Ok, let me first start this off by saying that I am not suggesting RWR should seek to adopt an anti-war message, nor that if it doesn't, there's something wrong with it. As it stands RWR is awesome fun and I don't need it to convey a political/philosophical message.

Having said that - out of curiosity, mostly - while playing, has anyone been struck by an undertone of the wastefulness of war (in terms of human lives)? Especially with the new blood decals, and the body-count for a typical game in literally the hundreds if not thousands, I'm really struck by how these little soldiers are basically just cannon fodder.

I use the term "cannon fodder" deliberately here because that game generated some attention when it was released, not in small part because it was perceived as an anti-war war game. So what this all comes down to is this: If there is intended to be any type of message sent by RWR (or if that's something the developers want to explore at some point), I wonder if it could take some cues from Cannon Fodder such as the increasing number of gravestones on the title screen. With each tiny soldier having a name and occasionally speaking, I think there's interesting potential here, even if it comes through in a mod. I'm not suggesting I want soldiers spamming their life stories mid-battle, but imagine if occasionally friendly (and enemy) soldiers would share personal details while waiting in the trenches or running toward a waypoint?

Anyway, like I said, I'm not campaigning for this to become a message-game. Just wanted to see if anyone else had given this some thought. Regardless, I continue to have a hell of a lot of fun with the game.

While I can not speack for others, I personally am thinking about wastefullnes of human live EVERY time I am playing RWR. Of course - I am having fun, I like to shoot and kill enemies, I love that game. But still even in this all fun I am always thinking things like "If it would be really happening... How many dead..." or "What a stupid way to die..." or even "I can't believe that there would be anything worth all those lives."

I think that's essentially how most people think when playing a war-themed shooter. Unless there is something worryingly wrong with them.

That is a reassuring way to look at it - I certainly hope that's the case. Maybe most war shooters are in fact unintentionally, in one way or another, at least partially anti-war.

When I first saw RWR it really looked like a modern Cannon Fodder mixed with a more tactical shooter. And playing Frostbite in the campaign for the first time certainly felt like an exercise in futility. Personally I wouldn't want anything too heavy handed, but a little more chatter from soldiers in calm areas would be interesting as long as it was varied or uncommon enough to not get annoying.

I think this game in particular provides a new perspective on the wastefulness of war. On average n one session I don't think I witnessed more than 1000 deaths in front on screen, and probably even less than 500 in some cases. But on the first day of the 140 day battle of the Somme, there were 65,000 casualties along a front that was probably less than 20 miles.

I usually don't have any solid comprehension about a number beyond perhaps a thousand or two maybe even into the mid hundreds beyond being able to manipulate symbols and understand their tentative meaning, and I don't think many other people have a comprehension of these numbers like they would have of 4 or 18, much less 65,000.

Judging from talks with Pasik and Jack I don't sense an anti-war message behind their concepts for the game. I think they're focused on fun and the general wackyness of the game in general.


I think you may be looking into the game a bit far.


Example of a game I see as having a slight anti-war message:
Wargame. The campaign for EE shows so many little, pointless, things that result in a world-war and massive loss of life. The fact that the vocal lines for all factions are roughly the same (just in different languages), and one of the common lines for selecting a unit (based on nationality of said unit) is: "This is not my war/Das ist nicht mein krieg/etc./etc." ...

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