The Kind of War AAA Gaming Won't Show You

[@Scorch052]

To Homefront's credit, the story originally was supposed to be about China instead of North Korea, but THQ got cold feet about that and made the devs change it.

[@BlueMAGAsocialist]

Made sense since China is the US largest trading partner. Even though the US is a warmongering nation with 800~ military bases around the world, can’t risk to pissed off your #1 trading partner when you’re haven’t *officially* declared war on them. FYI, the US is currently in a second Cold War with everything going on rn irl.

[@512TheWolf512]

the sheer stupidity of the premise was at least half the reason nobody bought it. it's multi-player was also pretty cool and unique.

[@playedtoomuch5259]

The entire idea of China or NK ever invading the US is ridiculous considering their entire history with the United States was them expressing a clear desire to stay distant from the United States and mind their own business and the US has constantly violated their sovereignty and tried to incite war over and over again

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

​@@BlueMAGAsocialist The US is basically pulling every string to maintain peace and those bases are tripwires to deter invasion. If you want to invade Japan, South Korea, etc you have to attack Americans which gives you cold feet. Why is the US the warmonger when its OTHERS who want the US to go away so they can invade?

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

​@@playedtoomuch5259 Bruh its China clearly laying claim over territories that belong to other nations and North Korea holding Seoul hostage with artillery fire. South Korea has huge bunkers for the population in case North Korea decides to just shell their cities close to the border.

[@MrHiglon]

Imagine standing next to some guerilla fighters and saying "man that's so guerilla" every 5 seconds.

[@TheButterAnvil]

"they're going guerilla mode"

[@rakshal132]

@@TheButterAnvil they just want to guerill for god sakes

[@groltann]

​​@@TheButterAnvil"It's guerillin' time"

[@IsaiahRichards692]

@@TheButterAnvilI have the political problem with modern war movies! In every recent movie about ww1 and ww2, the movies never had to explain what caused the wars. In A24’s Civil War (terrible) and Black Crab, they just avoid talking about the factions and causes of their respective conflicts because they’re afraid of pissing off certain people. What really annoys me is the high praise they receive for being spineless, saying that the causes of the war are boring and pointless and that, irl, no one cares about the causes of war. The truth is, modern war movie directors probably don’t even know what causes wars in the first place and they can’t be bothered finding out!

[@luislongoria6621]

BF3 Hardline vs Call of Juarez, Army of 2, Bad Company, Syndicate, & Kane&Lynch 1&2

[@Norrsky]

Crazy that we're still using F.E.A.R. as an example of good ai almost 20 years later

[@glibchubik4090]

Sadly AI is not in developer's priority all those years later

[@OSTemli]

Seriously I am no longer fan or even play call of duty But if they change AI it will be great to play single player campaign Love how in fear ai will fire you from cover nonstop And another flanking you and something throwing grenade to corner you into no escape

[@NostalgiaNet8]

Go play Spec Ops The Line, they have great AI, also. ​@@glibchubik4090

[@Supercohboy]

@@glibchubik4090 It's kinda fucking sad, but at the rate we're going it's literally going to be AI developing video game "AI" to be better someday. There's maybe 2 dozen games over the past TWENTY years that have truly innovated on video game AI, if you include minor/indie hits probably too. Anything much better than what we have is very expensive to make and requires the kind of talent that's smart enough to stay away from the toxic video game industry. It kinda sucks; hopefully we get AI-generated AI sooner rather than later so that we can enjoy a refined version of it before we die of old age....

[@InternetHydra]

@@glibchubik4090It’s not a priority issue anymore. Modern devs don’t have the skill and knowledge to program good mechanics anymore.

[@laserdiscisawesome1263]

A bit of a gripe I have with FC6 is that they say “some of these are just conscripts, needing to feed their families” yet all of them are bloodthirsty killers or you kill them without question.

[@thomasboland540]

I'm glad someone else noticed that-

[@NiCoNiCoNiCola]

Or how previous games made your character killing everyone a big deal and now you're kinda having fun with a jetpack explody thing, while people

[@blooperman1997]

So what? Levies and conscripts have made up the majority of soldiers throughout history and that doesn't make them any less likely to do terrible things even to their own people.

[@arandomboot598]

@@blooperman1997there’s a big difference between a bunch of guys riding the high of battle or being fuelled by repressed hate, anger, and stress, and private conscriptovitch sitting at his checkpoint for the past 3 years checking passports. THEY AREN’T ALL MONSTERS. that’s what OP is saying everyone in FC6 is a monster from my memory there isn’t any talk of X amount of defectors or deserters. Even though they’re conscripts frighting a losing battle against what comes to be a popular uprising THEY ALL STAY LOYAL. Again from my memory, it’s been awhile since i played FC6 and I almost immediately forgot the main storyline and went to go play 5 again

[@vikingdrengenspiders7875]

Thats ubisofts story coliding with their fun above all Philosophy

[@engine4403]

remembering that time in Far Cry 2 where I had shot my way through to a .50 cal on top of a truck, low on health i knew atleast one guy was left and was afraid to go find him because i would be defenseless for a second. He was walking away carrying a soldier on his back. Scared and cornered i killed him and his buddy. Thats when i felt awful. Thats when i felt games were art.

[@TheButterAnvil]

In my 50ish hours I've seen that happen once and I was blown away. What a cool system to put in a game

[@TheJudoJoker]

​@TheButterAnvil my favorite part of Far Cry 2 was the enemy dialogue. Early on they're menacing like typical generic bad guys. But late in the game they start showing hints of fear and panic. Especially when you start doing hit and run tactics where they lose track of you and realize that they have no way of knowing if the threat is gone or if they could be the next one dead with no warning.

[@MachineMan-mj4gj]

God I loved that game, it was one of my favorites back in high school. I used to entertain my friends with the wacky shit that happened during missions. Like that one time when, no joke, ALL THREE of my guns blew up and I had to scavenge crap weapons from dudes I opened up with the machete.

[@rockymontanagarciamane]

@@MachineMan-mj4gji remember being scared of that game as a kid me and my cousins, i think we jumped in some big pond and we started swimming down and i remember in that game when you look straight down underwater it gets very dark and circular like a giant black eyes looking at you and that scared us alot, plus the random malaria attacks or whatever it was while deep in the jungle so the shadow of trees and huge leaves are making everything darker even tho its a bright day

[@MachineMan-mj4gj]

@@rockymontanagarciamane Your sphincter does not know tight until you realize you're down to your last pill, in the middle of nowhere, and knowing you're going to have to wade through a platoon of dudes to get back to where they give you those.

[@DreadPirateFury]

"This is Master Chief, he'll be reading from Art of War for me." is certainly a sentence.

[@Mad_Skeletron]

Truly one of the sentences of all time

[@Cheese_man76]

Homefront deserves credit for accurately recreating the war zone we call “Philadelphia”

[@hinoramei7733]

LMFAO I lived there for a few years and after I left I was like Jesus Christ, I can't believe I actually tolerated all of that

[@memeunist6073]

@@hinoramei7733 me too man, glad i left that shithole and went to live back in texas

[@SPECREY]

at Metal Gear Solid V, russian soldier depicts you as a ghost if you choose not to kill them, be a pacifist for short, that they respect you, or if you kill everyone they call you a monster, wear better armor ( at lethal gameplay, at some point soldier wear better armor to protect themselves ) edit: the way big boss and the boss made cqc also does not aims to kills, but to neutralize, not to defeat or dominate but to stop the violant act, the boss cqc also depicts his ideology and humanist worldview, you guys can check youtube vidoes explaining the philosophy behind CQC which is paralel to metal gear solid themes,

[@Alfonse-dm6ht]

Arent They Soviet Forces Or Something

[@walnzell9328]

@@Alfonse-dm6ht That is correct. While most of the soldiers in the Afghanistan portion of the game are Russian, there are also soldiers from other Soviet republics, like Uzbekistan.

[@adheva8911]

Wait, they don't naturally wear better armor as the game progresses?

[@dedster3164]

​@@adheva8911 actually no, they get better skills, but armor and weapons only changes if you slaughter them for days

[@Mrz_gotban]

​@dedster3164 they literally do that if you use the same approach which is killing them if you use tranq alot and stealth they use helmets and shields making it hard to do the same approach if you find that hard you can do deployments to cut their supplies of equipment like shields, decoys , cams and even armor Kojima actually cooked with that game sadly he never got to finish it

[@naldormight6420]

God I miss when Far Cry offered at leas the illusion of survival. - My own Far Cry 2 anecdote: I just finished a mission and wa son my way bavk but realised that I was out of meds. I will likely not make it all the way back without meds so I had to sneak into the next compound, grab my supplies and get out of there as unseen as possible, because if I got into a fight I would get hurt again and would have to use the meds I needed to get back safely. - No other Far Cry after that offered anything near to that.

[@numberonedad]

far cry 2 is the best far cry, fight me

[@Alfonse-dm6ht]

​​@@numberonedad You Are Not Alone Far Cry 3 Is Overrated If Its The Best Far Cry In The Series

[@FR4M3Sharma]

​@@numberonedad2 for its tone and psuedo brutal realism. Blood Dragon for over the top wacky woohoo retro cyberman action. The two games are completely on the opposite sides of the spectrum while being on the same franchise and i'll love them to death for that.

[@MachineMan-mj4gj]

@@FR4M3Sharma Based.

[@kiboma4209]

Far Cry 5 came close, i died so many times compared to other far crys 😂

[@mrpenguin8731]

Ajay as a character is still funny to me because despite being a completely innocuous tourist that’s just there to spread his mother’s ashes, he has almost no quarrels about immediately butchering people and then joining an insurgency. The most angry he gets (as far as I’ve played at the moment) is when he returns to his house the second time and almost immediately chills out. Deputy’s almost as good, fun to imagine him doin’ a subtle lil’ wave anytime someone addresses them

[@TheButterAnvil]

Ajay has one line I love. When he goes to kill sabal, sabal says "I didn't think they'd send you" to which Ajay responds "who else pulls the trigger around here"

[@mrpenguin8731]

@@TheButterAnvil Heheheh, that’s a sweet line. Always thought the two were pretty damn ungrateful

[@joshholden9360]

​@@TheButterAnvilI feel like you mischaracterized FC4. It's a wholesome game about going to visit your stepdad. Enjoy the crab rangoon.

[@ExeErdna]

That's why I wish IF you got the secret ending by sitting there and waiting you were able to work with Pagan Min who's clearly "The good one" out of three especially with knowing how things went down in FC6's flashback arcs.

[@callmeginga]

I was always pretty disappointed in the dep, he's so well characterized in moments but in others it's just so... Awkward. So many people are involved in a conversation, directly addressing you and even asking you questions, and you apparently just stare at them in response. It kinda recharacterizes the deputy, from the put-upon desperately stubborn piece of the community that refuses to bend and cannot be broken, to the weird deputy the sheriff threatens you with if you don't come quietly. The one who doesn't blink and drools sometimes.

[@DaMainCookie]

wildlands on the hardest difficulty really emphasizes the point of not being able to just left click to victory

[@BluFoxDB]

tier 1 mode made me a man…and then i saw ghost mode🫣

[@MyDadsBeatMe]

@@BluFoxDBif you see a man with the gold exosuit, you better respect them

[@LAV-25A2_56]

I love Ghost Recon Wildlands on extreme. Literally changes the way you play, and forces you to change your tactics. I think I might do another Ghost Mode run...

[@icarusgaming6269]

I've found one of the most important strategies to be setting up an overwatch position and calling for rebel strikes on weak points. You're not actually doing hit and run attacks, but from a distance it *looks* like they are since the ability recharges over time and once they all die. Despite the smoke and mirrors approach, this fits the fantasy of being a foreign advisor for an insurgency really well since narratively your enemies are meant to assume that Kitaris is responsible for your actions until it's too late

[@TheThingInMySink]

Huh, I must have left it below the hardest then, I swear I went all the way this time because people told me it's the best way to play the game but it felt exactly the same as last time I played, enemies will down me in a burst but that's about it, the AI is still stupid and extremely exploitable.

[@moriskurth628]

24:08 Far Cry 5's explanation for why nobody just leaves actually holds up better than you'd think. Hope County, the setting where the game takes place, is in a very isolated region of Montana (one of the states with the lowest population density in the US already, only beaten by Alaska and Wyoming), and surrounded by mountains on all sides, being only reasonably accessible through a handful of highways and tunnels that the Cult collapsed at the start of the game, after you tried to arrest Joseph Seed. Even if you climbed over the mountains, and manage make it out the other side, you would likely still have to walk for *days* before you reach civilization. It's not just a simple perimeter that the Cult patrols, the landscape itself makes escape extremely difficult. The only really glaring plot hole are the planes, as the planes shown in game would definitely have the range to reach the nearest town outside Hope County at the very least, and you can probably evade the air patrols the Cult has (because, yes, they somehow got choppers and combat-capable planes). But beyond that the explanation why people don't try to escape, and instead stand and fight against the Cult, is fairly solid.

[@axel665]

No it's just a large plothole that nobody would investigate a us Marshall that went to arrest dangerous cult goes missing

[@coolsceegaming6178]

Tbf, flying a plane is incredibly difficult. You easily could have the issue of “no one just knows how to fly”

[@what4521]

Doesn't one of the cops in the beginning say that there's a town or something a couple hours away from Hope?

[@utubecop11]

The only thing i'll say against this is that there are no collapsed road tunnels in the actual game, unless im mistaken. They say it, but as far as I'm aware there is no location where you can see collapsed road tunnels.

[@Hybris51129]

​@@what4521A major city in fact Missoula.

[@blarpnarp]

ZACH HAZARD MENTIONED

[@dwarfdigger135]

ITS HAZARD TIME

[@admiralpepper6933]

DID I HEAR GUN FATHER MENTIONED???

[@BenthewildchildE750]

I was looking for this comment and very glad I found it 😀

[@Kennedywithdawock1966]

RRRAAAAAAHHHHHHH

[@RustyIv]

WOOOO I LOVE MIKEBURNFIRE

[@brayden6876]

Helldivers actually does a decent job of this on the highest difficulties. A lot of the fun I had in both the first and second game was playing on the highest difficulties, slinking around patrols, and setting up ambushes to quickly dispatch troops or emplacements before they even knew what hit them. Especially when not using the most OP gear in the game

[@dondamage2803]

Bro that game genuinely has the best vibe of being an insurgent strike team I've ever experienced in a game, pulling up on strong holds, completely outnumbered and under armed but having the element of surprise and just shell shocking tf out of everything there and disappearing, it's beautiful

[@brayden6876]

@@dondamage2803 it does it in a way that’s so satisfying too. It’s not scripted in any way like the single player insurgent style games. Not that there’s anything wrong with those games, but helldivers (while technically an organized military) are deployed in such small numbers because of how effective guerrilla tactics are. A small element, taking control of an entire sector by sowing chaos and being equipped with the right tools to do so. Yeah, they have airstrikes, orbital support, etc. But four guys can get in, take on an army, and get out sometimes completely unscathed because of careful planning and legitimate tactics that translate well to both in-game situations and genuine real world rules of engagement

[@robjsmiles]

I could see them adding even higher difficulties now that the big 60 day patches made players more powerful. First game had difficulty 15 where it was smart to run and sneak, but you were forced to fight over objectives

[@R3TR0J4N]

totally a great mix genre, gameplay loop and variety was reminiscent of Wildlands and MGSV for how it offer tools and let player's freedom with taking objectives

[@TheWaluigiman1]

It is. Often, a poor team will get bogged down in a protracted fight for a single spot or for some samples. I constantly insist on flanking, falling back and hit and run tactics unless we have absolute firepower or a very skilled team. Sometimes going in, blowing everything up and getting out is the best decision while trying to dodge patrols.

[@bombadt-yt9818]

Now I want a 'war' game where the insurgency/rebellion that utilizes guerrilla warfare tactics against the 'authority', but then the 'authority' also happens to be well versed in guerilla warfare tactic. Guerilla vs guerilla, never seen em before.

[@KRYP-T1K]

Always wanted this as a game.

[@averageuser-k6u]

Bassically a middle eastern coup

[@Tony-nt5zd]

Hell, then you could also have it that there's multiple insurgent forces with different motives and goals who oppose each other and have different outsider sponsors/patrons supplying them. Imagine your Liberation Front partisans are going up against the Counter-Insurgency Task Force to take control of a factory when some assholes from the Cartel show up to demolish the place entirely, and now both of you are trying to keep the place online and not bombed into oblivion but also fighting each other to control the point.

[@chingis604]

should have this as a difficulty mechanic, the better you get, your opponents start to mimic your successful tactics effectively against you, and field a conventional as well as asymmetric force

[@exu7325]

This makes zero sense. A superior force has no reason to utilize guerilla tactics. Guerilla warfare is done by necessity not by choice. What you're thinking of is death squads, but they are just doing state terror, not guerilla.

[@jasonhymes3382]

I noticed in homefront all the enemies seem to be fully masked at all times. Yet another way to dehumanize your enemy and make you feel better about taking their lives.

[@quandeldingle1714]

Also with the game most enemies speak Korean but the have said masks to translate what the are saying to American

[@032_m.alfathcirrus5]

Far Cry 4 is my favourite, the rebels aren't exactly the good guys, at some point they're even worse than the tyrant they're fighting against. That's why they're so unique.

[@plaguedoctorjamespainshe6009]

They are so unique because they appeal to imperial propaganda ? The insurgency being always worse than the one in power is very convenient

[@Weldedhodag]

yeah, it did have a good thing going with the 'no one is the good guy, nothing will change, it'll still be a shithole' theme, I actually enjoyed it. I wound up siding with the drug farm most of the time though because at least they'll have some kind of an economy, even though they aren't making muffins with all those poppy seeds

[@numbersandletters0i608]

@@Weldedhodag Supposedly the joke ending is actually the canon one though. I will say, although I am a certified pagan min supporter, I absolutely despise the modern trend of developers having a canon ending to multiple choice games. It spits in the face of player choice.

[@flamvellstrike141]

My gripe with Far Cry 4 is that they make people too simple. Even real life leaders who leads genocides like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc., they read and wrote a book. Far Cry 4 just boiled down Sabal and Amita to simply as religious extremist and drug lords wannabe. We also don't get to see the side of people outside the war. They could have been a student, engineer, doctors, teachers, mother, but with war going on, they have no other choice to grab a gun and survive. We only get to know key figure people in conflict but not everyone else, the common people, who is as much a victim of the war, and not everyone is an illiterate gun maniac who will simply agree what their leader says. If you like Far Cry 4, then I really recommend Jagged Alliance 3, where you lead mercenaries taking down big bad rebels in a fictional African country. While the game isn't so serious about the tragedy of war, you get to interact with local people and sometimes the game is hard enough that you have take fighting war seriously. I had an absolute blast finishing it.

[@032_m.alfathcirrus5]

@@flamvellstrike141 I'll keep that in mind, another example I have is the Mexican Rebels from Red Dead Redemption 1, if you ever played it, what do you think of them? I really enjoyed their portrayal there.

[@notsostealthmission5184]

Far Cry 5 is actually pretty cool. Although they should’ve had it set in the 70s because then it would make more sense on how they successfully took over.

[@PosterityIslesNews]

cool story but mediocre gameplay

[@nikik5567]

Yeah…in the age of instant communications and viral videos being recorded by everything and everyone, it’s not that believable that a cult could amass anything like the arsenal we see in game. At least not in the US, who despite seeming like the Wild West to the rest of the world, is VERY GOOD at regulating what civilians can get ahold of. One M2? Sure. But a hundred? Yeah no, that’s gonna get feds noticing things even if the cult ain’t walkin around with them.

[@jromero9795]

It would have been interesting then considering all the Vietnam veterans in the area could have been a force you fight alongside with in and of themselves. Would've been very First Blood in that way.

[@fixit9844]

i know you said not to talk about politics, so i'll try to keep my own personal politics out of this, but i really appreciate someone else actually talking about the political implications of why AAA games don't portray guerilla warfare properly. especially in a world like today, where there seems to be non-stop guerilla warfare on basically every continent, it's been odd to me that most conversations about virtual depictions of guerilla warfare, avoid mentioning the social implications behind making your protagonists the guerillas.

[@Zineas]

Lets not forget US Military is actually funding games

[@BullyMaguire42069]

and?

[@ghoulishgoober3122]

By implications do you mean it could be interpreted as the opposite of COD, where instead of encouraging you to enlist in the military or otherwise be pro military, these kinds of games would be encouraging you to join or start a guerilla unit, or be pro-guerilla? I only ask to make sure I understand

[@mr.le-capibar]

​@@ghoulishgoober3122 not exactly. Is just that guerrillas carry a heavy political implication that most of the american game industry isn't gonna show. I mean, you will see American patriotism in many military games. But when you see a Latin American, African, Asian or Arab guerrilla, you'd get a very different point of view of the conflict that pretty much opposes the 'Call of Duty' way of presenting war. Anyway, I really liked the video. Bro is cooking.

[@IncognitoSprax]

The US military funds a lot of games and provides input. It's literally impossible to talk about the implications & history of modern guerrilla warfare without the United States looking deservingly bad at parts, and that isn't good for AAA money. The companies exist to make money and that does happen by taking risks

[@youcantpredictthat]

Oh dude, you've just expressed what I've always thought. I hope Arma 4 will have an insurgency based SP campaign. There's excuse for using whatever weapon you want, there's a variety of tools to use just like in an imsim... and an occasion to tell something provocative.

[@onemorescout]

And Bohemia isn’t exactly in a position where they need to care about whatever backlash they’d get if they made a realistic insurgency campaign

[@HS_Rick]

@@onemorescout Well.... They do kinda work with the military all over the world with their training sims so they kinda are in that position where they need to care about backlash after all.

[@onemorescout]

@@HS_Rick As long as they don’t use a NATO country as the enemy they’ll be fine

[@youcantpredictthat]

@@HS_Rick it's an entirely different entity with different boards and shareholders for at least 10 years.

[@kamikazoo6599]

Don't you technically play as insurgents in base Arma 3?

[@TheHylianJuggalo]

Mainly because of WW2 media and overdramatization of it, people don't understand (to use a Metal Gear quote) that war has changed. After WW2, we sat down and asked ourselves: "If war is inevitable, how do we fight with the **LEAST** amount of death possible to make sure nothing like 160m deaths ever happen again?" The answer was decentralized command and asymetric warfare. If you look at NATO doctrine (and US doctrine specifically), our command structure is incredibly decentralized - squads and fireteams rarely exceed groups of 20. Soldiers are trained and given tools to operate almost completely independently. In essence, every war is a gurella war, where instead of "Battle of X", where casualties, times, and events are clearly defined, the amount of casualties and more accurately HOW those casualties are created, is sporadic - 2 people in an IED here, a drone strike with 50 people there. An F15 intercept with one downed aircraft there, a grenade dropped into a government building by one random guy here. The nature of modern war doesn't give the average person viewing it a "Nice clean picture" like they used to. Wars take longer because of the atomization, and drag on for years. civilians, and even sometimes governments, don't even understand what's going on, or even what the larger goal is anymore because everyone is so detached from the era of flags, formations, and uniforms. War is just a 'living beast" of its own at this point.

[@FalconekL2]

Did you miss the war in Ukraine?

[@TheHylianJuggalo]

@FalconekL2 even then, most of that is still individualized skirmishes. The way that we fight is what i'm referring to.

[@Kazako83]

That's not entirely true. NATO units do not deploy squads and fireteams, they will deploy in platoons at minimum. Which, squads are not 20 men. They are between 10 and 13, usually smaller in practice but 3-4 squads make up a platoon. The smallest units outside of specialized teams that is deployed to a zone is usually a Battalion or Brigade Combat team, which the former is around 1200 and the second is several thousand. Also Battles absolutely do exist? Just look at notable battles during Iraq like Fallujah. NATO also trains for large scale maneuver same with PACT and now Russian doctrine. US doctrine is moving back towards large scale maneuvers, switching from a Brigade system to a Divisional system. Same with Russia, switching from brigades and Battalion Tactical groups to larger divisional formations.

[@nickvercetti3982]

While that may be true in modern wars fighting insurgencies that’s not true for conventional wars like the Ukraine War that have gone back to almost WW1 style trenchs and squad raids on enemy trenches seen in the latter half of WW1 of course the difference is the hundreds of small drones on the battlefield

[@nathancollins1715]

The thing is, that was also the priority of pre-Napoleonic European warfare, to minimize casualties on both sides. This is because every nation in pre-modern Europe shared some amount of cultural, political, and especially religious heritage, and most conflicts were small scale and most likely led by men who were at least first cousins of each other. They considered loss of life on either side to be a terrible tragedy, and their tactics reflect this. Despite the bad reputation it's gotten since the dawn of modern warfare, conventional line warfare is actually an extremely low casualty tactical form. The goal is not to massacre your enemy, but simply to rout them to a less advantageous position where they will be forced to either surrender their arms or retreat. It was also the most effective way to fight on the terrain of western Europe, which was and still is dominated by flat, mildly hilly country covered in farmland with few places to hide a surprise attack. Prior to the advent of total warfare (considered to be the innovation of Napoleon and his military peers), if a given battle resulted in a mere 10% loss of life, it was considered a colossal failure and a tragedy. Neither side wanted this, so a loose set of chivalrous rules of engagement governed the battlefield for most of European history. It's only been the last 200 years or so where mass slaughters have become the norm, with the advent of advanced technology that enables such mass killing and the incentive of nations to use it and the tactics to match.

[@melc311]

Arma 2 Freedom Fighters scenario is exactly that. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being a small group fighting a larger foe that can squash you with overwhelming firepower. Furthermore, due to a bug, it was nearly impossible to actually win.

[@HelghastStalker]

What was the bug?

[@melc311]

​@@HelghastStalker Some objectives couldn't be completed and the mission ended after a time limit.

[@HelghastStalker]

@melc311 was it ever patched? Either officially or by the players?

[@Warmaker01]

There's a lot of real world examples you can go with. The region of Yugoslavia in WWII was IMO, the largest, most active, and nastiest partisan warfare going on in that war. The German occupation was brutal. The partisans in turn were brutal. The German reprisals in turn became even more brutal. The worse the German reprisals got, the partisans got people to support them. Eventually partisan support was so widespread and so strong that they were eventually able to take on full fledged German divisions in open combat. They even got an air force. As for Andor with Luthen sacrificing his own people to protect a source? WWII has examples of that, too. The British had great intelligence sources and code breaking going on against the Germans. But sometimes the government and by extension the military would have to "fail" on purpose every now and then so as to not let the Germans get wise that something is going wrong. They did not want the Germans to change up their system of codes and operational security. The sort of stuff that Churchill had to be advised of to allow to happen. Think of it from a German's POV. If *every* one of your operations has issues, it looks like your security has been compromised. You would then take proper action to change everything up if you knew full well that the enemy can read everything you're doing.

[@simonnachreiner8380]

Tito used to walkthrough villages conscripting everyone who could walk and hold a rifle at gunpoint. He was able to do this by telling them that the Germans would liquidate the village for harboring partisans. Asymmetrical warfare was the worst creation of the second world war by far. It brought suffering to people who didn't know why, and just wanted the war to be over. Partisans create crackdowns, crackdowns create partisans and before you know it kids are being executed in the streets as partisans are hanging women from street lamps for "collaborating" for an extra loaf of bread.

[@Sir-McKnight]

@@simonnachreiner8380 What a very privileged take. You make sound like people should never fight back against their oppressors and just roll over and wait to be liberated because it's "a vicious cycle"

[@kamarulariffin3093]

​@@Sir-McKnightYou've put into word what I've been trying to explain to myself as to why I'm disgusted by this type of argument

[@FortuitusVideo]

I've never understood why Westerners REFUSE to create fictional worlds with a modern technology level. It would be perfect for this concept. Oh no, the Kingdom invaded the Republic, liberate the Capital! Seems like every other anime can do this. But DC created Gotham and Metropolis and then no one else was allowed.

[@Ashraf-Hrira]

world with modern technology will strike similarity to real life and will strike similarity to the west and their allies being the bad guys that invade other people under lies and propaganda and demonize those people who simply fighting for their rights and freedom all to steal their resources and lands

[@Minnesota_Fatts]

A lot of it has to do with the coming of fourth and fifth generational warfare in the shadows of nuclear deterrence and international trade agreements. It’s led to a fallacy that an invading force _can not_ succeed in conquest because the UN or NATO will strangle the fight out of them. And then Russia invaded Ukraine, and look where that’s taking us.

[@JohnKobaRuddy]

Harran Villedor To name but a few. And that's just dying light a polish game.

[@fish_birb]

Ace Combat did this but the devs are Japanese, lol

[@SammEater]

Ace Combat does that too.

[@speartongamer6080]

“An insurgency doesn’t have to win, it just has to not lose.” Some US Army Ranger.

[@SusCalvin]

The communists in Cuba believed that was not enough either. The goal was to reach a point where they could fight a conventional war with the Batista government and take cities. A lot of insurgent groups are contained. They sit in the highlands, tax a plot of land but aren't near capable of contesting a state stronghold like an urban area.

[@DJ_k3bab]

"The strings cry for those who have stopped bothering to" Is a HARD ASS quote

[@javontaerucker5552]

bro fr i was looking for someone noticing that

[@aurothelarper]

Imagine a guerrilla game like XCOM 2, but you're not fightning nameless and faceless one-sided alien invaders, but a complex organic human political faction; where each of your decision falls on the morally grey theme of assymetrical warfare

[@TheButterAnvil]

Phantom doctrine is kind of like that, but I agree with the sentiment

[@aurothelarper]

@@TheButterAnvil Kinda, but I don't remember seeing any moraly grey missions like kidnapping, torture, or straight up public bombings (kinda like you see in Xcom2)

[@Hy93Ri0n]

So Jagged Alliance if it was serious instead of a parody? That could work

[@TheInsomniaddict]

A couple games' stories sort of remind me of this. Both Command and Conquer (as NOD) and Homeworld have you playing as an underdog faction attempting to fight a much greater foe, sometimes needing to make morally grey decisions to win. Focusing more on morally grey and alternative methods of control, there's Orwell and Interrogation: You Will Be Decieved. There's also Fable III where you fight against evil only to maybe become it yourself. The closest games that match what you're looking for I can think of are Satellite Reign (itself based on the 90's game Syndicate) and Brigade E5. Satellite is cyberpunk and doesn't really question your morality but will get you doing some underhanded things. E5 might have you deal more with the consequences (could never get too far in it). Terra Invicta also plays this pretty well, and while it's closer to X-Com Apocalypse it does focus a lot on undermining other human factions.

[@williamarthur6644]

While I absolutely love XCOM 2, always felt the story and premise was a bit of a cop out. They wanted to have stealth and guerrilla warfare, which was a great direction to take the game in, but to do so XCOM canonically "loses" which completely disconnects you from your actions and achievements in the 1st game. I always thought a better route to go was that the XCOM organization essentially becomes EXALT from Enemy Within. They have exclusive access to so much advanced alien technology, you're already using this alien tech to genetically and cybernetically modify your soldiers in the expansion. It makes sense that XCOM might become corrupted from within, decide that they should be the ones to determine humanity's path forward, "for the greater good" and all that jazz, and then you can have Officer Bradford, The Commander and the rest of our cast defect from XCOM to lead a resistance movement against XCOM's new world order. Since you begin as poorly armed, poorly equipped guerrilla fighters, this is how you can hand wave not having all the best weapons and tech right off the bat. Gotta make use of whatever you can get your hands on. Heck, you can even reveal that XCOM is working with the aliens, thus you get all your classic enemies and fan favorites from XCOM 2.

[@meatmanmagoo]

Master Chief is a good choice for this considering bro was made to fight human insurgents and the Covenant just so happen to appear at the same time.

[@mihailosaranovic5444]

Anyone remember Red Faction Guerilla? I like the concept of causing mayhem, destroying symbols of power and aiding the civilians in order to build up popularity and erode EDF control. It even aged well.

[@varuug]

The destructible environment was fun. If you get lost, you can break walls to make a path.

[@SpoopySquid]

The RFG sledgehammer is still one of my favourite melee weapons ever

[@wewoweewoo]

did you know it got a remaster a few years ago

[@j.trades9691]

In 2125, I was on a mining colony....

[@equesvulpes9686]

Ubisoft could easily do a good insurgency game if they kitbashed ghost recon break point, and watch dogs legion. you just have to introduce one small mechanic they don't have. I remember watching two interviews with people that were participating in the troubles of Ireland (in a documentary on youtube by Tieran Freedman) One I.R.A., the other R.U.C. to make it brief, both man joined while the conflict was ongoing, and both of them joined because the other side made something that killed innocent civilians. In other words, if the conflict would have not have happened, these people would not start it, but they will perpetuate it if its already ongoing and something terrible happens. if we were to vulgarize this in gameplay terms: you start with your rag tag group of revolutionaries, and depending on what actions you take, the public opinion either hates you (if you kill civilians on the higher end, or make some people lose their job on the lower end), and recruitment on the enemy side skyrockets, or you play well, and don't make any mistakes making the populace think you're not so bad as the news would imply. there is another thing though. you could trick the enemy into doing a mistake: escalate the violence at a protest until someone gets killed by riot police, run away from a tank by going next to a school where the gunner might miss and cause a tragedy. even outright scummy stuff like false flag operations who would be a super good payoff, but if discovered to be such creates a massive reversal. in the CIA manual on Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare that was given to the Contras in Nicaragua. the Narrator keeps saying that there is no such thing as a "Guerilla" there should only be "propagandist Guerilla", because there is no point in shooting the enemy if there is no attempt to convince the population that you are better than the people you shoot at. so they encourage the guerillas to help the people in their day to day life when passing through a village. because no amount of propaganda can influence someone that a person they mentally tagged as being a good guy can be a terrible person.

[@TheButterAnvil]

This is another plot in andor *Spoilers* Part of the motivation for a robbery committed in the first act of the show is to force the empire to impose crackdowns, which in turn creates more support for the rebellion. He intentionally baits The empire into upping the oppression, and puts aside the human cost in order to help cause

[@Dachnik228]

Assuming that Ubitrash can make decent games anymore

[@equesvulpes9686]

@@Dachnik228 I can save the company UBISOFT!!! MAKE ME THE CEO OF YOUR COMPANY, AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!

[@RealGameriel]

This is a pretty damn good video on how video games tend to sanitize warfare to make it far less complicated. good stuff. Also, love the fact that you bring up ArmA 3 Antistasi, every time I go and play a AAA game that does the "guerrilla warfare" thing, Im always reminded of just how much better Antistasi does it.

[@thegamingshiba]

Antistasi definitely has a feeling no other insurgency or resistance themed game has. They could absolutely break off from Arma 3 and create their own game with it.

[@TheInsomniaddict]

@@thegamingshiba Except I bet they'd get canned/raided/sued pretty quickly if they did.

[@thegamingshiba]

@@TheInsomniaddict why would they? it's not like they are stealing any property from bohemia interactive or taking ideas, they thought up and made the mode using the arma platform.

[@TheInsomniaddict]

@@thegamingshiba I'm not saying Bohemia Interactive would come after them, but Western media and society. Think Mother's Groups Against Violence or some other hand-wringing organization that would pop up after it's attempt at release.

[@tarettime9392]

Home front 2 had some of the best forcing you to hit and run mechanics in a game I’ve ever played. I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I wanted to like conquest the game kill all the bad guys on a block and this is ours now kinda of thing. But if you hangout in an area after attacking. You die. End of story. You have to run because there are more of them and they will overwhelm you.

[@prarambh1589]

Damnn looks like my kind of game. I love dying lightfor that it's does matter how many weapon and skill you have you always have to retreat for survival.loved each and every environment story telling.does homefront have Good gameply?

[@DiVoMeR_BG]

@@prarambh1589 Give it a try, i have 100% it and it's certainly a game worth playing. It isn't like 10/10 best game ever but it still holds. For the gameplay, you have your modern basic stealth and shooting, the thing is you can customize your weapons on the fly. I mean you now have pistol, press a button it is now an SMG/LMG/Sniper/silenced/shoot explosive roundc etc, it is fun. Keep in mind the multiplayer is DEAD, 200% DEAD. The game is now on sale on Steam until Nov5 for 3$ base game or 6$ for the whole Homefront collection(2 games + DLC),

[@daisnowsn2369]

Often the Difference between a freedom fighter, and a terrorist depends on what side your on of the conflict. Now obviously their actions matter as well, but in most cases there is so much propaganda by the Stronger force, that you will only hear of the evils they Commit, or if there is not enough evils, then make something up or, misconstrue their actions to something worse than they are. while also not down playing any of their evil actions, or removing them from the media entirely. crazy times were living in. good on you for bringing it up, and I cant wait for Arma 4 so we can liberate one something that actually looks and play well, lol.

[@2411509igwt]

It gets even more complex when other countries and organizations have a vested interest in an internal conflict, and when does that NOT happen?

[@letonyzur6284]

indeed, information warfare is an important and often forgotten part of any conflict.

[@Kazako83]

@@2411509igwt Yeah pretty much every successful Guerilla group was backed by a nation. Most Guerilla's fail throughout history, the main ones which succeed were backed by nations. North Vietnam, China and the USSR backed the Vietcong, WW2 Partisans were backed by all side's conventional forces, Mujhadeen were backed by America, China and Pakistan etc... The Taliban are kind of a unique exception.

[@xShurax]

@@Kazako83 "The Taliban are kind of a unique exception" and "Mujahideen were backed by America" don't really match up here - Keep in mind that the Taliban are, to the very least, an offspring of the Mujahideen, so they were backed by the USA as well. While obviously not being backed by the USA afterwards, it's not like all the help the USA, and other nations, provided just vanished. The tactics, logistics, weapons, etc. were all still there. All the Taliban really had to do was to learn from the US and Mujahideen's learned tactics and learn a way to counter them.

[@saber2802]

I've often considered the American Revolutionary war to be a civil war or sorts

[@Duck1en]

13:28 Far cry 6 is when the protagonist is convinced to fight with two words to commit violence in first 2 minutes of the game

[@acfan9384]

I enjoyed the game, but it's definitely my lowest rated farcry for gameplay reasons

[@meowcow21]

In Far Cry 3, you burn down a weed field with a flame thrower, getting high off the resulting smoke while Skrillex plays in the background. You shoot enemies from a moving car with an infinite ammo grenade launcher while shouting movie quotes. You mow down scores of enemies with a machine gun from a helicopter while ride of the Valkyries play. And with all that, it's still not nearly as XD quirky as far cry 6 because it takes itself seriously between all that, and the fun goofiness of that game serves the plot just as much as it entertains the player. The game knows how to pull you and the main character back down to earth unlike far cry 6 where all the violence and quirkiness is never acknowledged or addressed

[@INSANESUICIDE]

I found some of those segments amusing, but dislike this constant punchline and joking, I cannot take something seriously like this. While something light and funny can be good and entertaining(borderlands) something cannot serious and immersive enough for me if there are too many jokes(MGS). I've enjoyed all the aforementioned titles for different reasons though.

[@kentleighenglish1388]

That's because Jason is in his element when burning down fields/men and getting high; he's loving it. The seriousness is in the reaction to his friends seeing him become a sociopath. FC6 was so goofy it made the entire plot seem completely dissonant.

[@Calisthenics_Warrior]

Far cry 3 is a perfect example of ludonarrative harmony, which mean the gameplay is aligns to the story, as you progress in the story Jason becomes more terrifying and you start unlocking new Tattoos that allows you to kill enemies more brutally

[@thuranz2773]

@@Calisthenics_Warrior yeah. In my opinion, Far Cry 3 is the story of a tourist's descent into madness and depravity as you more or less develop into the Yautja from _Predator_ minus the sci-fi weapons.

[@FuryanJedi13]

​@@thuranz2773That's a pretty cool way of looking at it! Accurate, too.

[@derekmensch3601]

I was gonna bring up Antistasi as a good representation of Guerrilla warfare. Then I saw footage of it.

[@mahatmaghabdu7592]

IDK if its him in the gameplay or not but he might be the worstarma 3 driver ever 21:55 for the evidence

[@derekmensch3601]

@mahatmaghabdu7592 thank god you Don't play with me then. I took a left turn missed the road and straight into a building

[@cvbrocks5975]

Weve all hit a random small rock or bush in that game, come on​@mahatmaghabdu7592

[@kekistanimememan170]

21:14 the only downside to antistasi is you can kinda cheese it. But you can choose not to. It’s kinda sportsmanship on the players part to play ‘correctly’ not like it matters to much your fighting ai after all.

[@saber2802]

and the AI is pretty stupid too in some cases, even in combat.

[@onemorescout]

Holy shit another Homefront enjoyer I didn’t even think there were any others

[@icarusgaming6269]

I almost forgot about it until he brought it up

[@chrislair6832]

We're around. And he didn't even mention one of the coolest parts of the whole game, attachments and gun modifications. I understand why he didn't know.Doesn't really go with the video

[@Nomad-bl4yw]

Never played it but i might now

[@utubecop11]

I JUST finished Homefront: The Revolution's DLC. Finally decided to get it done after all this time. It's rough as hell but I appreciate that it exists.

[@onemorescout]

@@utubecop11 Beyond The Wire is SO GOOD, and maybe the game would’ve been better off and easier for the devs to make and polish if it followed the Crysis style of an “open linear game” that the DLC did

[@NoName-ym5zj]

Comparing Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-man was weird, they have completly different goals. One is supposed to put you into the shoes of a samurai fighting against great odds and overcoming challenging opponents while the other is a power fantasy that's supposed to make you feel like an epic superhero. And WOW, Homefront actually sounds awesome!

[@WiidLover]

Yeah, sort of feels like a comparison that was made just because those are (were) both PS exclusives, the Batman Arkham games would have been a better example with how the games also signal to you when to strike.

[@NoName-ym5zj]

@@WiidLover yeah, Batman even uses Spider-man's spider-sense symbol for that lmao.

[@jayphillips4167]

Good point but at the same time they are both essentially the same game with different stories and nuances.

[@BlackSmokeDemonOG]

I feel like when I hear people talk about the mortar in far cry 2 and the sighting.They always forget about the smoke rounds that you can launch to mark where it's going to hit

[@TheButterAnvil]

@@BlackSmokeDemonOG ngl I didn't unlock it 😶‍🌫️

[@BlackSmokeDemonOG]

@@TheButterAnvil tsk tsk

[@BlackSmokeDemonOG]

@TheButterAnvil i got too deep into the ambush convoy side missions, i guess.

[@Johnhamsta]

The real kind of war AAA gaming falls to get across is the human cost in suffering. Like sure, you *see* it, but the player doesn't live it.

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

Aren't there games like This War Of Mine that show the human cost of war? Hell, Fallout can be used an example of it, as you tromp around the ruins of a world devastated by nuclear hellfire, seeing the myriad of corpses and literal skeletons all across the hellscape of what was once America.

[@Johnhamsta]

@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460 This War of Mine did focus on the human cost, but isn't a major studio game on the level of Battlefield or Call of Duty. The dehumanizing of enemies in games like Fortnite contribute to the disgusting ways people think of others as disposable sources of rewards.

[@cheeplethebulldog1420]

While more medieval and less seen, Skyrim also shows the effects of war outside of the battlefield. Many people are torn apart over the civil war happening, businesses either not getting any help, forcing to close down because their customers died, or having to work overtime due to the war, sins committed by both sides, rushing from behind lines, where work ends up getting sloppy, an enemy nation wanting to take advantage, and many more casualties, who often were never involved to begin with.

[@DazedCanadianYT]

Thanks so much for the kind words brother :) Let me know if you’d ever like to play!

[@UrielSales]

small shoutout to red faction guerrilla, when you're midfight civillians might snap and join the guerilla right there and thats cool.

[@TheButterAnvil]

I didn't know that that's very cool

[@varuug]

Black Flag has townsfolk disrupting aggressive soldiers in some locations.

[@nercksrule]

@@varuug My favorite aspect of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was the part of the game where you're actually establishing a sect of Assassin's in Rome, and recruiting others to join your cause. Every now and then, you'd make too much noise and the Borgias would launch a raid on your safehouses that you'd need to repel or you'd lose both the location and the people who operate from it.

[@FearRogue9]

My head Canon for far cry 5 is that your rogue cop that suffered massive brain trauma after falling off that bridge. That's why the latex black gloves are called Wall of death.

[@worldburnerbreadman7886]

Another thing i like about farcry 2's factions which i noticed although i think its just ai is that the npcs act different depending on their specific faction, the militaristic factions use strategy like spreading out and cover while the militia factions use untrained strategies like charging and rushing positions; anytime the militias go against the trained ones they usually lose depending on numbers

[@TheButterAnvil]

That's cool. I hadn't noticed that, but I think you're right

[@sporkionsuz-beero4744]

This is why I always LOVED Crysis games. They have DNA of guerrilla warfare but make it so one person actually makes an army. A one person who can see through walls, go invisible for a duration, go invincible for a duration One moment here, one moment there. Hit and runs. Sniping. Heroic stands with armor mode only to end with taking a close call hide. And go invisible to relocate. Going invisible acting as individual agents of an insurgency.

[@stormsurge2103]

One weird, but good, insurgency game is XCOM 2. It’s a turn based RPG about the resistance against an alien occupation, you start the game with assault rifles and football pads, and you end it with power armour and particle cannons. That is if the aliens don’t get you first.

[@sodium7127]

RNGesus is the true enemy in this game

[@SioxerNikita]

It's not really a good insurgency game. If it was, you would be able to finish most objectives with little to no kills, or be able to do more hit'n'run, but you aren't really able to do that, due to the mechanics of the game, and the objectives in the missions being mostly some variation of "Kill all the enemies".

[@crumply5959]

I love how many creative ways you can finish a mission in mgsv

[@chumbucket9442]

Playing fc6 I was in awe of how psychopathic the people im meant to be working with are. Like god damn we are causing carnage try not to look so happy about it.

[@joshuagunderson6593]

I remember even back when this came out thinking about how ridiculous the whole “NK invaded and occupied America” thing was. Party due to how stupid the idea was (at least make it some alliance of Russia, China and NK or some shit) and the fact that we had just done this irl to Iraq lol.

[@icarusgaming6269]

What game was it where they did the alliance thing..? Like they couldn't decide on just one Eastern authoritarian villain, so they went with all of them

[@joshuagunderson6593]

@@icarusgaming6269 Frontlines fuels of war (which oddly enough predicted the current situation with Russia/Ukraine and a potential world conflict oddly well). Also bf2142 and COD BO2 kinda

[@joshuagunderson6593]

I guess Arma 3 also

[@icarusgaming6269]

@@joshuagunderson6593 Frontlines, that's the one!

[@nathancollins1715]

​@@joshuagunderson6593It didn't predict anything. Russia and Ukraine have been going at it since 2014, only a year after the release of Frontlines. In 2013, talks of Russia potentially invading Crimea were a hot button issue, so it only makes sense for the game to capitalize on it.

[@Fux704]

I'm reminded of Red Faction Guerrilla. The in-game manual actually teaches you about insurgency, and the missions are brutal. You even assassinate civilians (business leaders) because they collaborate with the government. Also one of the best map destruction mechanics ever. But of course it's not a "grounded" or realistic game by any means.

[@PatrickDaye]

The game really deserved to have Guerilla in the title. Many missions consist of rushing in, blowing shit up and running away. They really created the feeling that the EDF runs everything, if you hang around to finish off a few, more soldiers will just keep arriving. (Unless you cheese the AI by hiding from the soldiers)

[@Joe-po9xn]

“Yet the automatic musket exploded in me hands! Drew my pistol on the last rapscallion. Tallyho lads!”

[@Garthaxius]

Generation Zero deserves a mention, although the game has changed dramatically since first release

[@tanker00v25]

How so?

[@Garthaxius]

@@tanker00v25 if I recall correctly it was envisioned as more of a survival game, and it's transitioned to more of an action shooter

[@someguy3763]

The most compelling ‘insurgency game’ I’ve played in the genre of strategy was a Star Wars Empire at War mod called “Awakening of the Rebellion”. It fractures the Rebel’s start and makes it even more asymmetrical as you start with a fleet fractured across 3 parts of the galaxy, little to no economy, and a prayer. Granted it’s an RTS game so a lot of the decisions you make are more ‘grand’ but it was still way more interesting than the usual of just being able to turtle to amass a bunch of resources and go painting the map like normal. I had to make a lot of sacrificial decisions, even much later down the line when I finally had an economy and a unified force, because you can’t protect every front against an Empire with near limitless resources.

[@ogPunkcln]

Playing Antistasi with radios mod, with my friends was one of the best gaming experiences I've had. Coordinating an attack on a base, radioing a distant teammate driving a loot truck back, and even messing about in the HQ are so immersive, fun and actually kinda chill. Cant recommend enough if you game on PC.

[@TylerPal271]

One way I think a game portraying guerrilla warfare could be made tolerable for a western audience is to add an Order vs Anarchy system. Similar to the Blue (Good) vs Red (Evil) choices of Infamous the player would be given a choice to either push the civilian populace towards a calm, orderly, and peaceful protest or a violent, chaotic, and anarchic riot. This would affect the story because Order players would have easier access to high end upgrade materials and non-lethal munitions, but they'd have a harder time getting the more destructive weapons that deal big damage or clear out groups in a few shots. Anarchy players would be the opposite with their arsenal being able to expand quickly, but they would have a hard time getting upgrades.

[@AdamNichols-pb5jj]

Why would the order people have less access to high explosives? That doesn't make logical sense, most governments in modern times have just bombed any opposition to death. That is currently how it works. I guess you're just trying to find a way for the Order side to be morally less questionable, lol?

[@xShurax]

I'd argue that an "order vs anarchy" system would also be a kind of whitewashed version of what insurgencies really are. Insurgencies are, by nature, violent uprisings where the use of guerrilla tactics is "only" really a necessity. The fact you can have a "calm, orderly and peaceful protest" would suggest that insurgencies aren't necessary because there's still enough hope in the protested thing (Be it the government, another political instance, or a company) to have a change of heart. This would, imo, just mean "If I can lead the masses towards a peaceful revolution, it's not a guerrilla warfare game" and the other route would mean "Fuck the masses". I think the "Hearts and mind" system mentioned in the video should be picked up though - That way, you're not stuck into a "peaceful vs violent" gameplan, but more of a "Convince the masses to support your cause". Any other option to it would, imo, not work. An insurgency without the support of locals doesn't last long, as there would be no means to support themselves at all, unless you'd take outside help from other countries and private people into a game as well, but even then, if that insurgency would win out, the support of the people would still not be there, which might lead towards another insurgency. The "peaceful vs violent" approach could still be a mechanic inside of a more open world game though - Having to go around helping locals, Using Graffiti and Propaganda posters to stirr up more unrest, participating in peaceful protests, etc. on one end, while planning for insurgency attacks in the underground.

[@TylerPal271]

I hear what you're saying, but the idea behind my system is to have "Order vs Anarchy" as well as "Hearts and Minds". The "Hearts and Minds" would be public support for the Insurrectionists of the Freedom fighters or the Enforcers of the Occupation Armed Forces with public opinion being based on whether the player is playing with Order (not shooting civilians AT ALL, minimizing collateral damage to non-military building, facilities, and/or infrastructure, and trying to take out enemy forces non-lethally wherever possible EXCEPT for High Value Targets like Officers, Political Leaders, etc [basically doing a Low Chaos run in Dishonored]) or Anarchy (just going in guns blazing all the time without care or consideration for non-combatants, killing everyone/anyone that gets in their way and just lobbing grenades and firing RPG's like sniper rifles [High Chaos run in Dishonored]). Order players would get the support of the public and have civilians help them stay hidden in a crowd, and they'd also get aid from people in positions of power and authority (a quartermaster/warehouse supervisor might "misplace" part of a shipment of weapons, ammo, and attachments or a political leader might delay the deployment of things that would make stealth and infiltration harder, etc). On the other hand, Anarchy players would have civilians calling for the Enforcers if they are seen making stealth borderline impossible, and the people in charge would be doing everything they can to make the player's efforts to stay alive as hard as possible (including getting the Occupation Force to agree [begrudgingly] to let civilians carry weapons so they can kill the player on sight if you have a high enough Anarchy level/rating).

[@xShurax]

@@TylerPal271 But how would that make any fun for someone that wants a violent insurgency? It would basically just force people to play into the whitewashed "order is good" idea. In the matter of insurgencies, "order" is inherently a bad thing, because it suggests surveillance, police control, censorship, etc. More personal but, I also would like to disagree with your usage of anarchy. I know the mainstream usage of the word, but if it's about insurgencies, we should just stick to its' real meaning, since anarchy doesn't just mean chaos, lawlessness, violence, etc. But, for gameplay, imo, this would just be softcore propaganda for oppressed citizens to not rebel against their oppressor, because order is good and their oppressor will make sure that order is in place.

[@SioxerNikita]

@@xShurax Anarchy doesn't mean chaos, lawlessness, violence, etc. but that is usually what anarchy devolves into, because humanity's inherent want for order and leadership.

[@spdbx]

I’m so glad you shouted out Dazed, he really is next level

[@Pattex_]

before i even really get into the video i have to take this opportunity to say Far cry 6 had all the bones to tell a really good story about guerillas and civil war, but WOOOOWWWWW did they disney that whole premise

[@thetrashiestmann]

There's a lovely little indie game that went into a basically open beta recently, it's called The Forever Winter. Highly recommend it, but the game's whole selling point? "You're not that guy." You play a random, ultimately meaningless scavenger in the middle of a titanic, world-shattering sci-fi war between three factions just trying to survive off what you can grab off the battlefield without getting crushed.

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

It's ass. It's just Spec Ops: The Line, all over again.

[@thetrashiestmann]

@@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460 Out of curiosity, have you actually played the game?

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

@@thetrashiestmann No, but I've seen enough of it to go "Oh, it's just more of the same Spec Ops: The Line brand schlock." .

[@thetrashiestmann]

@@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460 Having played it, I don't think it's schlock nor anything along the lines of Spec Ops: The Line, so I'm wondering what even made you think it was either of those.

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

@@thetrashiestmann It's the obnoxious tone it gives itself of war being bad without anything else to add. Now, mind you, I understand that war is a violent, awful thing, but honestly? I'm so tired of all the games where it's nothing but grim, dark, and edgy and there's nothing fun going on. Besides that, I'd rather play it when it's OUT of early access, rather than wait for it to be stuck in the forever loop of Early Access Hell.

[@Mr_Giggles]

I think the game The Forever Winter also fits this genre very well. You play as a civilian scavenger trying to survive while a giant war is going on. The enemies have massive mechs, tanks and superior small arms and you have to stealth around them and mainly shoot in self defense while trying to loot enough to keep the neutral camps and yourself alive.

[@Mastercheap]

Honestly, any country successfully invading the U.S is ridiculous. Unless you’re a country on south or North America, which usually aren’t known for their military, you would would m have to defeat the strongest navy in the world, the strongest army in the world, deal with the strongest airforce in the world as well as the second strongest (the us navy) And then you have to occupy America, which as almost all of the characteristics to make it as hard as possible to occupy. It’s large, not very densely populated, but still has one of the biggest populations in the world, with more gun than blade of grass. And that without the nuke. You’re not getting invaded any time soon, America, you’re just not. The only way to do it while still making a bit of sense would be alternate history or aliens technology (and cloning)

[@Double-R-Nothing]

Or by floods of illegal immigration, but I digress

[@RomanCigić]

It could happen that USA enters a deadly civil war which causes outside nations to take the oportunity. Divide and rule

[@bigchooch4434]

We've already been invaded, all without a shot ever having to be fired. It's been happening since the Cold War, and we've been occupied for years.

[@TheInsomniaddict]

Or follow the Yuri Bezmenov playbook.

[@Cheesemonkey231]

US invades Canada. NATO has a problem with it. Simple as that.

[@conmancorndog2013]

feeling like the main character for knowing every game, every youtuber, and every video in the video. so peak. there really needs to be more guerrilla-esque games out there.

[@IsaacSchubert]

I remember criticism of the (good) far crys: "This game is trying to make me feel bad for playing it" With their alternate endings showing that things just turn out better if the player chooses to not take action. Maybe that's why they softened 6 into childish mush

[@tj-co9go]

Real life war is extremely stressful, dangerous, agonising, real, painful and which is exactly the opposite of what video games try to do - to entertain, to calm you down, to cheer you up, to take refuge from the real world

[@malasc12]

It's also extremely boring when it's your turn be a gate/tower guard

[@Agrimma69]

Legit the ice mortar that Zack talked about was the first thing that came to mind when improvised warfare came up, then the clip was used and I was like well shit, small world.

[@bigtaco7654]

So 6 of my friends and I played a game called stellaris. One of my friends (whos the best at the game out of us) decided to play guerilla warfare on us. At the start of the game, he declared war on all of us after finding us. He kept sending his ship in destroying resource spots, science ships, construction ships, colony ships, and taking planets with large armies. It got to a point where all my non combat ships had escorts in my own territory. I had large fleets at every entry point. The worst of it was that he was a robot nation that does assimilation wars. Basically, if he destroys your out post and takes over your worlds if they are in the same star system, he claims it, i was also playing this civilization type. Anyways, he went and took key choke points that connected my territory, then ended the war, and as soon as possible closes borders with me, cutting my territory into 6 separated parts. I had to build gateways just to function while i waited to go to war with him again. If anyone is curious, he won the game, with a big a** lead on everyone. He had no allies up against 6 other people, 7 AI nations, and one fallen empire, and he still won.

[@roberthipolito1351]

I wish there was a game solely dedicated to Unconventional Warfare. Not just hit & run guerilla stealth tactics, but proper UW and all that it encompasses.

[@SusCalvin]

Something I like is games where the AI can surrender or retreat. A bloodthirsty AI that constantly fights gives less options. But if you know that a squad at half strength will start to pull back, you can plan for something other than a grind. And if they give up, you suddenly need to decide what to do with prisoners. SWAT 3-4 had an AI that swung between smooth and hiccups. But it did have mechanics for the compliance of perps and civilians. The AI could decide a perpetrator had enough and threw their gun down.

[@airless8310]

its actually crazy that Detroit: become human is in my opinion also a good example of the moral side. (its an old game so i shouldn't need a spoiler warning but ill give one anyway)for example at one point you have two police officers check point stop you after you just talked to them and as you walk away they tell you to wait a sec and the game gives you the opinion to attack and kill them but if you choose to leave them alone you find out that the child robot your with dropped a toy and you almost killed them for no reason

[@SpaceMissile]

11:11 - The bit about letting an ambush happen in order to save your informant's identity is a very real thing in war. absolutely heavy stuff.

[@WillyShankspeare]

Oh yeah, Dazed Canadian is TAKING OFF.

[@TheButterAnvil]

The quality is insane

[@skyanne4850]

Wtf 346 views is criminal, this is an insanely well put together and as someone working on a game im very appreciative of the information in this video

[@saps5831]

It has been just 3 hours right now but true enough, there are 24k of subscribers there should be a lot more views soon.

[@icarusgaming6269]

These often pick up over time. What's your game about?

[@skyanne4850]

@@saps5831 yeah didn't realise when I made the comment lmao, still OP is hella underrated and already bad my sub

[@skyanne4850]

@@icarusgaming6269 huh I sent a reply but must've not come thru. Basically stalker/tarkov mixed with arma and fallout, the map is the entirety of the country of Wales plus a massive portion of west england

[@icarusgaming6269]

@@skyanne4850 That's such a great dreary setting for a survival game. Makes way more sense than setting Assaassin's Creed in the Isles lol

[@Draconic_Savant]

A lot of games start out as promising with their insurgency elements, however their late-game content tends to ruin that by making you into a one-man army. One standout example is Generation Zero. You start out as a civilian survivor in an 80's Sweden as its taken over by hostile machines a la Terminator. In the early game, guns are weak, you are a sitting duck, & you're encouraged to use the environment and tools to your advantage. Use flares to scramble enemy targeting systems, destroy vehicles as makeshift mines, blow up circuit breakers on buildings to shock & temporarily stun machines, use the rain or dark to better hide your movement, target & destroy enemy weapon hardpoints to make fights easier, the list goes on. But by the end of the game, you're running in the open with loads of damage resistance, experimental weapons, automated turrets, free revives, and enough ammo for a platoon. Despite the satisfaction game progression can bring, it can just as easily snuff out the initial draw of a game & dull its gameplay loop into mundane, routine encounters. This is true for other games just the same, including but not limited to the Ghost Recon franchise. The need for games to become progression-based RPG-lite experiences has largely been to their own detriment. A game should expand on what the player is able to use as they progress, but said extra options should not empower the player in the process. If you start as a survivor just scraping by, or as a covert soldier who's outnumbered & outgunned, you should still be that that way by the end of the game. Leave the one-man army stuff for games with that as their selling point.

[@dudeguyrockfan]

Borderlands 2 was a great example of guerrilla and dark fun. You know what your'e getting into as a vault hunter, joining the reformed, kind of, crimson raiders, taking down a mega corpo, all while npcs have thier own intentions such as marcus, moxxi, etc etc, learning the narcissist running the mega corpo has a reason to be so messed up in the end, the building of a character you chose to play as, even the all around idea of kreig the physcho was originally an enemy type turned vault hunter is guerrilla style recruitment, the propaganda on both sides of the "good guys" and "bad guys", hell even the main villain calling you nothing more that bandits, trys to demoralize you, and just flex his power on you.

[@maliciousmobius2725]

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood also had some of the insurection mechanics. With enought founds you were able to buy places and convert them for the use of 3 party guilds (thefs, prostitutes and merceneryes), then some of them would spawn in the general area near their base and could be hired to steal from NPC, dristract the guards or to intercept the enemies that are chasing you. In addition, you can also enlarge the Brotherhood itself, you helping citizents in distress and sending them to missions to level up. You could also signal them to give you support by ordering an crossobow volley or to help you in direct combat. In addition, you were able to buy closed down properties and open them again with the new shops, giving you needed supplices and upgrades

[@Alexey_Konstantinovich]

You can't expect Ubisoft to commit after they cancelled Patriots

[@Unsyncable223]

oh yeah, now i remember that game

[@thefalsegod0]

“It’s your hard drive bro I dunno”

[@TheButterAnvil]

You know I didn't really think about that line

[@biblequotesdaily6618]

fact of the matter is insurgency is a really bad media topic because it is a genuinely scary message for those in control of making said media, and dont want to blatantly give people a proper solution

[@TheButterAnvil]

🪤

[@nercksrule]

I seem to have missed that scripture. @biblequotesdaily6618

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

It's not that they're unwilling to show you it, it's just that it's not something too many people are interested in really fleshing out. They want you to be the hero. To be the person that'll save the entire game and ensure the survival of the species or whatever. Which results in the insurgency concept kind of crumbling apart. If you want a GOOD example of a game with insurgency in it, Command And Conquer: Generals lets you play as a terror group that uses a myriad of sneaky, underhanded tactics, but it's also clear that they get decimated in a straight up engagement and cannot compete against their enemies in the air at ALL.

[@Gunbird416]

HOMEFRONT MENTIONED 🥳🎉🥳🔥🔥

[@ibelieveingaming3562]

Also, being killed by fully automatic rifle fire at point-blank range is actually super fucked up and nobody talks about it.

[@yeetmeme6027]

Those old fnfals with full auto 308 are crazy

[@ibelieveingaming3562]

@@yeetmeme6027 imagine your playing dead because you don't want to get shot and John Calvin Eric Tyler Michael Adam Smith is frustrated with his deployment extension so he mag dumps you thinking your a corpse to blow off some steam 💀

[@ibelieveingaming3562]

@@yeetmeme6027 I'm sorry, I've had this scene in my head for years and I had to tell someone... probably should have told a therapist.

[@yeetmeme6027]

@ibelieveingaming3562 lol playing cod and watching horror anime as a kid has me the same way sometimes I think how violent could I kill someone I hate then realize after how fucked up it is.

[@AgentWashington28]

14:15 *discord ping*

[@Agentekd]

Shit scared me

[@BobBillies]

Ubisoft is the type of company, who has it's arms crossed, has one eyebrow raised while smirking, thinking it's super clever and epically cool, when in reality they are out-of-touch, tone-deaf and cringy

[@keegeebee5392]

Despite loving XCOM Enemy Within, I'd always felt off playing XCOM 2 after it. The mission that made me realize why, and made me quit, was when a mission arose to stealthily assassinate an enemy commander in the field. I successfully snuck past all of the enemies, and made it to the commander, terminating him with a single sniper shot. The objectice then turned to "eliminate all remaining enemies." I completed the ACTUAL objective that an insurrection would want, but if I then extracted before wiping out the entire enemy army, it'd be considered a loss.

[@Keranite]

arma 3's antistasi is decent but certainly not the most realistic. outposts magically get reinforced when you go outside the loading zone, guerilla tactics are only useful during specific missions etc etc. there's a very good mod that is more dynamic, realistic and in which guerilla tactics work better (i.e. enemies need to actually drive trucks to resupply and there is a larger, more overarching command structure) called Vindicta. it's only in alpha and from what i've heard the save system is sometimes fucky, and it might be too hardcore for you but i 100% recommend at least checking it out

[@BlueMAGAsocialist]

Look up Mao Zedong's military doctrine: Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention. Every successful _______ movement has conducted its struggle either by adhering to this exact framework or a similar version of it.

[@cabronasqueroso]

there is this minecraft mod "escape and run parasites", when you play it there is three parts: part 1: you are overpower and you can kill basically any of them. part 2: you have to hide in 1x2 tunnels like a rat, and avoid trigger the scent. part 3: give up the world or do some guerilla shit

[@drunkwendigo2693]

Farcry 2 is one of the very few games that made me feel... Not quite sad but just a little empty when an NPC died. I tried running back to get syrettes but because it was too far, I get the very depressing "buddy abandoned" message in the journal. Same save I actually caused my next buddy to OD on the morphine syrettes. 10/10, would be depressed again.

[@TheItzal11]

Watchdogs: Legion turns the U.K. into a police state... who's gonna tell him?

[@spacedoutliru]

Sent by Dazed. This was really good, still haven't able to spend time messing with arma but it definitely have practically endless potential of any types of combat whether it makes sense or not.

[@emPtysp4ce]

You touched on it, but I'm going to expand on it: it's not just that western studios full of westerners developing and financing the games don't like seeing the tactics used against them during the GWOT era lionized, there's another layer in that if they were to ever actually do so faithfully it might call into question whether America's position and policy in that war and after is actually justified. That's a can of worms no one wants to open: the players don't want to open it because "are we the baddies" is always uncomfortable to think about, devs don't want to open it because they're going to get a thousand angry Christofascist shut-ins screaming at them and sending them anthrax in the mail for being anti-American terrorist communists, and the DoD doesn't want to open it because they're the ones people will be questioning (and they're of course relevant to this, the Military-Entertainment Complex is real, it's why Call of Duty is just Army propaganda ever since CoD4)

[@TheButterAnvil]

🪤

[@t-rex2825]

@@TheButterAnvil 9 (I'm sorry really bored late at night rn, bear with me)

[@gordonfreeman4323]

Very well said!

[@gordonfreeman4323]

@@TheButterAnvil You need to be more political in your videos. Nobody likes fence sitters. Otherwise you are guilty of the same things you accuse AAA studios in this video.

[@casualspawnpeeking3680]

there's really no experience like arma3 antistasi even in pve the stakes are still incredibly high

[@Mj2468lollol]

I dislike your use of AI but I greatly appreciate that you properly credited those whos videos you barowed from. Great job :)

[@TheButterAnvil]

WHAT FUCKING AI

[@Lyonatan]

SPEC OPS: THE LINE may be small scale but pretty much covers the horrors of war

[@crushglobalists8640]

Judging from the title of the video, I thought you'd be talking about the cancelled Rainbow Six: Patriots.

[@KeyboardTarantula]

Master Chief Reading Art of War is my end of the world final play.

[@yaintnopimpdood6524]

bro really set up an emoji failsafe to guard his ego when politics inevitably got brought up in a video about *guerilla warfare*

[@TheButterAnvil]

I specified "lame" Get in the zone

[@mksislive2242]

🪤

[@oliverpohlproductions8291]

@@TheButterAnvil The Auto Zone

[@williamvilleneuve5159]

@@TheButterAnvil 🪤

[@hellomitchell]

🪤

[@conscript900]

Small note. You can modify the parameters for Antistasi to change the minimum requirements for stockpiling and the more new antistasi mods even come up with black markets.

[@pizzapatriot1769]

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your video. It feels like making game mechanics mesh with both the themes/story of a game along with its gameplay is a lost art in modern gaming.