There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.
The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.
Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.
I think what a lot of people miss here is that when people say “keep politics out of x” what they mean is “keep blatant cringeworthy soapboxing out of x.”
Helldivers is tongue in cheek and doesn’t feel the need to bash you over the head with “But actually fascism bad” every five seconds, instead it has gag recruitment ads and an overall really funny presentation that works whether you get it or you don’t.
I guarantee you that no rightoid looks at a one world government “super earth” with fond eyes.
If you’re an identitarian the fact that the Helldivers can be men or women is unacceptable, not to mention it’s not clear if they’re ethnically homogeneous
If you’re a libertarian the de-individualization and constant surveillance/propaganda from a totalitarian state is unacceptable, double that if you’re an ancap
Monarchists would probably like this if it were an explicit monarchy, but it’s not, so they would probably also not like it
The only faction who would like this game’s world is classical fascists, the kind Mussolini was, which ironically a lot of people seem to really really like on any side of the political spectrum, cause it’s literally just totalitarian ideological illiberal authority.
I think you are expecting a lot more subtlety in people’s interpretation than the people doing the interpretation deserve. Yes, super earth is clearly a military dictatorship to anyone who recognises that it is a political satire. But for those who don’t, and who don’t see beyond the surface veneer of “we’re defending Earth from invaders”… It looks a lot like AmericaWorld, where everyone is happy and free and kept safe from the nasty aliens.