When Squad 22: ZOV, a Russian single-player tactical action real-time game, was released on Steam, it raised some eyebrows.
The Steam page informs us that this “Game is officially recommended by the Russian Military for use as a basic infantry tactic manual for cadet and Yunarmy training.” Yunarmy is the Young Army Cadets National Movement, a Russian state-funded GONGO youth organization whose basic activities of YAM range from preparation for military services to participation in social events like celebrations. It’s Russian Putinjugend.
But it is not the first time we have gotten something like this from Russia with hate. In 2017, publisher Cats Who Play released “Syrian Warfare”, a real-time tactics game set during the Syrian Civil War. While it is a genuinely good RTT, its plotline is an unashamed pro-Assad Russian propaganda. It is also hard as nails; real-time tactics games are the Battletoads of strategy gaming. People who had experience playing older RTT titles like the Myth series or the Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, or Warhammer: Dark Omen, know what I mean.
The old GOG wishlist page lists it as “Real-time strategy game about the conflict in Syria opposing Western-funded criminal groups that try to destroy Syria from inside, and the legitimate government supported mainly by Russia.” Yeah, nothing says legitimacy like inheriting the job of the Dear President from your dad, after your brother, the appointed successor, dies in a car crash.
Noble, technologically advanced, disciplined, and well-trained Russian army helping the poor, patriotic Syrians who are ever so loyal to their Dear Leader. With cutscenes between missions depicting Westerners as moronic worshipers of “terrorist democracy”, because in Russia, democracy = terrorism.
You get to commit actual war crimes by “saving” people from ISIS and Al-Nusra by bombing civilian buildings from which a group of “saved” civilians emerge somehow unscathed by giant aerial bombs being dropped on them. You also get to hunt down and destroy clearly marked ambulances, because “terrorists hide in them”.
The outro video salivating about how Russia is oh-so-imperial-and-grand was bonkers. And it got two DLCs, the first allowing you to use Hezbollah forces, because in Soviet Russia, Hezbollah terrorists YOU!
It was temporarily delisted from Steam at one point, but not for the reasons you might think.
This game is based on previous titles called Warfare and Warfare Reloaded, made by the developer GFI Russia. The developer company got split, and a Czech court ordered Steam to halt the sales, because now two groups of Russians were suing each other, IN THE EU, WHICH THEY CLAIM THEY HATE BECAUSE OMG IT RUINED SYRIA AND RUSSIA AND EVERYTHING – over who gets to get the game engine.
Like all patriots, they’re just in it for the money. The angry comments on Steam coming from a bunch of clueless people high on Russian Kool-Aid about how it got removed because of US/Western government pressure to silence “dissenting voices” were…disturbing.
Now, excuse me while I take a shower to wash the sleazy yuckiness of evoking the memories of this…thing.
Serbianism 