The Heart of Darkness in Battlefield 2042

Great use of the Wasteland 3 soundtrack at the end. Please bare with me on the ride this comment is about to take: John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed he was an “instrument of God” meant to end the institution of slavery in a noble, righteous act of violence. He was executed for treason after raiding a federal armory while attempting to seize weapons to arm a slave insurrection. His actions helped the Confederacy justify their own violent rebellion against the United States in the form of their war to expand and preserve the institution of slavery, or The American Civil War. A folk song was made during the war called “John Brown’s Body” which depicted Brown as a righteous martyr. Julia Ward Howe took inspiration from this song, including its melody and chorus, when writing a song called “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. In addition to having (objectively) the coolest name for a song ever, The Battle Hymn of the Republic used themes of Christian imagery to drive a message of righteous war and noble sacrifice in the fight against slavery as is most overtly evident in the closing lines: “As he (Jesus) died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” This song became the anthem of the Union army for the duration of the Civil War, and is the song from the Wasteland 3 soundtrack played at the end of this video. “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it” That’s what Union General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote in a letter to the mayor of the Confederate city of Atlanta approximately two months before burning the entire city to the ground. After years of the bloodiest war in American history, it was impossible for people like Sherman to pretend that there was anything clean or noble about war. Even war conducted for reasons as righteous as abolition or as fundamental as preventing the collapse of a nation, is still a war of misery and desperation. War is cruelty, but Modern Warfare games never stop trying to refine it. I think that mirage of refinement is some sort of permanent human dishonesty when facing the inevitability of wars to come. Maybe it’s only with hindsight and the taste of War’s cruelty in our mouths that we remember the gritty truth that we could neither palate nor comprehend in peace time.

Growing up in regions that don't have any military culture to speak of It's always a little disturbing to see how war is perceived in media and how enthusiastic some people are about it in both fantasy and reality. Especially, as you said, when imagining a future war.

I feel like the trend of games/movies/books imagining future wars as somehow "cleaner" and more "noble" is a common trend in media. I'd love to hear if any of y'all have some good examples.

Your qoute at 2:28 struck with me, as someone who spent most of their lives growing up in Iraq, after leaving, and despite years going by, a part of it always stayed with me. Perhaps it's the reason why I am joining the military. Thank you for this great video, provoked a lot of thoughts in me

Thank you for your short, extremely powerful videos. Although I'm sure if you make something long form it'd still be fantastic.

It's honestly cliché at this point but spec ops the line perfectly depicts a modern "war" as something brutal and cruel.

War in video games has always been fantasy, future, past, and present. For example, look at any recent shooter game covering US interventions. They tell you so many small unbelievable lies, so that you'll swallow the big ones: that it is possible to optimize a path to victory, that victory in war is even possible, that war involves soldiers and personal agency, and that war is fundamentally fair and just in the context of a balanced gameplay system. No AAA video game has or will ever depict 'modern warfare' because the idealized clean and fair battle is essential to the gamification of conflict. François Truffaut once said that you cannot make a truly anti-war film, because every visual presentation of violence winds up glamorizing it in some way and this is more true in games than in any other medium.

wow good shit