“For most of the medium’s history, video game studios seemed to be reticent about tackling contemporary conflicts, preferring instead to crank out games based in abstracted worlds and full of abstracted enemies. The baddies were aliens, zombies, heads of multinational corporations, or some unholy combination thereof.” “Is the new crop of hyperrealistic military video games driving home the reality of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or simply exploiting them?” “How can they say it’s OK for someone to play the Taliban? You’ll have people sitting at home, drinking beer, shooting at American soldiers, maybe missing, then starting over.”
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Afghanistan and Iraq War Games
"Is the new crop of hyperrealistic military video games driving home the reality of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or simply exploiting them?"
Monthly Issue
April 2026
In this monthly issue, we examine how our understanding of energy — and how we source and use it — is evolving.
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11 articles