each other, for varying reasons.
Red Faction Guerilla. And red faction 1
Both GTA and RDR are surprisingly critical.
The first four Assassin Creed games, especially 4, but also look out for the Truth section of 2.
Mirrors edge.
New Vegas isnt leftist but Hegel is quoted.
Morrowind is basically a meme at this point, though the anti imperialism is subtle it's well done. Look for Redguard for a more overt example.
The Just cause series starts out as a neolib fantasy but rapidly becomes something else.
The longest journey, especially the first game.
Both GTA and RDR are surprisingly critical.
I didn't quite get this impression from Red Dead Redemption, though I only played the first game and it was many years ago. The first RDR seems to have a Libertarian narrative to it about the government and how they get involved in the lives of the everyday person. John's story involves those FBI agents (in a year before the FBI was even created) who take his family hostage and make him go around killing his old outlaw gang comrades and eventually betray him and set him up to be killed in the end.
The Mexico plot of that game was the absolute worst, with how it portrayed the revolutionary as just being a womanizer who is going to be just as corrupt and as terrible as the government leader he is replacing.
I think I read somewhere years ago that Dan Houser was a Libertarian and that didn't shock me from the impression I had from playing RDR many years back.
RDR2 very much has an anti-industrialist, anti-capitalist narrative. The gang essentially lives in a commune, but they're mostly terrible people who kill and rob. One of the minor villains of the game is a loan shark who you do missions for, and it shows how much he preys on poor and downtrodden people, like a man with Tuberculosis and a widow whose husband died to working in a mine to pay off debts. Two of the game's main villains are a Pinkerton and a capitalist. You spend one chapter of the game in the deep south where the main grunt enemies are ex-Confederates and larpers. There's also a really weird chapter like the Mexico one, where you go off to a fictional Carribean island and help a bunch of sugar cane workers in their revolution and it ends with you blowing up a Cuban warship. So the themes are pretty anti-capitalist.
I've only played rdr 2, which very much explores the limits of that.
black flag is pretty anti imperialist as assassins creed games go. playing a native american who goes and axe kills british troops while leading a pirate crew is about as left as you can go back then
also, very pretty game and the naval combat is probably the best in any game
I think you're conflating AC3 with Black Flag. The pirate is Welsh, not native. Even though he eventually sides with the Native adherents of the Brotherhood (after slaughtering quite a lot of them). It is a very fun game though, probably the most fun of all AC games. There is a sequel called Freedom Cry that has you as a runaway slave captaining a pirate ship and building a maroon commune.
i thought he was half native? and yeah i guess you might be right
edit: oh no he was the dad of assassins creed 3 guy
Yeah that was AC3. But the entire AC lore is so convoluted by now that it is impossible to keep up with all the twists and turns. 🤣
yeah i find it amusing that they just smash together every conspiracy theory known to man
Right? Marx and Lenin good, but fucking Queen Victoria is good as well and we need to protect the benevolent British monarchy, which needs to be overthrown by the American Revolution which is good, but the French Revolution - yeah that one's totally evil. 🤪
I think it just reflects design by committee, with the committee's explicit goal to maximise sales, so they just try to gauge where the popular sentiment lies regarding each individual conspiracy, to still have a veneer of edginess but provoke as few people as possible.
excited for assassins creed: cold war where stalin didnt die and assassinated jfk
Disco Elysium Is leftist, it just allows for you to be a lib or a chud if you want. The games overall message is very much rooted in the creator’s love for Marx and Engels
The Half life series. Has anti fascist and anti colonial themes to it. Also HL2 and its sequels are set in post soviet eastern Europe
