Bethesda, publisher of the upcoming shooting game Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, has issued a formal response to decidedly informal (and largely anonymous) criticisms surrounding the anti-Nazi game. In doing so, however, the company has made the curious decision to try to absolve itself of particularly political overtones.

The game's latest advertising campaign, which launched this week, appropriates President Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan by using the tagline "Make America Nazi-Free Again." This message could be read one of two ways: as an isolated reference to the game's conceit, which makes players battle through an alternate-universe United States overrun by Nazis; or as a pointed comment about high-profile neo-Nazi demonstrations in the USA over the past few months.

The campaign, unsurprisingly, was followed by vitriolic comments from unconfirmed social media accounts. It's a tactic that shouldn't shock anybody who has followed recent, fascinating studies about Russian campaigns of disinformation and political-bubble exploitation that rely on similar social media actions. One of the most visible anonymous complaints directed at Bethesda, carried by "WTF really" retweets, described the ad campaign as an attempt to "tap into hysterical leftist power fantasy." (To clarify: these anti-Wolfenstein posts do not appear to have a clear connection to Russian disinformation campaigns.)

Games Industry reached out to Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines to discuss the matter, and he had nothing in the way of apology or concession to any of the ad campaign's dissenters. "Wolfenstein has been a decidedly anti-Nazi series since the first release more than 20 years ago," Hines told GI. "We aren't going to shy away from what the game is about. We don't feel it's a reach for us to say Nazis are bad and un-American, and we're not worried about being on the right side of history here."

After explaining the series' premise to the uninitiated—that gamers control one soldier, BJ Blazkowicz, as a one-man-army against a rising Nazi order—Hines tried to dance around the series' inherently charged subject matter. "Bethesda doesn't develop games to make specific statements or incite political discussions," he said to GI. "We make games that we think are fun, meaningful, and immersive for a mature audience."

Unfortunately for Hines' argument, it's hard to imagine any American era in which a violent, gun-loaded battle against a violent, anti-Semitic culture wouldn't reverberate in a political way. Bethesda may simply be astonished that one of the media world's longtime easy-target villains, the freaking Hitler-led Nazis, would ever attract anything that approaches "defenders." Hines admitted this to GI to some extent: "In Wolfenstein's case, it's pure coincidence that Nazis are marching in the streets of America this year. And it's disturbing that the game can be considered a controversial political statement at all."

GI reporter James Batchelor did a great job pressing Hines on whether Wolfenstein II could have made a stronger political point and on comparing Bethesda's latest shooter to other triple-A and indie efforts to push politically charged content in their games. It's a great read all-around. Hines responded pretty carefully on the greater subject, but he didn't seem concerned about losing a few sales to an anti-Nazi ad campaign: "To be honest, people who are against freeing the world from the hate and murder of a Nazi regime probably aren't interested in playing Wolfenstein."

Listing image by Bethesda