There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.
The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.
Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.
There was actually supposed to be lore backing that up, and making the decision more complicated that “NCR good, legion bad” but they ran out of development time
🤢
Also, btw, the game wasn’t “NCR good.”
They’re an openly genocidal republic beset with corruption and slavery with extra steps.
It’s almost like they were a deliberate mirror of America in the Westward Expansion/Pre Civil War era…
But they had the coolest uniform, and that’s ultimately what people care about.
Ironically the best option for the people of Vegas is a stable benevelont dictatorship. Either house+courier (the house always wins) or the courier + yesman (no gods no kings no masters). Definitely not Kaisar and his faulty understanding of helgen dialectics. However, you can still make a strong case that the NCR can be reformed if you take the correct actions as The courier. Let Kimball eat it and force everyone else to play nice. The game shows that while many are corrupt, there are still several people in the NCR who uphold their values.