The White Savior Narrative

The problematic aspects of imperialism in such shooters spread from beyond their mechanics and into their embedded narratives. The elements of imperialism in Far Cry 3’s mechanics become even more problematic when seen in light of the player assuming the role of a white male character who comes to the island as a tourist. The player is tasked to battle against the “savage natives” who are doing the bidding of one of their own, a psychopathic and villainous leader. The player’s goal is to liberate the rest of the natives from the oppression of the antagonist. Other shooters like Medal of Honor, Battlefield 3 (EA DICE, 2011), and Call of Duty: Black Ops (Treyarch, 2010) provide a similar rationale to the players, who assume the role of a foreign soldier saving the locals by violently destroying local militia. In doing so, such games feed into the “white savior narrative” and the ideas associated with it—namely that “natives” need foreign intervention to help them resolve their own problems (Hunt, 1993, p. 3). The portrayal of “natives” who oppose the player as “savage” are utterly different from the player in terms of dress, behavior, and physiology, is an example of “Othering,” defined by Phillip Irving Mitchell (n.d.) as “the social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group.” By constructing the indigenous characters as the "Other," such games tend to mobilize easily depicted stereotypes. The Othering of natives is carried out through their portrayal as savages who in need of white European conquest. Here the connotations of the Other are used to justify the player’s inevitably violent encounters with the game’s indigenous people. In addition, while natives who oppose players are portrayed as irrational savages, those who serve players are shown as “civilized” (See: Figure 1, above). The player character inhabits the white supremacist role of the imperialist who liberates the uncivilized natives by killing their hostile counterparts. Here, the difference in the portrayal of natives is based on their affinity towards player character, which supports the imperialist assumption that any natives not subdued under colonial rule are to be considered uncivilized (Hunt, p. 5).

The innate superiority of the player to the enemy is a common trope of FPS games, and helps to absolve their compulsively violent actions. This is represented in the skills and abilities of the player’s character. For example, weapons in shooter games are often acquired by simply walking over them. When this is done, the player character automatically picks up the weapon and equips it. In games like Half Life or Doom 3 (id Software, 2004), the player character is able to immediately equip any exotic weapon they may come across—furthering the white supremacist narrative of white intelligence. Even if the enemy aliens are described as technologically superior to the human player character, this fact is undermined by the imperialist player’s seamless adaptability to the complex technology. By allowing the imperialist player character to immediately use the aliens’ weapons, the game implies that the human player’s technological capabilities are superior. A similar example can be seen in Far Cry 3, where the player uses materials found in the local forests to construct tools like blow darts, which are then used to hunt natives stealthily. In all these cases the player is made to reinforce the white supremacist narrative of imperialism where resources and tools indigenous to the natives’ environment are to be used to control and conquer them. In doing so, these games communicate a white supremacist narrative in which the imperialist player masters native tools and then uses them with a greater degree of proficiency than the natives themselves.

Colonizing the Wilderness

Another way that FPSs portray and reinforce imperialism is by conveying that the environment is as hostile as the enemies. In Far Cry 3, the player is threatened not just by the savage natives but also by predatory animals like tigers and wild boars (who are native to the forests of the island). Likewise, many other shooters set in alien worlds, like Doom 3, Unreal (Epic Games, 1998), System Shock 2 (Looking Glass Studios, 1999), and Half Life (Valve, 1998) represent a hostile environment through rooms filled with poisonous gases and traps. The indigenous people of these game worlds are immune to these dangerous environments while the player is left susceptible, thus reinforcing the hostility of the environment towards the imperialist player and associating the savagery of the landscape with the savagery of the uncolonized indigenous populations. The hostility of the environment is also used as a justification of the violent acts that the imperialist player is asked to perform.

Many shooters formalize elements of hostile environment into gameplay mechanics, reproducing yet another procedural dimension of imperialism. Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2008) conveys the hostility of the environment through the Malaria status effect. Here, the player character contracts a randomly intensifying malaria in the opening cutscene of the game that directly affects their vision and reflexes. The intensification of malaria is represented by the player’s screen becoming blurry and the player temporarily losing control of the character’s actions. By wrestling players’ control away from their character at random points, Far Cry 2 conveys the hostile and alien nature of the malaria mechanic, emphasizing malaria’s connection to the savagery of the landscape and its resistance to the imperialist project.

Malaria is also used as a metaphor by Far Cry 2’s primary antagonist to describe the violence inherent in the continent itself. Though real-world malaria is mosquito-borne, the game characterizes the disease as an atmospheric condition of the landscape. In doing so, the game constructs a racist narrative that implies that once the player’s character contracts malaria their violent actions are attributed to the disease and—therefore, by direct relation—the continent of Africa itself, in which the game is set.

The game equates the constant and violent political strife in Africa with the plague of malaria—the game implies that they both reduce people to primal beasts. Similarly, the choice of setting in the world also helps to further imperialist narratives. For instance, the frequency with which the Middle East is used as a setting in military shooters can be seen as a reaction to political events in recent decades. As game academic Johan Höglund (2008) reflects: “America holds a position strikingly similar to that held by the British Empire of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” However, most of these games depoliticize their narratives by being arguably oblivious to this trend. For example, one of the early exchanges in Battlefield 3 (EA DICE, 2011) involves a friendly soldier commenting on the situation in the Middle East as: “How does this part of the world get so fucked up all the time?” Both the soldier and the player character are unaware that their actions contribute to the unrest in the region, and instead characterize the region as being innately problematic, further sustaining the disconnect between player action and the wider cultural and historical contexts of the game world, as noted ealier.

Both Far Cry 2 and Battlefield 3 absolve the imperialist player of guilt by making their violence a necessary response to an innately dangerous space. Höglund (2008) explains how exotic settings are imbued with negative connotations stating: “A crucial aspect of this representation is that as long as the Arab city remains essentially Arabic, it will continue to attract the military technologies of the West, thus turning the site into a locale of perpetual war.” I have shown here how.

Far Cry 2 uses malaria as a metaphor for violence in Africa, while military shooters like Battlefield 3 use the recurring frequency with which the Middle East is used as a setting to imply that these problems are inherent with the regions themselves. I argue that these games reinforce the imperialist idea that foreign lands are inherently hostile and need to be tamed by civilization (Hunt, 1993).

In order to fully understand the influence of such problematic narratives associated with specific geopolitical struggles within a modern context, it is important to interrogate the role of the military-entertainment complex on the FPS genre.

The Role of Military-Entertainment Complex

For many critics, the primary concern with such military-centered FPSs is their lack of critical awareness of the role played by the military-entertainment complex in the evolution of the genre, and the medium of videogames more generally. It has been written that, “The military-entertainment complex is a concept relating to the cooperation between the military and entertainment industries to their mutual benefit, especially in such fields as cinema, multimedia and virtual reality” (Kang, 2013). The videogame industry’s complicity with the military-entertainment complex has benefited both parties immensely. For the former it has provided publishers the technology with which to market more products and for the latter it has provided an entry-point into the mainstream culture to perpetuate its narratives. McKenzie Wark (2007), quoting former New York Times columnist J.C. Herz, “Most of the technology that’s now used in videogames had its origins in military research. When you trace back the patents, it’s virtually impossible to find an arcade or console component that evolved in the absence of a Defense Department grant” (p. 95). This is significant as Edward Said (1994) points out how culture is among the chief vectors through which imperialism operates, “All kinds of preparations are made for this idea within a culture and then, in turn and in time, imperialism acquires a kind of coherence, a set of experiences and a presence of ruler and ruled alike within the culture” (p. 11). If videogames today form an important component of Western culture, then the military-entertainment complex can be seen as a way through which imperial narratives continue to circulate.

To provide a small example to illustrate how closely the history of the FPS genre was influenced by the role of U.S Military and reflect its history of intervention in global affairs, we need not look beyond Battlezone (Atari Games, 1980), one of the first FPS games (Wolf 25). Atari was approached by U.S. Army to make an alternate version of Battlezone called The Bradley Trainer meant for targeting training gunners. (3) Even today, it is not uncommon for companies to hire former military personnel as advisers on their design team. (4) It is not difficult to see how the depoliticized perspectives of many of the FPSs become embedded in their rhetoric with the role that military entertainment complex has played in the evolution of the genre.

If we come back to the Far Cry series, we can see how American military narratives have seeped into different aspects of the games. In Far Cry 3, one of the chief enemy factions called Privateers are a group of mercenaries who are led by drug and weapons militia and a former CIA agent. They are among the most well-equipped enemies the player comes across in the game, suited in body armor and high-grade military weapons. As it has been claimed by many reports, US military aid to countries particularly in Africa in the form of the weapons trade has only fuelled the geo-political conflict in some countries particularly in Africa. These are the weapons used by the Privateers in Far Cry 3 and it is also reflected in Far Cry 2, where the player is cast as a mercenary who is affiliated with characters involved in the weapons trade.

If we invoke Höglund's (2008) argument that America occupies the same role that the European Imperialists did at the turn of the twentieth century, then it is possible to view the efforts of the U.S. Military, particularly after the Second World War as pursuing an imperialist agenda. These go beyond mere geographical occupation. It also follows the path of providing military aid to countries involved in a geo-political conflict, and also through culture in the form of military-entertainment complex.

By acknowledging the role of the military-entertainment complex in the production of games and the adoption of contexts of historical U.S. military conflicts as game settings, FPSs can be seen to convey a rhetoric embedded with imperialist notions. Analyzing this rhetoric, built into the game worlds and mechanics, helps to further understand the depoliticized narratives found in military FPSs like Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor that we see today. This helps to contextualize the significance of American military aid in fueling the geopolitical conflict through the weapons trade in Far Cry 2 and equipping the hostile mercenaries aiming to subjugate the local Rakyats in Far Cry 3. Through their game worlds and mechanics, these games provide convincing arguments in support of the imperialist project.

Subverting the Imperialist Narrative

Even as they work to depoliticize and conceal the imperialist rhetoric embedded within their game worlds and mechanics, FPS games can be seen as problematic, uncritical portrayals of imperialist narratives and tropes. Some of these issues partly arise from the lack of a critical perspective at the role of the military-entertainment complex in the evolution of the genre, the normalization of violence, and the game mechanics structured around the subjugation of indigenous peoples and acquisition of territories and resources. However, running alongside these trends to conceal imperialist rhetoric, there is a trend in some games, including Far Cry 2, Far Cry 3, and Spec Ops: The Line (Yager, 2012), to self-consciously engage with some of these issues. Both of these games provide a critical perspective about the prevalence of imperialist tropes and problematize them by directly affecting the experience of the player either through their narrative or specific scripted events in Spec Ops: The Line and through the mechanics and environment in Far Cry 2.

In their attempts to be critical while implementing conventional aspects of the genre, they produce a mesh of conflicting rhetoric within the design of the game world and mechanics. For instance, Far Cry 2 puts the player in the shoes of a foreign mercenary stepping into an African landscape that’s in the middle of civil strife. However, unlike Far Cry 3, Far Cry 2 purposely allows its “white savior narrative” to collapse early on, implicating the player’s violent acts as contributing to the strife, and therefore making the situation worse. While Far Cry 2’s malaria does imply problematic notions about Africa and its geopolitical state on how it treats the disease as a metaphor for the violent, primal urges that drive the geopolitical conflict in the region, it also implicates Western intervention as one of the chief reasons behind the conflicts. Foreign ammunition and weapons are smuggled into these regions by foreign traders, which fuel the further spread of the civil strife throughout these regions. Far Cry 2 is also careful to not paint the player’s goals as noble and heroic. Instead, the player character is portrayed as a greedy mercenary, whose only motivation behind every task he undertakes is to earn more diamonds, which are the game’s currency. Every mission the player gets in Far Cry 2 is destructive in nature and generally ends up with the player destroying a base or a convoy. Through such means, the game’s narrative transforms the players’ actions into outcomes that clearly spread conflict. In doing so, Far Cry 2 unapologetically positions the imperialist player as the carrier of the plague of violence, responsible for spreading violence and civil unrest.

The game also problematizes the success of the imperial project, by showing its inherent limitations. By depicting the imperial project as an ongoing and indeterminate process, rather than as singular moment of imperial domination, Far Cry 2, avoids reinforcing some of the problematic aspects of imperialist narrative. Far Cry 2 depicts the African landscape as hostile, but instead of justifying player violence, it calls into question the feasibility of the imperial project. This is primarily communicated by removing the player’s ability to conquer territories. The outposts and camps in Far Cry 2 cannot be permanently captured. Even if the player neutralizes hostile enemies in a camp, the territory still belongs to the natives. The game’s Outposts serve as respawn points—even a recently “cleared” Outpost will be filled with enemies when the player returns. Thus, the game can be seen to critically engage with the notion of imperial conquest as decisive event.

By implicating the player as a metaphorical carrier of a violent plague that only intensifies local conflict and showing the limitations of the imperial project itself, Far Cry 2 critiques the problematic aspects of territorial conquest and white savior complex, which are often blindly embraced by FPS games. As we saw with the contrast and similarities between Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3, their attempts at self-awareness as well as the lack of it in their adoption of imperial narratives reflected the confluence of tensions inherent in the genre. Some of these are wholeheartedly embraced to the point of self-parody in the expansion Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (Ubisoft Montreal, 2013). Made as a stand-alone expansion of Far Cry 3, Blood Dragon explicitly parodies a variety of conventions of the FPS, from in-game tutorials having the player character explicitly ridicule them to loading screen hints that are sarcastic and generally obvious or outright unhelpful in nature. It both alludes to and parodies earlier FPSs. Among its targets, the military-entertainment complex remains a focal point. Critiqued is the genre’s macho tone and its fictional setting of a dystopian post-nuclear land. It sometimes even mocks conventional aspects of the Far Cry franchise through the aforementioned means of tutorials and hints being delivered with a generous dosage of snark and thus the players' expectations of it. It perhaps leans more toward irreverent parody than self-critical, but it shows a wide range of rhetorics embedded within the different games in the Far Cry franchise. It indicates the potential of how games within the same franchise need not reflect a singular, consistent ideology across all the games. As Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon showcases, self-referential parodying could be a possible means of criticizing the imperialist rhetoric reflected in many conventions of the genre that the series adopts.

Figure 2: Spec Ops: The Line’s Dubai gets increasingly more ravaged, often directly because of players’ actions.