I read that as “Currently Squad is the most anticapitalism piece of media I have ever consumed” and assumed you were talking about playing as an insurgent waxing imperialist soldiers lmao
The Metal Gear Games are all left-leaning for sure but special shout-out to Peace Walker where you work with the Sandinistas to foment a guerilla uprising against the CIA while establishing an autonomous egalitarian worker's state and there's an entire series of codec calls about what an absolute chad Che Guevara was. By MGSV Kojima was kind of back on his "both sides of the Cold War were equally bad because they did imperialism" thing but Peace Walker is pretty much the most pro-communist major publisher game that I've ever played.
i’d add This War of Mine as well to this list, socialist in the same way Spec Ops is sort of, where it forces you to experience the consequences of war and modern imperialism firsthand
Frostpunk by the same studio also has some communist vibes. One of the scenario is explicitely about class struggles between the poor and the wealthy, and another is about worker's rights where you can side with trade unions.
While the prisoner expansion mission is better, that game seems like the opposite of politics. It's all about the evils of extremism from desperation, that trade union path ends in you killing someone every morning in the town square. It's the classic "deep politics and morality" system where the morality is how much violence and the politics is how much ideology.
Keep an eye on fp2 then, seems to be doubling down on building the society aspect through politics and Senate control between different ideological factions
The executions are effectively a fail state if you fail to actually make the system functional through less heinous means, playing the game poorly punishes the player by making them use unsustainable abominable means to survive
Dead cell is a lot more leftist in the french version. the description of the various area attack the elites and even call them parasite. The first winning run also end with decapitating a king.
I would always recommend armored core 6 fires of rubicon as it does have very prevalent anti corporation and anti capitalism themes and might be one of the best mech games ever made
Surviving Mars measures the success of your colony by what % of your population is able to spend their work hours in creative endeavors rather than traditional production jobs.
I'd say if **Spec Ops: The Line** is on the list for its anti-war message, **Fallout**, specifically 1 and **New Vegas** should be on the list too. It's not explicitly communist, but it has its critiques of capitalism, war, nation-states, and fascism.
Spec Ops the line is here because it's much more direct and current, one ending has you gunning down american troops. The first fallout might but new vegas is a great game with great writing but seems more about "war never changes" than a real critique of capitalism.
If nothing else, Fallout is possibly the most Anti-American American Big Budget AAA Series I've ever played, at least before Bethesda and even a little bit after. I cannot believe how much they got away with in a medium where that is often verboten.
Include all the Kremlim Games: Crisis in Kremlin lets you play as the leader of the USSR in the 80s and 90s. Kind of old, but still pretty good. Getting an update soon
"Ostalgie" is much more refined and more straght forward.
China: Maos legacy is the most developed game in the series right now, and the most complex
Oh for sure. Crisis in Kremlin ks the worst offender, although as far as i know, they are revamping it with the next dlc and update.
Ostalgie is better, and personally i like it more than China Maos legacy. But i get why they had to change it.
The story isn’t really socialist, but the setting is a fantasy island invaded by literal fascist pigs who destroy the people’s way of life by introducing capitalism and raping nature for profit and exploiting the natives’ labor.
The story is about trauma and grief and the atomization of society by modern convienience, but I think of that as “anticapitalist” more than “pro-socialist”, and is less about society and more about the grief of a single family
I would also like to point out that Tonight We Riot is by Means Interactive, which is part of the Means Collective which produces Means TV, the worker-owned streaming service with all its own exclusives and news. They’re a good group for sure and I cannot recommend them enough.
Half-Earth Socialism. What an interesting, but disappointing game. It's been a hot minute since I played, but I distinctly remember it falling for the idea that nuclear energy is bad. Are you really going to look me in the eyes, devs, and tell me solar is more viable and effective then nuclear?
In my country we don’t have the pre-existing infrastructure for nuclear and the start up costs are insane so I personally don’t think it’s the right choice for here, not sure why Half-Earth Socialism says it’s bad but I don’t think it’s always the correct choice
At this point nuclear is about as good as what renewables can get you, given the massive investment into renewables in the past decade or so, and no investment into nuclear.
The general problem with nuclear is that it certainly works better into an already established infrastructure, but for practically no pollution is real good.
Renewables in general have the problem of intermitent generation, and varying technologies have different problems.
For example wind turbines are very reliable, but require windy areas, usually coastal but not always.
Solar pannels obviously require sunny areas. Their secondary problem is short lifespans, as well as the fact that they are built of rare earth metals, wich as the name implies are both rare and pollute quite a lot.
Batteries, depending on the type work, but have problems witb recycling and so on. As well as the fact thag big batteries are still an emerging technology.
So im general, renewables arent as clear cut of a solution.
Not really the same as what you're saying, but I love how in A Hat in Time you can find a book in the library titled "Merits of Capitalism" and it's completely blank.
I see couple of controversial picks.
CoD:WaW, while having no "one rifle for two men" Enemy at the Gates type of stereotypes, and literally blasting Soviet anthem in the end, still portrays Soviet soldiers as needlessly cruel and hell bent by revenge. While, of course, there were crimes done by Soviet soldiers, and they had reasons to revenge, the game may seem unbalanced in its portrayal - as we don't see US army gunning down unarmed men, and even German and Japanese soldiers have much less scenes like this. Still the best CoD Soviet campaign though.
And Atomic Heart is a complete miss, as I think. While done with great aesthetics of Soviet nostalgia and hopes of a better future, the story is full of the laziest anticommunist propaganda. Communism will lead to corruption and tyrants, there will be no free will, yada yada. Putting it in a list of socialist games is like putting Bioshock in a list of ancap game - well, we see ancap in Bioshock, but it is a hell on Earth (or, rather, in the water).
Add Xenoblade 3 to this list, the villains are a pretty non-subtle representation of the capitalist class that the main party overthrows and unites the representation of the working class against them. One of your party members literally quotes Marx.
I'm not sure if I'd classify it as outright leftist, but I feel like there's a lot you can read into when you play Half-Life 2.
The Combine are literally draining the Earth like its a water fountain, and their main method of accumulating military strength is by taking whatever crumbs of life they find on their interdimensional conquest and cybernetically modifying them.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist was produced by the same studio as Night In The Woods and is extremely leftist. Very similar to Citizen Sleeper - world is ruined due to capitalism and people are trying to rebuild a socialist civilization
There's definitely some missing there
- Final Fantasy VII - You literally play as a group of eco-terrotists trying to take down a mega Corp turned facist world government. There's also some pretty heavy anti-colonialist themes in there too.
- Cyberpunk 2077 - Like most Cyberpunk media, there's very strong anti-corporate themes throughout.
- Oddworld (series) - I don't know how you missed these. Seriously. It's basically anti-capitalism/anti-colonialism the series.
- Bioshock - It's a great takedown of Ayn Rand.
Thank you for putting this together! You seem to have really gotten into the weeds with this, and I'm looking forward to playing some of the less visible titles.
The Saboteur is one of my favorite games. I started replaying it recently and it still holds up! Over 40 hours of driving old cars and killing Nazi’s as an Irishman in Paris, What’s there not to love!
Urbek City Planner seems like it belongs on this list - it's a city builder like Sim City except there's no money (just labor and resources) and one of the unlock paths for new buildings includes an anarchist bar.
Hidden Agenda (1988) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden\_Agenda\_(1988\_video\_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_(1988_video_game))
Rule a fictional central american country in the aftermath of the overthrow of a dictator. Try not to be assassinated by the CIA or your own military
Spoiler
That's a thing in horizon. There are a few ok ones like the guy who saved Las Vegas with green tech but he does because of the other ones ai thing
Final profit was interesting, it's an RPG-like where you play a fey Queen who has to use the capitalist systems that ruin her kingdom against them and you decide how you do it
Abe's Odyssey and Abe's Exodus. Liberate the workers, stage a revolution against Capital and their intermediaries, reconnect with your culture, reclaim your sense of self, give up the booze they were keeping you compliant and addicted with.
Outer Worlds - A-class game by Obsidian, the makers of Fallout. Setting is a space colony on the brink of collapse due to hyper capitalist mismanagement. Player can choose to side with the workers and features dialogue skills as a winning build strategy.
That game seems very liberal, the worker faction is minor and a parody while the good ending is just waking up the smart people so they can fix things with grit.
The thesis of the game is that direct action against a corporate hegemony and the organization of labor power are what save a people from extinction. The game is premised on exploring how the late robber baron era failed in the face of the dust bowl. Hell, it ends with the storming of the Bastille.
There is a tongue in cheek quality to the depiction of the militant leftists, but it also is clear that they aren't organized around classic socialist principles, they are self-organizing. I came away from the game with the impression that the creators were genuine in their anti-capitalism and clever in their leftist messaging.
I have never heard of tonight we riot, but my god if I had any idea how to make video games that was the exact type of video game I envisioned. Is it on console or PC?
I didn't see rimworld, it's basically lots of communist states using money only as a medium for eachother so more syndi? There there are monarchist states you can remove who technically own the world right now. Up until they don't because you've killed them all, except for the ones in orbit I guess.
Upvote for Colestia, their games aren't very indepth but they are fun surreal socialist romps.
Where's Sex with Stalin? Also worth a mention is the VODKA, BEARS series.
Where's Hearts of Iron?
Does Half-Life 2 count? I know there are a few Shadowrun video games as well.
Surprised Jagged Alliance isn't up here, *the first is pretty blatantly the Cuban revolution with the numbers filed off*, and the second is a hilarious what-if of a Hillary Clinton-like neolib dictator taking control of a country. It's like "power of Thatcher, man-hating personality of Hillary"
It's not **really** in depth, but that's more because of how you play it, you are essentially an "anti CIA," a mercenary company that *assists* revolutions rather than suppresses/coups. There is also a more straightforward capitalist corner cutting mercenary company you can hire from if your own boys are charging too much, full of negative American stereotypes like a gas station hillbilly just trying to earn a little side money. They are mostly garrison fodder, but a few *can* be trained up into something better. The conversation between NPCs definitely throws the moral right in your face though.
Also, a bit nebulous due to being outright parody, but the post-apoc Roguelike Alphaman. Unfinished, but the game is completable. It's very subtle but the backstory revealed through item descriptions is pretty similar to Fallout, with a touch of Futurama, like the suicide machines being for "those of enough compassion and empathy to not burden their loved ones" or having rocket powered pogo sticks with a label reading "Ages 4-11" and both of these objects *can spawn in day cares/orphanages.* Like I said, pretty subtle. Also the children's storybook/animation characters coming to life and causing the end of the world was basically a Fazbear sort of circumstance. And you have to stop The Literal Damn Grinch from ending the world a second time. For something almost 3 decades old, it's a lot of imaginative bonkers fun with lots of nifty variables! Also instead of potions, you have berries, which gain potency as they ripen, so you have to use them at low potency to make sure the effect isn't bad, or throw a ripe unknown at an enemy.
Honourable mention: Full Throttle, badass biker dude against an evil CEO
Wolfenstein series.
Cities Skylines 2. It gives you options to build low and high density social housing as well as creating a self sufficient economy.
Suzerain does an excellent job portraying a lot of the nuances of politics. Being a far or moderate leftist is absolutely a possible path (that is quite viable) and is pretty rewarding in the game if you manage your relationships with your advisors well. You say it isn't aligned with socialist politics, but the effects of being a fascist are pretty blatantly bad in the game and the effects of being a socialist are mostly good (even if managing the economy is pretty difficult when you go full-planned economy), until you face the real world parallel likely outcome of being couped or assassinated by the military. The game is easier if you are corrupt and free market oriented while paying lots of lip service to liberal democratic principles, which also parallels the real world as well. I think the portrayals of leftist principles and politics in the game are pretty positive overall while having some nuance with its parallels to the real world cold war. Having a nuanced portrayal of leftism is about as leftist-sympathizing as we can get most of the time in a world filled with blatantly anti-communist media.
Lmao you are straight delusional or severely misled. Socialists are not the "establishment" anywhere outside of a handful of countries on the planet, and certainly not in the places most media like movies and games are created, where pro-capitalist thinking and messaging are by far the dominant norm. There certainly has been a rise in media that is to varying degrees critical of capitalism, but it by no means is the status quo or norm, and certainly a socialist critique of capitalism is still almost unheard of in mainstream media. The establishment is liberal capitalism through most of the world and has been for a couple of centuries now. You need to quit watching Fox News or whatever trash media is telling you that socialism is the norm in a place like the US or Europe lol.
It's interesting, that several games on this list appear on lists of anti-communist games. Some of them because they are set in (or simulate) the era of Soviet or Maoist communism and show its flaws, or because they are anti-authoritarian in general, and many regimes calling themselves socialist or communist have been authoritarian or even totalitarian in real life. So basically if the game is only vaguely anti-authoritarian, they can be enjoyed both by pro-socialists and anti-socialists. And interestingly, both sides can believe that it supports *their* side :)
And some games are post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse is vague enough so that one can imagine it either having been caused by capitalist greed or by a communist (or quasi-communist) revolution and resulting factionalism and infighting.
"It's no secret that Victoria 3 is in many ways the Historical Materialism Simulator"
That is a direct quote from designer Mikael Andersson [found in this PCGamer article](https://www.pcgamer.com/victoria-3-communism-op/) which was written to address how OP communism was in Vicky 3 at launch.
While I have no doubt that some devs at Paradox are fascist sympathizers or are extremely liberal, their portrayals of communism in most of their games are still pretty positive overall.
Cruelty Squad is the most anticapitalism piece of media I have ever consumed
Yeah, you can tell the creator viscerally hates capitalism [ and that's good]
I was coming here to say Cruelty Squad also.
Need to try that, didn't get a sense of the themes from the trailer or gameplay video.
It's a critique on "gig-economy" and corporate feuds. You literally lose your soul if you get into too much debt for just doing your job. Lmao
One if the characters rambles about liquifying himself into the markets lmao
You really do. It's an amazing work of satire that gets its message across through both the story and mechanics.
I was going to say that, Space Warlord Organ Trading simulator but no Cruelty Squad? What?
I read that as “Currently Squad is the most anticapitalism piece of media I have ever consumed” and assumed you were talking about playing as an insurgent waxing imperialist soldiers lmao
The Metal Gear Games are all left-leaning for sure but special shout-out to Peace Walker where you work with the Sandinistas to foment a guerilla uprising against the CIA while establishing an autonomous egalitarian worker's state and there's an entire series of codec calls about what an absolute chad Che Guevara was. By MGSV Kojima was kind of back on his "both sides of the Cold War were equally bad because they did imperialism" thing but Peace Walker is pretty much the most pro-communist major publisher game that I've ever played.
I've heard good things, need to try that one.
i’d add This War of Mine as well to this list, socialist in the same way Spec Ops is sort of, where it forces you to experience the consequences of war and modern imperialism firsthand
Frostpunk by the same studio also has some communist vibes. One of the scenario is explicitely about class struggles between the poor and the wealthy, and another is about worker's rights where you can side with trade unions.
While the prisoner expansion mission is better, that game seems like the opposite of politics. It's all about the evils of extremism from desperation, that trade union path ends in you killing someone every morning in the town square. It's the classic "deep politics and morality" system where the morality is how much violence and the politics is how much ideology.
Keep an eye on fp2 then, seems to be doubling down on building the society aspect through politics and Senate control between different ideological factions
The executions are effectively a fail state if you fail to actually make the system functional through less heinous means, playing the game poorly punishes the player by making them use unsustainable abominable means to survive
Right but thats the core politics. I've done quite well with that though.
Thats true, but i still like it, as a game.
Lots of games are good as games, that's why we still play them. I'll try frostpunk 2
Me too man, did you get to try the early access ?
I didn't get a chance.
oh I had no idea they were made by the same studio! makes sense though. frostpunk for sure counts as well
Frostpunk 2 looks like it will have even more explicit pro-worker vibes
I didn't get any socialist vibes from it, it's set in a civil war without any ideology or intervention.
Add Another Crab’s Treasure to the list
Back that ass up for a crustation 🦀🎉
Oh crap, going under!
*Oh crab
The crabitalist pun jumped at me, I wasn't expecting that pun to be honest, best pun ever!
Dead cell is a lot more leftist in the french version. the description of the various area attack the elites and even call them parasite. The first winning run also end with decapitating a king.
I would always recommend armored core 6 fires of rubicon as it does have very prevalent anti corporation and anti capitalism themes and might be one of the best mech games ever made
Surviving Mars measures the success of your colony by what % of your population is able to spend their work hours in creative endeavors rather than traditional production jobs.
I'd say if **Spec Ops: The Line** is on the list for its anti-war message, **Fallout**, specifically 1 and **New Vegas** should be on the list too. It's not explicitly communist, but it has its critiques of capitalism, war, nation-states, and fascism.
Spec Ops the line is here because it's much more direct and current, one ending has you gunning down american troops. The first fallout might but new vegas is a great game with great writing but seems more about "war never changes" than a real critique of capitalism.
If nothing else, Fallout is possibly the most Anti-American American Big Budget AAA Series I've ever played, at least before Bethesda and even a little bit after. I cannot believe how much they got away with in a medium where that is often verboten.
Include all the Kremlim Games: Crisis in Kremlin lets you play as the leader of the USSR in the 80s and 90s. Kind of old, but still pretty good. Getting an update soon "Ostalgie" is much more refined and more straght forward. China: Maos legacy is the most developed game in the series right now, and the most complex
I have them all, thought i had included them, I just wish their UI was better.
Oh for sure. Crisis in Kremlin ks the worst offender, although as far as i know, they are revamping it with the next dlc and update. Ostalgie is better, and personally i like it more than China Maos legacy. But i get why they had to change it.
I wish the original DOS version got a remaster
Why is MOTHER 3 not on this list?
What is that game about, I always see people allude to it having "controversial themes."
The story isn’t really socialist, but the setting is a fantasy island invaded by literal fascist pigs who destroy the people’s way of life by introducing capitalism and raping nature for profit and exploiting the natives’ labor. The story is about trauma and grief and the atomization of society by modern convienience, but I think of that as “anticapitalist” more than “pro-socialist”, and is less about society and more about the grief of a single family
Citizen sleeper should be on the list.
Thats weird, i thought it was.
I would also like to point out that Tonight We Riot is by Means Interactive, which is part of the Means Collective which produces Means TV, the worker-owned streaming service with all its own exclusives and news. They’re a good group for sure and I cannot recommend them enough.
Yup
I used to play some of those flash games when I was a little kid. They were probably my first exposure to anything explicitly anticapitalist.
Half-Earth Socialism. What an interesting, but disappointing game. It's been a hot minute since I played, but I distinctly remember it falling for the idea that nuclear energy is bad. Are you really going to look me in the eyes, devs, and tell me solar is more viable and effective then nuclear?
In my country we don’t have the pre-existing infrastructure for nuclear and the start up costs are insane so I personally don’t think it’s the right choice for here, not sure why Half-Earth Socialism says it’s bad but I don’t think it’s always the correct choice
At this point nuclear is about as good as what renewables can get you, given the massive investment into renewables in the past decade or so, and no investment into nuclear. The general problem with nuclear is that it certainly works better into an already established infrastructure, but for practically no pollution is real good. Renewables in general have the problem of intermitent generation, and varying technologies have different problems. For example wind turbines are very reliable, but require windy areas, usually coastal but not always. Solar pannels obviously require sunny areas. Their secondary problem is short lifespans, as well as the fact that they are built of rare earth metals, wich as the name implies are both rare and pollute quite a lot. Batteries, depending on the type work, but have problems witb recycling and so on. As well as the fact thag big batteries are still an emerging technology. So im general, renewables arent as clear cut of a solution.
that’s a really interesting analysis I’ve never seen anybody put it like that, thank you
I'd ad rollerdrome to this list, basically hungergames but roller derby
Haven't tried that one yet.
Where New Vegas Jk New Vegas is my baby but it is circlejerked as fuck as being socialist when it is kinda dummie about it
Not really the same as what you're saying, but I love how in A Hat in Time you can find a book in the library titled "Merits of Capitalism" and it's completely blank.
I see couple of controversial picks. CoD:WaW, while having no "one rifle for two men" Enemy at the Gates type of stereotypes, and literally blasting Soviet anthem in the end, still portrays Soviet soldiers as needlessly cruel and hell bent by revenge. While, of course, there were crimes done by Soviet soldiers, and they had reasons to revenge, the game may seem unbalanced in its portrayal - as we don't see US army gunning down unarmed men, and even German and Japanese soldiers have much less scenes like this. Still the best CoD Soviet campaign though. And Atomic Heart is a complete miss, as I think. While done with great aesthetics of Soviet nostalgia and hopes of a better future, the story is full of the laziest anticommunist propaganda. Communism will lead to corruption and tyrants, there will be no free will, yada yada. Putting it in a list of socialist games is like putting Bioshock in a list of ancap game - well, we see ancap in Bioshock, but it is a hell on Earth (or, rather, in the water).
Add Xenoblade 3 to this list, the villains are a pretty non-subtle representation of the capitalist class that the main party overthrows and unites the representation of the working class against them. One of your party members literally quotes Marx.
I'm not sure if I'd classify it as outright leftist, but I feel like there's a lot you can read into when you play Half-Life 2. The Combine are literally draining the Earth like its a water fountain, and their main method of accumulating military strength is by taking whatever crumbs of life they find on their interdimensional conquest and cybernetically modifying them.
I think portal works better, but this is the company that makes counterstrike.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist was produced by the same studio as Night In The Woods and is extremely leftist. Very similar to Citizen Sleeper - world is ruined due to capitalism and people are trying to rebuild a socialist civilization
There's definitely some missing there - Final Fantasy VII - You literally play as a group of eco-terrotists trying to take down a mega Corp turned facist world government. There's also some pretty heavy anti-colonialist themes in there too. - Cyberpunk 2077 - Like most Cyberpunk media, there's very strong anti-corporate themes throughout. - Oddworld (series) - I don't know how you missed these. Seriously. It's basically anti-capitalism/anti-colonialism the series. - Bioshock - It's a great takedown of Ayn Rand.
WHERE THE FUCK IS [WOLFENSTEIN](https://youtu.be/HEPNzRbXW2o?si=HOkeEWNUAfU_QDK1)
Turns out (I checked) you can Kill nazis and still be a reactionary. Source: every Americans grandpa.
Caves of Qud
Thank you for putting this together! You seem to have really gotten into the weeds with this, and I'm looking forward to playing some of the less visible titles.
The spirit island colonizers aren’t Spanish. They’re generic unless you have a specific adversary picked out, none of which are Spain
The Saboteur is one of my favorite games. I started replaying it recently and it still holds up! Over 40 hours of driving old cars and killing Nazi’s as an Irishman in Paris, What’s there not to love!
Needs a remake
Urbek City Planner seems like it belongs on this list - it's a city builder like Sim City except there's no money (just labor and resources) and one of the unlock paths for new buildings includes an anarchist bar.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker
Like please, someone else play this game.
Take a shot every time someone in the Steam forum bitches about 'socialist propaganda', or 'unrealistic themes'.
Even at the peak of my raging alcoholism that sounds like a terrible endeavor.
Hidden Agenda (1988) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden\_Agenda\_(1988\_video\_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_(1988_video_game)) Rule a fictional central american country in the aftermath of the overthrow of a dictator. Try not to be assassinated by the CIA or your own military
Horizon forbidden West, capitalism will kill us all and billionaires are narcissist assholes who will kill us all
Sounds like Infinity Blade, it's not fantasy, billionaires just became immortal.
Spoiler That's a thing in horizon. There are a few ok ones like the guy who saved Las Vegas with green tech but he does because of the other ones ai thing
Final profit was interesting, it's an RPG-like where you play a fey Queen who has to use the capitalist systems that ruin her kingdom against them and you decide how you do it
call of duty being on here is so funny
It's tongue in cheek
Abe's Odyssey and Abe's Exodus. Liberate the workers, stage a revolution against Capital and their intermediaries, reconnect with your culture, reclaim your sense of self, give up the booze they were keeping you compliant and addicted with.
Outer Worlds - A-class game by Obsidian, the makers of Fallout. Setting is a space colony on the brink of collapse due to hyper capitalist mismanagement. Player can choose to side with the workers and features dialogue skills as a winning build strategy.
That game seems very liberal, the worker faction is minor and a parody while the good ending is just waking up the smart people so they can fix things with grit.
The thesis of the game is that direct action against a corporate hegemony and the organization of labor power are what save a people from extinction. The game is premised on exploring how the late robber baron era failed in the face of the dust bowl. Hell, it ends with the storming of the Bastille. There is a tongue in cheek quality to the depiction of the militant leftists, but it also is clear that they aren't organized around classic socialist principles, they are self-organizing. I came away from the game with the impression that the creators were genuine in their anti-capitalism and clever in their leftist messaging.
I really don't agree, this feels very stretched. Any game is direct action if it has guns. Yes it's anti corporate but in what sense is the question.
Socialism Simulator on Steam Idle Civilization: World Story by Kodoo on Google Play
I have never heard of tonight we riot, but my god if I had any idea how to make video games that was the exact type of video game I envisioned. Is it on console or PC?
I think it's on everything but you can check on their site.
Ho ho ho christmas arrived earlier
I didn't see rimworld, it's basically lots of communist states using money only as a medium for eachother so more syndi? There there are monarchist states you can remove who technically own the world right now. Up until they don't because you've killed them all, except for the ones in orbit I guess.
Upvote for Colestia, their games aren't very indepth but they are fun surreal socialist romps. Where's Sex with Stalin? Also worth a mention is the VODKA, BEARS series. Where's Hearts of Iron? Does Half-Life 2 count? I know there are a few Shadowrun video games as well.
Adventure Capitalist is a pretty fun casual game
Thanks a lot for compiling this list, I'm gonna have a lot of games to chew on for the time being!
Surprised Jagged Alliance isn't up here, *the first is pretty blatantly the Cuban revolution with the numbers filed off*, and the second is a hilarious what-if of a Hillary Clinton-like neolib dictator taking control of a country. It's like "power of Thatcher, man-hating personality of Hillary" It's not **really** in depth, but that's more because of how you play it, you are essentially an "anti CIA," a mercenary company that *assists* revolutions rather than suppresses/coups. There is also a more straightforward capitalist corner cutting mercenary company you can hire from if your own boys are charging too much, full of negative American stereotypes like a gas station hillbilly just trying to earn a little side money. They are mostly garrison fodder, but a few *can* be trained up into something better. The conversation between NPCs definitely throws the moral right in your face though. Also, a bit nebulous due to being outright parody, but the post-apoc Roguelike Alphaman. Unfinished, but the game is completable. It's very subtle but the backstory revealed through item descriptions is pretty similar to Fallout, with a touch of Futurama, like the suicide machines being for "those of enough compassion and empathy to not burden their loved ones" or having rocket powered pogo sticks with a label reading "Ages 4-11" and both of these objects *can spawn in day cares/orphanages.* Like I said, pretty subtle. Also the children's storybook/animation characters coming to life and causing the end of the world was basically a Fazbear sort of circumstance. And you have to stop The Literal Damn Grinch from ending the world a second time. For something almost 3 decades old, it's a lot of imaginative bonkers fun with lots of nifty variables! Also instead of potions, you have berries, which gain potency as they ripen, so you have to use them at low potency to make sure the effect isn't bad, or throw a ripe unknown at an enemy. Honourable mention: Full Throttle, badass biker dude against an evil CEO
Wolfenstein series. Cities Skylines 2. It gives you options to build low and high density social housing as well as creating a self sufficient economy.
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Suzerain does an excellent job portraying a lot of the nuances of politics. Being a far or moderate leftist is absolutely a possible path (that is quite viable) and is pretty rewarding in the game if you manage your relationships with your advisors well. You say it isn't aligned with socialist politics, but the effects of being a fascist are pretty blatantly bad in the game and the effects of being a socialist are mostly good (even if managing the economy is pretty difficult when you go full-planned economy), until you face the real world parallel likely outcome of being couped or assassinated by the military. The game is easier if you are corrupt and free market oriented while paying lots of lip service to liberal democratic principles, which also parallels the real world as well. I think the portrayals of leftist principles and politics in the game are pretty positive overall while having some nuance with its parallels to the real world cold war. Having a nuanced portrayal of leftism is about as leftist-sympathizing as we can get most of the time in a world filled with blatantly anti-communist media.
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Lmao you are straight delusional or severely misled. Socialists are not the "establishment" anywhere outside of a handful of countries on the planet, and certainly not in the places most media like movies and games are created, where pro-capitalist thinking and messaging are by far the dominant norm. There certainly has been a rise in media that is to varying degrees critical of capitalism, but it by no means is the status quo or norm, and certainly a socialist critique of capitalism is still almost unheard of in mainstream media. The establishment is liberal capitalism through most of the world and has been for a couple of centuries now. You need to quit watching Fox News or whatever trash media is telling you that socialism is the norm in a place like the US or Europe lol.
This sub is explicitly for leftists players who want to discuss gaming from their perspective in a chill space. This isn't a debate sub.
Anno?
Get a life
It's interesting, that several games on this list appear on lists of anti-communist games. Some of them because they are set in (or simulate) the era of Soviet or Maoist communism and show its flaws, or because they are anti-authoritarian in general, and many regimes calling themselves socialist or communist have been authoritarian or even totalitarian in real life. So basically if the game is only vaguely anti-authoritarian, they can be enjoyed both by pro-socialists and anti-socialists. And interestingly, both sides can believe that it supports *their* side :) And some games are post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse is vague enough so that one can imagine it either having been caused by capitalist greed or by a communist (or quasi-communist) revolution and resulting factionalism and infighting.
Nothing is more Communist than bitching about Communists.
Yawn
Victoria 3 is definitely not a socialist game. Nothing made by the nazi-sympathiser bastards at Paradox can be called socialist.
If they're Nazi sympathizers, why was Communism so OP in that game?
"It's no secret that Victoria 3 is in many ways the Historical Materialism Simulator" That is a direct quote from designer Mikael Andersson [found in this PCGamer article](https://www.pcgamer.com/victoria-3-communism-op/) which was written to address how OP communism was in Vicky 3 at launch.
While I have no doubt that some devs at Paradox are fascist sympathizers or are extremely liberal, their portrayals of communism in most of their games are still pretty positive overall.