Propaganda in Games

Propaganda has always been used as a tool to drum up support during wartime. From advertisements, to posters, to celebrity endorsements. It was instrumental during World War 2 when selling war bonds and ramping up production of supplies for the military. After the United States entered a Cold War with the Soviet Union, however, support for wartime America dwindled. It came to a head during the invasion of Vietnam, which proved how difficult of a battle it became to win over the homefront. We weren't fighting the unquestionable evil that is the Nazis. U.S. soil remained untouched past Pearl Harbor. To much of the public, we became the invaders rather than the liberators. After the Gulf War, the military experienced a deep recruitment drought. Nobody felt in danger nor did anyone feel like there was an immense duty to fight. Then, one day that sense of security deteriorated.

On September 11th, 2001,  four flights were hijacked in a unified effort by 19 people associated with Al-Qaeda: United Airlines flight 175, United Airlines flight 93, American Airlines flight 11, and American Airlines flight 77. At 8:46 am, flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade center in New York City, the core of the city's financial district. At 9:03 am, flight 175 hit the South Tower. In just under 2 hours, the towers collapsed, erasing them from the New York skyline forever. At 9:43 am, flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, home to the United States Department of Defense. Flight 93 was likely bound for the White House, but at 10:03 am the passengers and crew rebelled against the hijackers and forced a crash into a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks killed 2,977 people and is regarded as the largest loss of life from an attack on U.S. soil. The same soil that hadn't been attacked since December 7th, 1941. It was a surprise, a mass trauma event. Time became often referred to as before and after 9/11. Hell, I could ask anyone older than me and they could recall where they were during the event. Nothing could compare to it in the country's history.

An extremist group by the name of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks and the U.S. response was the War on Terror. President George W. Bush condemned the acts and took advantage of a mourning nation. In October of that same year, the Patriot Act was signed into law which expanded the capabilities of U.S. Surveillance, which included the collection of domestic communication like civilian phone records, emails, and texts (107th Congress, 2001). It also allowed for Federal Law Enforcement to extract data and documentation from any organization without probable cause. Much of the act was simply based on perceived threat, meaning they could collect anything they wanted just because you gave them the ick.

Shortly after, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban, a militant ruling faction in the country at the time that had ties with Al-Qaeda. They also targeted Osama Bin-Laden, who was credited for devising the 9/11 attacks. Now, a fun little tidbit about Al-Qaeda is that it was founded by Mujahideen fighters, a group the U.S. funded in an effort to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 80's, during which they postured Osama Bin-Laden, a member of the Mujahideen at the time, as a hero. Which of course left the country in a wartime mess and allowed for said militant faction to take over. It was a common practice during the Cold War. The U.S. did the same in Nicaragua with the Contra Rebels, in Guatemala with the White Hand, in Italy with multiple nationalist groups. Our return to Afghanistan wasn't like these instances, however. We were directly involved this time around and a total of 2,500 troops were deployed by the end of 2001. By the time Bin-Laden was killed in 2011, 100,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Afghanistan (CNN, 2003).

Iraq was invaded officially on March 19th, 2003. Bush launched a self-described "shock and awe" campaign against Saddam Hussein, utilizing air strikes to make way for their deployment of just over 100,000 troops within the year. You may be asking yourself, "what does Iraq have to do with 9/11?" Well... nothing, but national security became a major topic after the attacks. Hussein was a dictator, one with the supposed ability to threaten that security. The administration made many claims to how this would be, the most notable being that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al-Qaeda. The U.S. even sent the Secretary of State at the time, Colin Powell, to present this to the United Nations. Powell would later admit that he had seen no concrete evidence for either cause for the invasion (Doherty & Kiley, 2023). They effectively lied. Shocking, I know. During George Bush Senior's administration, the first Gulf War had broken out with the United States combating Saddam Hussein's regime when they invaded Kuwait and occupied oil fields claimed to be in Iraqi territory. When Iraq was invaded, the war was often dubbed the second Gulf War or at the very least a continuation of it. The invasion received support from many major news sources and experienced a sort of manufactured consent. The most recent example I can think of in terms of similar phenomena is the manufactured consent of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Despite your personal grievances, when mainstream media shows outright support with little reporting to the contrary, it can either convince the public or give the facade that the public agrees.

Between lasting trauma from the 9/11 attacks and the manufactured consent, recruitment to the U.S. military soared. I have heard stories from people that saw the towers fall on tv and then went to join. Eventually, however, it wasn't enough anymore and support began to dwindle as the years went on. Of course, protests against the war existed even at its beginning such as the millions of people that protested around the world in February of 2003. However, more protests occurred over the course of U.S. occupation. Hussein's government was defeated in 2003 and Hussein was killed in 2006, so why remain in Iraq? Bin-Laden was killed in 2011, so why remain in Afghanistan? With the lack of support came a lack of enthusiasm for joining the army.

In 1999, Colonel Casey Wardynski had begun crafting a new recruitment tool due to dwindling recruitment after the first Gulf War. He pitched a video game meant to place the average citizen in the shoes of a soldier and give them a taste of what it means to be in the military. This became known as America's Army. The first game released in 2002 as an online multiplayer shooter, lauded as one that requires usage of the Army's self-proclaimed core values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. The second version of the game would release a year later, a third in 2009, a fourth in 2015, and then all online functionality for the latest installment was taken down in 2022.

I played the third instance of America's Army when I was 14. From my experience, I can definitively say it certainly was a run of the mill shooter. It didn't offer anything different from other games of the genre by the time I had played it. I was an avid COD player, religiously playing through Black Ops and World at War. I also was just getting into Battlefield. Not to mention the popularity of the Halo and the Tom Clancy franchises. There was a wide variety of shooters on the market that covered the majority of the bases America's Army tried to step on. So, how did this game go on for twenty years?

Well, the gaming space was different in 1999 when the game was initially pitched. Shooters were slowly becoming popular with games like Doom, Half Life, Wolfenstein, and Medal of Honor making waves. Halo Combat Evolved would release in 2001 and the first Call of Duty would release in 2003. Many shooters took place during either World War 2 or within a Sci-Fi setting, however, with very few actually taking on modern settings. So, when America's Army came out, it was filling space in a far less crowded section of the market. It was also entirely free. This became the biggest selling point for the game. The Army now had a direct line to the 20 million players that logged into the game over its tenure, a line that has been directly stated to give players positive perceptions of the Army. The game was meant to be attractive to teens 13 years of age and upwards. It was stated to be, above all else, fun which of course meant the Army was "fun." There was even a button in the game menu that would take players right to the recruiting website.

"We want kids to come into the Army and feel like they've already been there," said Col. Casey Wardynski, who as director of the Army's office of economic and manpower analysis came up with the idea. "A game is like a team effort, and the Army is very much a team effort. By playing an online, multiplayer game, you can get the feel of being in the Army."

-Josh White, 2005

However, free games became more readily available as the years went on. Fortnite exploded in popularity. Everyone can access its Battle Royale competitor Call of Duty Warzone. Xbox and Playstation gave out so many games for free to their online service subscribers. Even Epic Games gives out games for free on their platform. After a while the Army saw it as a waste of taxpayer money and moved on to cheaper means of reaching the same audience: Twitch. Branches of the military began starting their own esports teams filled with soldiers. They'd stream, talk about how sick and cool the Army was. It was probably cheaper than funding a game franchise for twenty years considering how expensive and long AAA pipelines have gotten. This, of course, quickly backfired as a combination of online criticism and a measure added to the House Appropriations Bill pushed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez caused them to exit the platform (Gault, 2020). The last video on the U.S. Army Esports Twitch channel is from five years ago.

So, is that it for military propaganda in games? Is it all done? Not necessarily, no. While the military may not be developing their own games anymore, there are still far more instances of games making the military look just and cool. I mentioned earlier that I was neck deep in shooters growing up. Well, these shooters are partially what cranked up my positive perception of the U.S. military. I was a big campaign enjoyer, and many of the shooter stories I experienced involved the U.S. military, or groups inspired by them, being detailed as the underdogs. Take the original Modern Warfare trilogy for example. The bulk of the series details an alternate universe in which Russian soldiers invade the United States in a Red Dawn sort of situation. You take control of a U.S. Army Ranger and make your way through Virginia from defending the middle class D.C. suburbs to the White House. As much as I hate to admit it, between the score and atmosphere, the level where you dash through trenches on the White House lawn and fight your way through the building ended up being very effective in engrossing teenage Jacob. I also played a lot of Mass Effect, which had a hefty adoration for the Navy that I detail further in one my articles:

It's safe to say, I loved the military. Oh, how they were my favorite. I even talked to the recruiters at my High School that would bring in pamphlets and a pull up bar during lunch hours (very cool and normal of the military to recruit in a school by the way). Then I went to college. I started reading more and paying attention to the news. Covid lockdown also brought me a unique amount of free time much like many of us. Slowly my attitudes became far more negative and it was around this time that a new Modern Warfare had been released. This game was to take place in a new timeline, it utilized a new engine, new animations, new gunplay. I was curious! So, I of course played through the entirety of its campaign. 

Throughout the last twenty to thirty years, American shooters have utilized faceless generic Russians or non-descript Middle-Eastern people as their bad guys. So, imagine the severe lack of surprise when the 2019 installment of Modern Warfare did the same. Not to mention, there was a hefty focus on terrorism. You can even play as a CIA operative and a police officer that joins forces with the military, a dream for many of the AR-15 carrying boys in blue, I'm sure. What did surprise me, however, was the games take on real events. There was a mission in which you defend a U.S. compound in a foreign country from attackers. Within the compound are CIA members and US ambassadors. This sounds a lot like the Benghazi incident, doesn't it? That's because it essentially was. There's no focus on the moral implications of having a CIA compound in a foreign country, and the inhabitants of said country thinking "gee I don't like that very much at all." It was simply framed as the U.S. being under attack... in a foreign country... that they are not supposed to be in. This is the crux of U.S. attitudes post 9/11. We are always under threat or under attack.

The most egregious thing within this game, however, was the depiction of the Highway of Death. In the Gulf War, a highway connecting Kuwait and Iraq was being utilized by civilians and retreating soldiers attempting to escape the conflict. The United States proceeded to bomb this highway, targeting the front of a stretch of traffic to create a jam and box people in, then bombing the remaining stretch. It was a horrific war crime as it violated the Geneva Convention through and through. Modern Warfare decided to tweak these events, however. A character who is a freedom fighter in the fictional country of Urzikstan, details the bombing and how it resulted in a major loss of civilian life. The difference here is that the Russians did it. The Russians invaded the country, razed villages, and bombed them into submission. She describes all of this to a CIA operative who holds empathy for her and wants nothing more than to help her people achieve freedom from Russian rule. This is just historical revisionism and a blatant attempt to paint the Military and the CIA forces for good. Ones that are meant to help protect not just the U.S., but the world as a whole. They are just. They are always within reason. They are here to preserve "freedom."

The United States military efforts don't just gear towards bombing civilians overseas under the guise of protecting my freedom, they also do everything in their power to be sure we really believe them. They have a publicity office that provides consultation to media depicting the military and any movie, for example, that uses actual military equipment must be approved by the Pentagon (Lange, 2025). Propaganda isn't just posters on a wall or a veteran on a stage selling war bonds, it's about altering perception. It's, as mentioned earlier, manufacturing consent.

When we play games, it's so easy to disqualify the medium as being "just a game." Gamer-Gaters will complain about "politics" then point to Bioshock, a game that very much makes fun of libertarians, as their favorite. The average person will likely log into COD and just want to wind down after work. There's an ignorance that floats around and to an extent I get a certain degree of it. It's tiring being alive. We live under what is becoming fascist rule. Much of our entertainment has become overtaken by late-stage capitalist influence and American patriotism. I'm just a boy! Just one singular 25 year-old exhausted boy! However, it's so important to recognize when they're trying to influence you. It's important to shut it down. The United States is an imperial machine that will try its very best to tighten its grip on its people, even through seemingly inconsequential means like Video Games. Games are art. They have influence. They hold perceptions and meaning. 

As far as I'm concerned, the United States Military should keep its grubby mitts away from them.

Edited by Marie Bogdanoff

References:

Doherty, C., & Kiley, J. (2023, March 14). A look back at how fear and false beliefs bolstered U.S. public support for war in Iraq. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/

Gault, M. (2024, July 27). AOC introduces measure to stop the military from recruiting on twitch. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/aoc-introduces-measure-to-stop-the-military-from-recruiting-on-twitch/

Lange, K. (2025, May 23). How & why dod works with Hollywood. U.S. Department of Defense. https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2062735/how-why-dod-works-with-hollywood/

U.S. has 100,000 troops in Kuwait. CNN. (2003, February 18). http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/18/sprj.irq.deployment/

107th Congress. (2001). USA PATRIOT Act, Sec. 325. US Government Printing Office. https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ56/PLAW-107publ56.htm

White, J. (2005, May 26). It’s a Video Game, and an Army Recruiter. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/05/27/its-a-video-game-and-an-army-recruiter/55e4745a-5e0d-494a-90f6-cb7abec1f132/