The First World War in Computer Games

C. Kempshall

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137491756
• eBook ISBN: 9781137491763
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Digital Media
• Index: History

The First World War in Computer Games analyses the depiction of combat, the landscape of the trenches, and concepts of how the war ended through computer games. This book explores how computer games are at the forefront of new representations of the First World War.

1

‘You Provide the Pixels and I’ll Provide the War’ – Computer Games, Cinema and Narrative

Abstract: Chapter 1 deals with the narrative and stories of First World War games. Games focused on the Second World War have long been tightly linked to cinematic portrayals to the extent that notable Second World War games have recreated specific scenes and films. There is less of a history of ‘blockbuster’ films for the First World War upon which games could draw even if they wanted to. This chapter seeks to examine the roots of the stories that appear in First World War games but also to highlight those games which have no discernible story and evaluate whether this is a result of the First World War aspect of the game or if it is instead indicative of the genre. Some games that appear to be First World War-focused are not really at all whilst others incorporate competing elements of its popular image to build a recognisable scenario.

Keywords: Blackadder; hollywood; narrative; pointless war; tragedy

Kempshall, Chris. The First World War in Computer Games. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137491763.0006.

It should not be surprising that the most often used comparisons for the two World Wars are each other. Whilst there are some fairly stark similarities between them, particularly in the reasons for fighting them and in how the opening stages and strategies played out, socially and culturally they both seem to embody dual sides of the same coin. The Second World War provides an example of a Just War fought to save civilisation from evil.¹ Both Dan Todman and Gordon Corrigan have written at length about the way the First World War has been associated with ‘mud blood and death’ in various guises and evolutions since the 1920s. The First World War remains the reference point for tragic or pointless war.

Much of the rigidity regarding the popular view of the First World War is based less upon how it was fought and more on what it was fought for. The First World War does not lend itself easily to any form of heroic narrative. The Second World War provides a very clear, moral narrative; oppose Hitler and the Nazis as they are attempting to take over the world and perpetrate genocide. In moralistic terms you could not get a clearer justification for either self-defence or righteous warfare. The motivations behind the First World War pale into comparison against the seemingly more eschatological Second. A cry of ‘for the channel ports!’ does not seem to carry the same urgency or nobility. The fact that the First and Second World Wars are viewed very differently is less important and interesting than how these versions manifest themselves.

The differences between heroism and tragedy extend beyond just the competing ideologies and the waging of war. It reaches out into the portrayal and acceptance of that war’s narrative and imagery. This is of importance when trying to transfer or make use of the narrative for an audience. Gary Sheffield has previously noted that the television series Blackadder Goes Forth, a series which remains the most recognised portrayal of the war, comedic or otherwise, in British Society required very little scene setting for the audience to understand the action.² Despite having been born long after the war had finished the audience were able to recognise all of the tropes and clichés; the trenches, the mud, the blundering generals, all of it already existed within the mind of the audience. This was not only what the First World War was, but also a comment on what it was fought for; ultimately nothing. The horror of war becomes both the setting and the narrative. It is far more difficult and time-consuming to try and elucidate why a war which is so solidified within public consciousness came to be fought in the first place.

The Second World War has much more flexibility in this sense. The horror of war can still be examined and portrayed but it is always set against the background of a Just War. Not only does this deepen the narrative potential but it also creates a strange dichotomy where actions and events become very clearly morally defined and the people involved inhabit a dual space of both hero and martyr. Dying in the Second World War becomes sacrifice in the service of a higher goal; the freedom of the world. Dying in the First World War becomes both tragedy and inevitable. People die in unjust or pointless wars. It is both their role and their pre-destined end.

These differences between the First and Second World Wars are interesting in themselves but they take on much more relevance when discussing computer game representation when they are understood through the lens of cinema. With the understanding of both World Wars being so tied into their ‘just’ justification, audience expectation plays a defining role in how the wars are portrayed. The most obvious source for dramatisations about war is cinema, and with regards to the World Wars; Hollywood.

Now it should be noted first of all that for technological reasons the Second World War is already a far more cinematic and cinema friendly war. It came at a time when cameras were far lighter and easier to use. It was also large in scale and urban in setting. Battles for Paris, Stalingrad and Berlin provided a fitting backdrop upon which human drama presented itself. It also took in locations as varied as North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Pacific Islands. In cinematic terms the change in locales only served to emphasise the stakes to which the conflict had grown and validate the necessity to keep fighting. None of this is to suggest that the First World War did not also have high drama or varied global locations. It did, but the form of trench warfare on the Western Front removed much of the opportunity for newsreels to show recognisable landmarks or even get particularly close to the fighting. During the First World War cameras were heavy and difficult to use. So much so that Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, directors of the hugely popular and successful 1916 Battle of the Somme documentary, were reduced to staging aspects of trench warfare; specifically the footage of men going over the top and dying. Their technology and the nature of the fighting would not allow them to get any closer to that sort of shot.

If those were issues regarding the use of cinema to capture the war as it happened, the primary issue in the portrayal of the war in cinemas today is both incredibly simple and also all-important; interest to audiences in the United States of America. Because Hollywood portrayals of war remain the most popular with western audiences they remain the most influential in regards to their cultural influence. It is overwhelmingly the case that the Second World War far outweighs the First in regards to Hollywood output. What modern feature films there are on the First World War tend to focus on the aforementioned factors of death, tragedy and mud. Beyond this though they do not contain scenes or settings that either instil a sense of awe or a desire for reconstruction. Films on the Second World War achieve both of these criteria and it is here that differences between the First and Second World Wars impact on their portrayal in computer games.

The opening scene of the 1998 Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan depicts the landings at Omaha Beach on D-Day.³ Since its release the landings and battles around D-Day have been portrayed in eleven different missions in four different games in the Call of Duty series of Second World War First Person Shooters.^4,5,6,7 It has similarly appeared in the game Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for PC and Medal of Honor: Frontline which was released for consoles. These latter two examples are almost direct homages to Saving Private Ryan with some scenes almost exact recreations of the film. Spielberg himself was involved in the original Medal of Honor game released in 1999 and these games and films have had a profound effect on the representations of the Second World War and combat.^8,9 The HBO television series Band of Brothers, very much a descendant of Saving Private Ryan, produced a similarly framed version of the Second World War which sought to highlight the humanity of the soldiers whilst setting it against the enormity of the task they faced. The soldiers of Easy Company that were featured in Band of Brothers were also part of the D-Day offensives.¹⁰

The landings at Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan manage the rare success of being both graphic in their portrayal of war as hell but also visually impressive enough to make an audience of gamers want to experience it for themselves. As you might expect of such a huge moment not just in the war but in contemporary history, the whole D-Day operation has long been a source of interest for games developers.¹¹ Similarly the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates which depicted the Battle of Stalingrad, specifically the role of snipers during the battle, spawned a slew of Second World War focused games that featured sniper battles with Soviet soldiers with the 2003 edition of Call of Duty replicating some of the opening scenes in Enemy at the Gates shot for shot.¹²

The fact that you are able to play a Soviet soldier at all, given the distrust of communism in modern society and the actions of Soviet soldiers as they fought from east to west at the end of the war, suggests an adapted form of ‘top trumps’, where the Soviet Union overcomes the Nazis in the morality stakes. In fact this ‘trumping’ is not an isolated incident and is directly related to the ideological positioning of the Second World War mentioned above. Narratives in WW2 games flow much easier because regardless of the actions the player takes they will never be viewed as morally repugnant or as worthy of destruction as their Nazi foes.

Therefore, in the same way that Second World War films can explore both the hellish nature of warfare whilst set against the justifiable necessity of stopping Nazi Germany, the games that are then inspired by them also reproduce this environment. It is a world of very pure and defined boundaries between right and wrong. Historical computer games in particular live off of their audience’s existing understanding of the time period. There is no confusion in WW2 games over who the good guys are and who the bad. Even when the players take on roles of numerous nationalities; Americans, British or Russians, the context remains the same and is always understood; the Nazis are the bad guys and therefore the best thing the player can do to preserve civilisation is to oppose, defeat or destroy them.

The lack of such moral lines and ideological certainty regarding the First World War means that the actions of the player cannot be clad in the same surety as would be the case in a Second World War game. When the aims of the war are so confused and uncertain and there is no comparable ‘evil enemy’ which you must destroy then what sort of narrative can be easily spun from the First World War and replicated in computer games? The answer to this conundrum appears to come in two core forms that repeat themselves across different games. They are, however, often fairly genre specific. There are certain types of computer games that lend themselves to story far better than others and are not simply a phenomenon restricted to the First World War. The types of stories that appear in First World War games owe a great deal to the dominant view of the First World War as tragedy. One of the two key forms that appear contains some slight variations that complicate matters. It ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Opening Up a Digital Front
• 1  You Provide the Pixels and Ill Provide the War Computer Games, Cinema and Narrative
• 2  Good God, Did We Really Send Players to Fight in That? Landscape and Chronology in First World War Games
• 3  It Takes 15,000 Casualties to Train a Player General Combat in First World War Games
• 4  They Will Not Be Able to Make Us Play It Again Another Day The End in First World War Games
• Conclusion:...To End All War Games
• Bibliography
• Index