When President Obama was in office, there was no shortage of portrayals in popular culture demonizing conservatives and libertarians. Patriots were regularly cast as hate-filled terror threats in television, video games, movies, and media outlets. In the age of President Trump, a new scapegoat du jour has emerged in the alt-right.
The plot to a currently unreleased video game, Far Cry 5 shows how the propaganda narratives are shifting in the age of Trump. The game is set in Montana, a well-known hot spot for patriots as well as the home of the alt right’s most infamous provocateur Richard Spencer. The game’s villains appear to be an amalgamation of both groups.
The cover image for the game depicts a “Last Supper” scene featuring bearded individuals who are crude stereotypes of militiamen with weapons and ammunition strewn about the table. They surround a dapper messiah figure with a hipster beard, presumably the leader of the flock, who looks as if he was modeled directly from right-wing blogger Gavin McInnes.
This depiction of patriots as villains is no mere coincidence, but rather a part of a larger plan to depict civic-minded Americans as enemies, and condition ordinary individuals to get used to putting them at the barrel of the gun.
The Verge reports on this disturbing new trend in video games:
“Resident Evil 7 sets its hero against a pseudo-zombified white family in the American bayou, while Outlast 2 draws horror from an American religious cult. Mafia 3 follows Lincoln Clay, a mixed-raced Vietnam vet, who takes revenge on the Italian mob in 1970s Louisiana after the assassination of his father figure, the leader of the black mob. And an episode of Hitman, called “Freedom Fighters,” has the titular killer assassinating targets on a Colorado compound that seemed to take at least some inspiration from the real-world incident in Harney County.”
The game will be released officially next year, but the teasers have already began. A trailer was released this week to build excitement for its release showing individuals praying at a church on the villains’ compound and then panning to scenic Hope County, the fictional area in which the game is set. An official demo is expected to be unveiled tomorrow.
@realJamesAllsup They carved sinner into someone’s back, so they’re absolutely villains. It’s a sto… https://t.co/yfpZvHBt30
@realJamesAllsup Maybe wait for the game to drop before writing a whole article about demonizing conservatives?
Hopefully we can pull a far cry 4 and side with them in the end.
The latest Call of Duty game is an attack on the alt-right as well.
The first Call of Duty also attacked the alt-right…
God, that was a great game.
*sighs* y’all are fucktards, what are y’all trying to achieve?
Or maybe it’s a game concept. You’re saying civic minded Americans but you can tell just by looking at it the games villains are pitch dwelling hillbillies they’re religious extemists in a, say it after me, fictitious videogame.
apart and a part mean two completely different things.
I wouldn’t rush to judge here. A limited view of the plot only provides a limited view. You don’t know what you don’t know yet.
Case in point, Bioshock Infinate caught a lot of flack for using Americana as a backdrop (while calling it Columbia, a spinoff of the USA), augmented with racism, elitist overtones and rampant oppression of lower classes. However, the game also exposed that when those lower classes rise up, they often bring equal if not greater amounts of hate and destruction, oppression, with them. It was shown that the racism and classism was negative in both sides, for those that cared to pay attention for more than just the first act.
This is beyond ridiculous. Are you saying that Americans can’t be villains? What makes you think these people are patriots?
So many people in the comments acting like the alt-right America isn’t the most hated group alive and that this game might just be artistic and that history is accidental and that the sky is green
Come on were supposed to be the mature ones here and the sane ones we cant be freaking out over this we dont know anything about the plot of the game at all
You can’t deny that the “villain” has been designed to look just like Gavin Mcinnes. Who isn’t politically correct but also isn’t a terrorist and doesn’t deserve to be called one.