Humanity in Warfare Games

  War is happening at every moment but none of us actually experiences the war. We learn the war from history, news and novels. When war scenes become text in books, frames in films and photos on news, it is reasonable that we become indifferent to wars. We are familiar with weapons, famous armies and outstanding generals in wars, and in the early days we are pursuing the violence and destroy in wars. War means power and war is one of the easiest way to motivate human’s violence, since it includes all the four elements of motives of human violence mentioned by Steven Pinker: Exploitation, Dominance, Revenge and Ideology.

A rebel fighter gestures for victory after firing a shoulder- in the Jedida district of Aleppo, Syria, Nov. 4, 2012. AP Photo/Narciso Contreras

In the early days of war photography, photographers focus on men, power and machine. It is typical to see photography propagandize power of soldiers and triumph of occupying an area. I still remember the moment I saw photos of Japanese soldiers slaughtering Chinese people during World War II and that moment I realized how people become like machines during the war. After decades, when we live in an environment that war is not so close, we started to think about humanity and human vulnerability in the war. The imagery of a soldier helping vulnerable populations or looking vulnerable themselves dominates contemporary photojournalism. These images - some of which are award winners - show soldiers expressing feelings towards comrades or civilians. (Lilie Chouliaraki) Viewing those photos, audience feel more touched and influenced because they show the reality in wars and capturing people as human beings instead of killing machine.

A man points a flashlight towards the body of a Syrian man killed by Syrian army shelling at a graveyard

In Aleppo, Syria, Oct. 13, 2012. AP Photo/Manu Brabo

This particular photo reminds me the game experience in Battlefield 1, carrying my first-aid pack and searching my teammates in the rainy trenches with the same dim light. War in games, as the event players that never experience in reality receives popularity as well as ceaseless doubt and blame. Since counter-strike, war games and shooting games are stereotyped into terrorism happened in middle-east area and the purpose of warfare games has always been tricky.

Video games play a fundamental role in solidifying the spatial mapping of the Middle East as an outpost, a marginal space, a frontier in need of saving, and without moral, legal, or political obstacles of intervention. Not only do games engender spaces where you are able only to kill soldiers, they do so by constructing scenes where there are virtually no civilians present. (King and Leonard)

The topic of contemporary wars has chosen the beating terrorism for years and it even becomes a fixed impression in people’s mind that the purpose of warfare is beating terrorists. In early first person shooter games, with rough graphic and plain rules, players view the game as the game, separating from reality. In the other way, designer’s overexpression on blood and weapons make first person shooter games cold-bloodedness and violent. However, during game play players still find touching moments in those games. When people stand in front of death, even in games, their choices are sometimes represent humanity in real life. Designers figure out cooperation and friendship between players in first person shooter games are tighter than other games. When the cost of finishing a goal becomes life, people cherish on their teammates because they realize the human vulnerability and they realize behind every character is a living person. Warfare is not a simple goal. It is complex and there is no absolute justice side or evil side in real wars.  Therefore, cooperation and humanity become the new topics in fps games.

A player of CT takes the bullet for his teammate who is defusing the bomb

       Battlefield series have been trying to create a new way to narrative wars and they succeed in Battlefield1. Designers use impressive environmental storytelling to make players can feel the human vulnerability. The introduction chapter depicts lives of soldiers during WWI and player views the war as them. Battlefield throw players in the environment with dim light, destructible structures and vivid soldiers around. In the possibility space, designers create a paidic situation. The guidance is no longer a machinery voice teaching players how to play the game and players need to figure out operations by themselves. Players put more focus on the environment instead of the operations. The basic tone of this game is cold, and dark blue. The firing twigs and smoke in the air narratives the scale of war, the screaming and shouting of soldiers bursting in your ear. Heart beat and gasp are super clear and the flamethrower is coming and you can’t beat him. You died, the screen becomes dark read, leaving your name, Hugn Burns 1885-1918 in the middle with a touching sentence at the bottom ”We came from all over the world, so many of us thinking this war would be our rite of passage, our great adventure”. Most games make their characters strong enough in the beginning so that all players can discover operations of the game. It is the first game I played that characters died at the introduction. According to Colin Campbell, developers of dice explaining that the reason they give up the single character narrative is because "We felt that to have one character hopping through those different settings wouldn’t be as immersive or totally respectful to the setting. So we decided on an anthology format; a set of characters with their own more focused stories." The introduction reminds players war is not a game, it is the play of hundred living persons and it is so vulnerable that when you make a mistake, you died. Vehicles in other games are made of strong metal and powerful but in battlefield 1 with the WWI background, they become dangerous and sometimes unreliable. Tanks can break, trapped and destroyed and planes are made of canvas and boards. According to Patrick O’Shaughnessy, the designer of vehicles are intended to show that updated but not so reliable technology

The airplane was a new technology during this period, and these machines had to do a lot of work to fight gravity. To capture that physicality, we focused more on the feeling of weight and drag and how to express that in our planes. If dogfighting with jets was about pressing a button when you heard a beep, dogfighting with these machines is more about maneuvers, speed, and throwing bullets towards your target.

It is no doubt that the mimicary to WWI history is everywhere in the battlefield, from vehicles, to cavalry and manual firearms. In battlefield, it is common to see players use knifes or bayonet to kill enemies since it takes a long time to use those weapons that are not in highly technology. Although there are critics blaming battlefield using so much semi-automatic weapons and the amount of tanks are largely exceed that used in the real WWI, battlefield uses their design to show players that war is not people beating each other with sci-fi technology and characters rarely die due to the strong-metal armor. It is the blurry image when smashing, a deceptive adventure and a human being killing another human being.   

Screen shoot of introduction in battlefield1

The success of developing the space in battlefield including another essential element, diversity. In most first person shooter games, due to the first-person viewpoint, the characteristics and races of the character the player is viewing are often wiped. According to Michael Hitchens, “It may be thought that, with the player’s view and the avatar’s being the same, the avatar’s race would not be often brought to the player’s attention.” Due to the rare game setting with WWI of Battlefield 1, designers can show different races in that war. In the single-player campaign, EA used to rely on a single character, but for Battlefield 1, designers narrative the story by jumping between various characters. We’ve used to Caucasian enforced avatars and Battlefield chooses to use an African soldier as its poster. The prototype of that figure is Harlem Hellfiger (369^th Infantry Regiment). Americans regimented African soldiers into that team and loaned it to France. Instead of suffering from discrimination in America, they were treated equally in French army and received huge honor. Battlefield chooses Harlem as the poster because they want to show that every race WW1 will all shown in the game. Players hear different languages, accents and see different uniforms and color of skins. However, EA DICE still have problems dealing with diversity since they put France and Russia into DLC and the difference between weapons in different alignments is not obvious.

 Another successful design in battlefield to increase reality is the angle, the point of view of players in the game. The limitation of eyesight is an important design in battlefield. The way EA DICE chooses to invoke classic cinematics let players see their characters more than in first-person-view. Players see and feel what the characters are going through, rather than viewing what is in front of their eyes. When players are hidden in an obstacle or a trench, it seems safer but their notice and attention to enemies behind decreases. When players are in the tank, the eyesight limitation is more obvious. Players can only see certain part of the environment depending on their seat in the tank. Similar to the tank, when players are on the plane, they can only see scene in front of their eyesight. The design of eyesight limitation increases the excitement of the game since players never see what is behind them and what danger is approaching, therefore, they will put the same degree of attention to sound, increasing the authenticity of space.

View in tank

       For the environment and game settings, battlefield 1 can be praised as top of fps games, but for the core of game, it still has a long way to go. If the game intents to show the humanity and human vulnerability in the single-play campaign, for multi-play campaign, the goal of playing is simpler: killing enemies and capturing the points. It is actually cruel that if you see an enemy and do not kill him at the first time, you will be killed. Also, there is no voice in the game, which means communication between teammates can only be typing or tacit agreement. In the game H1Z1, communication is one of the most essential part and it is also the part that directly reveals humanity. When a person facing the choice between moral and living, what should he do? It’s a pity that multi-play campaign Battlefield1 does not show that complexity in the war and it is more like ludology, focusing on game skills. On contrary, it is true that during real wars, if you choose mercy to your enemy, the devil waits for you and on this point, battlefield 1 did a good job on showing the cruelty of wars. However, that disobeys its purpose of showing players that “behind every gun is a human being”.

       Battlefield1 achieves huge improvements in its single-play campaign compared with other Battlefield series. It leaves players a space to discover instead of pushing the players to watch a video. The setting design does not only focus on imitation of reality but also the atmosphere and the depiction of living humans. It saves players from mountains of sci-fi and contemporary warfare fps games and back to the complexity of war. It shows players which we’ve been long ignored, humanity and human vulnerability.  

Pinker, Steven. 2013. The Decline of War and Conceptions of Human Nature. International Studies Review 15, no. 3: 400-405.

Chouliaraki, Lilie. "The Humanity of War: Iconic Photojournalism of the Battlefield." The Humanity of War: Iconic Photojournalism of the Battlefield - Society, Media and Science - Research Highlights - Research and Expertise - Home. The London School of Economics and Political Science, 28 Aug. 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Hitchens, Michael. "- A Survey of First-person Shooters and Their Avatars." Game Studies. Game Studies, 3 Dec. 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.

King, Richard, and David Leonard. (2010). “Wargames as a New Frontier: Securing American Empire in Virtual Space” in Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne (eds) Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games. P. 91-105. New York and London: Routledge.

Campbell, Colin. "How Battlefield 1's Single-player Campaign Embraces Diversity." Polygon. Vox Media, 28 Sept. 2016. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.