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Propaganda appears in various popular computer games as an attempt by Russia to win over and persuade a new audience. Examples of Russian broadcasting propaganda can be found starting from the first armed interventions of the Putin regime. For example, the developers from Red Ice Software in the game "Confrontation: Forced to Peace" in 2008 fantasized about the continuation of the Russian invasion of Georgia. In the game, supposedly in 2009, Georgia begins its own operation in Abkhazia and Ossetia. At the same time, Ukraine allegedly blockaded the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and "NATO in the form of Polish armed forces" is also joining the military operations. The cover of the game disc featured a caricature of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili.
Detector Media (DM) has already discussed how Russian video game developers parasitize the topic of the Soviet Union and the glorification of the imperial past using the example of the retro-futuristic game Atomic Heart. DM aims to analyze how the Russian game industry continues developing products that broadcast propaganda narratives to domestic Russian audiences and Russian-speaking players from post-Soviet countries.
"Import substitution" mania
The Russian authorities influence not only the content but also the physical control over the Internet, promoting the concept of the so-called "sovereign Internet." They do so by gradually introducing changes to the legislation with the aim of isolating "RU.net," motivating it by protecting it against "foreign cyberattacks." An example is the recent "slowdown" of YouTube in Russia, which was also experienced by residents of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
In the fall of 2023, during a meeting of the Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports, Vladimir Putin agreed to the idea of transferring the servers of online games played by Russian citizens to the territory of Russia and requiring them to be located in the ".ru" domain zone. The exact meeting proposed to create a state body for the regulation of network games in Russia and to block online games that promote "anti-state values", even in the ".com" domain. Some game companies responded to this initiative. For example, Astrum Entertainment (a Russian publisher of the Chinese multiplayer game Perfect World and the already mentioned Atomic Heart) reported that local servers for Russian players were already located in Russia. In the meantime, others, such as VK Play and Syberia Nova, developers of the Real Turmoil game, refused to comment on such an initiative of the Russian authorities.
With the help of these methods, the Russian authorities will attract up to $5 billion, which, according to the federal officials’ estimation, Russian players transfer abroad through various transactions. Russian officials from Putin's entourage, particularly sports official Umar Kremlev, view the regulation of the "online games and casinos" market as additional opportunities for the distribution of influence on those sectors of the economy that have so far suffered less from sanctions and as additional sources of enrichment.
Before that, Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian government to promote "domestic video games and Russian software" to foreign markets, including the BRICS countries. Apart from Russia, after expansion, this interstate association includes several states of the Global South, Africa, and Asia, including Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
The Russian authorities continue to use the concept of so-called "import substitution" in developing game consoles. In April 2024, developers of the Russian mobile operating system Aurora announced that their operating system would be used as a software platform for a future "Russian game console" developed at the behest of President Vladimir Putin. So far, several dozen "retro games" have been adapted for this operating system. The main problem remains the sanctions imposed on Russia, which prevent the sale of licenses, and the refusal of international players in the game industry to cooperate with Russian companies. At the same time, even Russian private companies estimate the development time of a game system similar to that of world leaders in the console market, such as PlayStation or Xbox, to be at least ten years. However, they believe that none of the Russian developers currently have the skills to produce their own gaming console of this level.
An example of the impact of sanctions on the Russian gaming industry is also the closure of the SberGames branch of the Russian state-owned Sberbank. In 2021, Sberbank planned to invest about $100 million in the Sberentertainment project and purchased the games.ru domain, heavily betting on mobile games in the Western market. However, after the start of the invasion of Ukraine and the introduction of sanctions, the company fired about 200 employees due to the inability to sell its developments in the Google Play and App Store marketplaces.
"Real Turmoil" as a mirror of Russian state propaganda
In September 2014, the Internet Development Institute (IDI) was created in Russia. The state organization is supposed to "help" the Kremlin promote its propaganda narratives. Since 2020, IDI has become the competition operator for creating digital content that would meet these goals. The deputy head of Putin's administration, Sergey Kiriyenko, announced the allocation of 3 billion rubles for 2020 to finance competitive projects. Since then, IDI has been "supporting" pro-government bloggers, filming TV series for young people (such as Slovo patsana), and, among other things, creating computer games. After the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 and 2023, IDI directed 2.5 billion rubles to the creation of video games alone. Three games named Real Turmoil (Смута), Front Edge (Передний край), and Sparta-2035, were planned to be released in 2024.
As of August, only Real Turmoil was full-fledgedly released of these projects. It is also the most expensive (almost 500 million rubles of state funding) and the most ambitious project of the three. Real Turmoil is a role-playing game in the historical setting of the beginning of the 17th century, the period of the so-called Time of Troubles in Muscovy. Players are invited to be in the role of the main character of the game, Yuri Miloslavsky, a boyar who "corrects the mistakes of the past, and as a result contributes to the end of the Time of Troubles and the unification of Muscovite Rus". The developers of Real Turmoil compared their project with Witcher 3, Ghost of Tsushima, and the Assassin's Creed series. An advertising campaign was organized for the release of the game, involving not only game bloggers but also Russian state television. Moreover, on the day of the game's presentation, a whole reconstruction festival was organized in Nizhny Novgorod. In addition, Real Turmoil was to be accompanied by an IDI-funded television series in the same setting.
The promotional campaign for the Real Turmoil game on Russian television. Source: screenshot of the First Channel’s video
The plot of Real Turmoil is based on the 1829 novel by Mikhail Zagoskin, "Yuri Miloslavsky, or Russians in 1612". The main character initially supports the invitation to the Moscow throne of the Polish prince Wladyslaw but later changes his views and decides to join the anti-Polish militia. In the game, the hero's inner struggle is presented through a mystical duel with his alter ego, the "dark Yuri" from the future, which the main character would become if he chose the side of the Poles.
Yuri's dialogue with "dark Yuri" is the ideological peak of the game. The alter ego calls Yuri a tsar's serf and brags about aristocratic freedoms that the Moscow boyars do not have. Yuri tries to answer that the supposedly "gilded collar" does not allow him to breathe more freely, but "dark Yuri" cites a specific example of the election of the king of Poland by the nobles themselves. The main character obviously has nothing to answer, and he immediately switches the topic to the fact that the alter ego "betrayed his native Orthodox faith." "Dark Yuri" answers in a thief's voice that he has chosen the "true faith" and "the doors of churches are open to Catholics throughout Europe", after which the battle begins, in which the main character, of course, defeats the "traitor". After the duel, Yuri says that "he hears not with his mind, but with his heart" that it is necessary to be together with the anti-Polish forces.
In this small episode (out of a total of 30 hours of gameplay and dialogues), the main ideological and propaganda narrative of the game reveals that the occupying Poles are bad because they are foreigners, and [Russian] militias are good because they are their own. Of course, in other episodes, the Polish characters are presented as thieves who rob and humiliate the local population. Still, for most of the game, the main character fights not with the Poles but with local "traitors" and robbers, who also rob and humiliate the inhabitants of Muscovy.
However, Real Turmoil’s propagandist element is not stopped at this. At the beginning of the game, the main character puts forward an essential thesis for modern Russia: "The state needs a strong king so that no one dares to muddy its waters." All the hardships of the Time of Troubles are explained precisely by the fact that no "strong king" is on the throne. That is why, at the beginning, Yuri supports Wladyslaw because even a foreign Catholic king is better off without a "strong hand" [at home]. The main hero discusses this in a dialogue with the "Zaporizhia Cossack Kirsha". This hero is represented in the novel and remains in the game as a positive character and one of Yuri's main associates. In the game, Kirsha, in addition to looking exactly like a Zaporizhia Cossack, also has a specific accent, with which the Russian voice actor probably tried to convey the Ukrainian pronunciation but succeeded only in a deafened of the Russian "h" pronunciation ["г" in Cyrillic]. We notice that the "Ukrainian-Russian brotherhood" in the struggle against the West portrayed by the Poles was emphasized in the 19th century and remains in Russian narratives today.
Images of the main characters of the Real Turmoil game. In the center is Yuri Miloslavsky. On the left - "Zaporizhia Cossack Kirsha". Source: Real Turmoil’s advertising poster
Real Turmoil also reflects other minor moments that refer to modern narratives of Russian propaganda. For example, in a dialogue with a German mercenary, Yuri says that "the girls there [in Germany] are not girls at all, but rather men in disguise" and that "when no one is looking at you, you turn your backs to each other and bend down." Then the main character calls the same German a "liver sausage". In another episode of the game, the gunnery commander tasks Yuri to find a "troublemaker" who is inciting the shooters to rebel, turning them against the commanders, "seeking out treason against the commanders and boyars... lying so smoothly that you start to doubt yourself." The rebel's name is Alyoshka (a probable allusion to the deceased Russian oppositionist Alexey Navalny). Upon meeting him, he declares to the main character that "Voivodes and Boyars' children are the main thieves in the world, worse than the Poles, but here — we are the government." Also presented as a clearly negative character, the rebel expresses "seditious" thoughts about the fact that one should not "go to great lengths for the sake of high status".
The Time of Troubles, specifically the year 1612, holds an essential place in modern Russian mythology. The official holiday, "Day of National Unity", has been taking place since November 4, 2005, in honor of Moscow's liberation from the Poles in 1612. However, according to Russian historians, particularly medievalist Vladislav Nazarov, nothing notable actually happened on that day. The "Day of Military Glory of Russia" was also designated for the same day of the year. The Economist magazine (and not only) even expressed the opinion that the "Day of National Unity" was introduced to replace the old Soviet holiday of the October "Revolution", which was celebrated on November 7. Moreover, the replacement occurred just after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, when the word "revolution" became uncomfortable for the new "tsar" on the Moscow throne. Real Turmoil is one of the means for popularizing a historical moment important for the modern Kremlin, illuminated from a point of view convenient for the authorities.
The only problem is that, like many other products of Russian state propaganda, the tool turned out to be broken, and quite literally so. After the game was released, Russian users and critics criticized it. For many of them, Real Turmoil could not even start at all. Those who were able to enter the game complained about an extraordinary number of "bugs" and poor optimization. Russian developers used the Unreal Engine 5 game engine, developed by the American company Epic Games, but did not manage to adapt it to their own game. In addition, users criticized the game's boring and repetitive gameplay, poorly written dialogues and illogical plot, "crooked" voice acting, and other aspects. Devastating humorous video reviews of Real Turmoil, for a certain time, became a separate genre on Russian-language YouTube. However, Russian propagandist Alexandr Malkevich blamed the wave of "hate" against the game on "relocators and foreign agents... those who oppose everything Russian". On the contrary, the State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov recognized the game’s failure and suspected that "the developers were recruited by Polish special services" who allegedly committed deliberate sabotage.
Hidden "Wagner" and modern warfare in Russian games
The Internet Development Institute provided funding for two more games — Front Edge and Sparta-2035. Although both games are much more modest regarding requests and claims than the Real Turmoil, they are also worth mentioning. Front Edge has not yet been officially released, but one can already download a free version from the game's website. This strategy is described on the IDI website as follows: "The game is implemented in the "new media" concept when the player themselves can become a part of military operations, which they only recently heard about in the news."
The need for the project’s state support is justified by the fact that it is "aimed at forming ideas about the power and strength of the Russian army among the young audience." One can play the current version of the Front Edge either for Russia or for the USA; in the future, game developers plan to add China to the club of "great powers". The creators probably do not see other worthy enemies for the modern Russian army. Battles in the game take place on painfully familiar landscapes — fields with plantations, destroyed villages, and post-Soviet cities with characteristic panel houses that resemble real cities in eastern Ukraine destroyed by the Russian army. According to players' feedback, the current version of the game depicts the Russian army as having an advantage over the American one, so most players choose Russia, and those who want a "challenge" choose the Americans. Perhaps, by using this format, the creators are trying to form an idea "about the power and strength of the Russian army."
This is not the first strategy game dedicated to modern combat actions by the Front Edge game's developers, the Cats Who Play studio. Previously, they released a game called Syrian Warfare in the English version and "Syria. Russian Storm" in Russian (Сирия: Русская буря). The game offers a view of the war in Syria from a Russian perspective, and the authors do not try to hide their intentions. In the description of the game on the Steam platform (the game is officially sold on the platform, as well, as there is already a page created for the upcoming release of the Front Edge), the authors write: "Modern games are not just entertainment, they are... another way to convey information, often even more insightful than the most detailed analytical articles and news blocks. We want to use this channel to show what happened in the Middle East and how." On the review aggregator site Metacritic, one of the users expressed a similar view of the game: "If there is a game for propaganda, this is it." On their website, the developers write, "Syria. Russian Storm" was criticized by the Western media and Syrian human rights activists from London. But the developers call the Western journalist critics nothing but "terrorist propagandists". Moreover, in one of the interviews, the game’s creators mentioned that the Chinese audience actively purchased the game.
According to currently available information, the third of the IDI-sponsored games, Sparta-203, is also a propaganda product. The game is described as a "tactical RPG" (a genre of video games in which players take the characters’ role in a fictional environment — DM’s note) in the "setting" of an imaginary African country, where "radical fanatics" came to power after a coup, and "employees of a private military company fighting in Africa in the interests of Russia" are fighting them. According to the developers, there will be no direct references to the criminal Wagner organization in the game. However, "several screenwriters working on the game have participated in military operations in Syria." In a conversation about the game, which was conducted by the Tsargrad propaganda channel with "the teacher of the eSports department" Alexandr Gorbachenko, the latter said that "the task of the Russian game developers is to present the Russian soldiers in the most favorable spotlight: as part of the Russian military machine acting on the side of good".
One cannot fail to mention another planned Russian game — Best in Hell shooter, based on the same name film, filmed under the production of the deceased Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to the developers, the game's focus will be the battle for Popasna in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. Russian troops completely destroyed the city in the spring of 2022. In the game’s trailer, one can hear a song that glorifies the "feats" of the Wagner group, and one of its verses refers to a "pig cutter" (свинорез, the name of a specific hunting knife and a line from a song that humiliates Ukrainian soldiers — DM’s note). The shooter game’s main characters are the mercenaries of the "famous PMC" [Wagner group] and someone very similar to the murdered Wagner’s founder, aka Prigozhin himself.
This project did not receive state funding from IDI. It can be assumed that it was due to the too-obvious references to "traitors" who revolted against the Kremlin. As far as it is known, Sparta-2035 does not plan to refer specifically to Prigozhin, and funding was provided as early as 2022 when Wagner mercenaries were still presented as heroes in Russia.
An image of an Orthodox icon turned into a family photo, emphasizing the values for which the player is fighting. Source: Best in Hell game trailer
As The New York Times journalists Steven Lee Myers and Kellen Browning write, games and communication and messaging platforms related to gaming culture and community, such as Discord and Steam, can be targeted to distribute Russian agitational propaganda. By spreading propaganda narratives among the young audience, Russia not only justifies the war in Ukraine or the invasion of Georgia in 2008 but also gathers supporters of the imperial conquering and chauvinistic worldview.
Russia uses computer games and esports to spread propaganda among youth in Ukraine’s Temporarily Occupied Territories (TOT). In particular, Russia’s Federation of Esports holds tournaments and competitions in various esports disciplines and is the initiator of the introduction of lessons on the construction and piloting of drones in schools in the occupied territories. This can be seen not only as an attempt to win favor among the youth but also as direct training of future Russian army soldiers to participate in the war against Ukraine. With the help of such games as Real Turmoil or Front Edge, Russian agitational propaganda forms a radical attitude of rejection of all "foreigners" and "aliens" among its own youth.
Main page illustration credits: Natalia Lobach
