Spec Ops : The Line, Another vision of war in video games or Destroying the digital battlefield

Isn’t it strange how often a player travels while holding a weapon?

That’s the question that came into my mind, while exploring the Middle-East, the Balkans or the vast Russian Taïga. Modern military shooters have a rather strange ability to provide exotic settings to their battles, often including the greatest armies of the globe, whether they are regulars, rebels or terrorists.

Fighting along these armies, players of the shooter genre have become familiar with the strategies employed, the devices used and the overall framework of modern military conflicts: clear objectives, inviolable orders, standardized weapons and reassuring mechanisms.

But, what if these were to disappear? What if everything crumbles?

Like Dubaï ...

Spec Ops: The Line is one of those games that quickly obtained a cult status despite its crushing commercial failure. Released in 2012, this game developed by Yager Studio had low sales, mostly because of its lackluster gameplay and its generic appearance. However, if the gameplay was insufficient to draw attention, its visuals, plot and the questions the game brought to the player sure were.

The visuals of Spec Ops: The Line helps the dark story and theme stand out. The storyline brings the player to witness another aspect of the war, not often shown in modern shooters: civilians under martial law, survival in a ruined city, the validity of orders in a chaotic conflict, terrifying and forbidden weapons…

Spec Ops: The Line challenges the digital battlefield the players get used to by playing modern military shooters.

The heart of darkness

To better understand where Spec Ops: The Line comes from, one needs to look at Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Konrad. It tells the story of a sailor traveling in the heart of Belgian Congo as Captain of one of the company’s boat, to find and bring back Kurtz, a brilliant employee of the company, who manages to find great amounts of ivory thanks to his control of the local population.

Apocalypse Now took inspiration from this book as well. The game often echos Coppola’s movie, in moments such as having the player chased by a helicopter bursting Verdi’s Requiem.

Let’s row, row, row our boat, up the storyline:

Dubaï was hit by a series of incredibly powerful sandstorms that left the city helpless. The 33rd Infantry Regiment of the United States Army was then sent to the city in order to help maintain the order and ensure the evacuation of the population. But they gave no sign of life since. A squad of three Deltas (American special forces) led by the sergeant Paul Walker is next sent to find the 33rd and their leader, colonel John Conrad, who embodies the so called Kurtz of Konrad’s book and Coppola’s movie. But he won’t be seen until the end.

The jungle of Heart of Darkness, this green living wall, crawling on the riverbank, fascinating and threatening at the same time, is represented by the sand of Dubaï. This sand is the reason of the city’s fall: it infiltrates everywhere, weighs over the building and the people alike, and its storm provide interesting sequences where the player must find a shelter while somehow retaliating to the enemies also lost in the sandstorm. Too bad that this sand, although omnipresent and hostile, is not highlighted more often by the gameplay, and that the desert isn’t more than a setting.

Oh say, can you see …

The ever-present American hero. This trope gave rise to a plethora of jokes, due to its overuse in video games. Instead of rejecting it, Spec Ops: The Line uses it to better serve its narrative.

Allow me to illustrate:

In modern military shooters, the American flag is a must. The fact that it is already present in the main menu can make some people smile. Except this time, the star-spangled banner is not a symbol of unity, let alone victory: it is raised upside down. This is a distress signal defined by the US Code of Law.

This flags' presence thus becomes a warning: you are not in conquered territory, don’t expect victory to be achieved.

Still in the main menu, the American anthem can be heard. This version, however, was played by Jimmy Hendrix at Woodstock 1969, when the opposition to the Vietnam War peaked. The reference to the most controversial war led by the USA is reinforced by the sound of a helicopter flying in the background, a vehicle which saw extensive use during this particular war.

Just in its menu, even before beginning the game, Spec Ops: The Line sets a worrying theme and carries a Vietnam War stench.

Past the main menu, those Americans will have some trouble, since you will soon have to kill some fellow countrymen, those you came to save, in pure self-defense. The 33rd appeared to have taken the city and put it under martial law. The CIA will also intervene in Dubaï, which will add confusion and then hostility to the game, Delta squad having to ensure their survival against the 33rd, the CIA and the rebels.

Because yes, the civilians and former inhabitants of Dubaï don’t really enjoy being oppressed and butchered by the 33rd. They will turn on Martin Walker and his squad. For them they are just Americans, just more murderers.

Home sweet home ...

Being American will not help you: it will stick to your skin like napalm in the morning, which smells like victory.

Crossing the Line

In a world of gray, the only clear point of no return is usually a line. A line between self-defense and aggression, between soldiers and mercenaries, between casualties and murder.

This line can prove to be very thin.

So thin that Dubaï crossed it to fall in despair, so blurry that the 33rd damned itself, but ever so present that Walker and his team will come to be very close to it.

Several topics, which are very sensitive, often evoked, rarely represented, and even less given for the player to play with or against, are brought up in Spec Ops: The Line with a crude violence in order to take the player further out of the digital battlefield.

“Friendly fire will not be tolerated !”

Most games will harshly punish the player for any friendly fire, even accidental, with a necessary GAME OVER.

Spec Ops : The Line is far from it. In the first missions of the game, you will have to shoot American soldiers, these very soldiers you were supposed to save in the first place. They shot first so what happened is legitimate defence, it’s acceptable, right ?

Some may criticize the speed at which this change occurs, which leaves no choice for player because it is too quick and easy. This is exactly the point. Shooting Americans instead of Russians or terrorists from the Middle-East is a laughable change, which doesn’t alter the gameplay in any way. The player is just able to understand the shouts of his enemies echoing those of his own team. In a matter of minutes, the player killed 15 soldiers of the 33rd, and yelling “Friendly fire !” did not stop anybody from shooting each other.

In the end, as long as it moves and shoots at you, the uniform doesn’t matter. Whatever nationality and origin, the enemy can be anyone aggressive, a belligerent placeholder.

Follow the orders no matter what it takes and everything should be fine.

Modern Warfare 2 led to a controversy on the representation of torture in video games. It was suggested in the game, and used to obtain information needed to hunt down a weapons dealer hidden in a favela.

Spec Ops : The Line doesn’t force the player to do torture himself but makes him watch how it occurs far more frequently than one thinks. The player finds the 33rd soldiers, burnt to death after rebelling and later needs to follow the radio signal of an ally while they are being tortured on live. The player can’t save him, but this sequence’s goal is more to horrify than to express the urgency of the situation.

Not so rebellious now ?

The peak of this fall is unarguably the Gate mission. Walker and his team have to cross through a heavily defended gate between two buildings. To go in with conventional weapons is suicide. The circumstances seem to force Walker to use white phosphorus, which causes lethal burns to whoever it touches. Despite a member of the squad, Lugo's reluctance, the path is cleared with the mortar. This kind of sequence is now common in modern shooters : a level in which you are untouchable, and in which you make death rain upon your enemies', frail white silhouettes on a screen. But few games make the player walk through the hell he unleashed, especially to show him the real meaning of “collateral damage” : civilians who couldn't escape the deadly rain.

This chapter shows the horror of forbidden weapons, the downsides of advanced armaments and their representation in video games. For the operator, the enemies and allies are dots on a screen, no longer human. For the player, it is a familiar, enjoyable gameplay, giving him power often without consequences.

Friendly fire, torture, forbidden weapons and murdering civilians. These are realities the player has to face in Spec Ops : The Line, while he is passing through the battlefield, a not so digital battlefield.

“There is always a choice !”

These are the words of Lugo, disgusted by the usage of white phosphorus. These are not only addressed to Walker, but also to the player himself.

Multiple times, the player thinks everything will unfold as planned by the narrative and fails to realize he has the choice. The game offers several situations in which the player can make a move. The choices are underlying and are not displayed on the interface. They also use the main mechanic, shooting, instead of simple inputs (ie : "Press X to pay respect”).

The player has to kill one before going on.

Unless he chooses to kill the shooters who block his path.

Unless he shoots the bindings of the prisoners. Or should he kill them all ?

What are the orders ?

It is often possible to leave everyone alive. But that’s not the point of a shooter, right ?

Yet the game goes on, and who knows if these choices did have an impact.

Dissonance

If I had to describe Spec Ops : The Line in one word, it would be dissonance. Most games aim to immerse the player by making him identify or empathize with his avatar, but here, the longer you play, the harder the game tries to distance the player from the avatar. The game addresses the player in many ways.

At the beginning of the game, the player’s nickname is shown under the line “Guest”. Spec Ops : The Line “invites” the player into its narrative.

Even the loading screens speak directly to the player, and question him, even when he is not playing at the moment.

All of this echoes in the words of John Conrad : “The truth, Walker, is that you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not: a hero.”

Conclusion

Love it or hate it, Spec Ops : The Line leaves few indifferent. It shows a side of war that little to no game dares to approach and plays with the modern shooter tropes. It has the look and mechanics of your everyday military shooter but holds a powerful narrative that unsettles the player and makes him question everything he might have learned on a digital battlefield, and why he enjoys playing in these.

Some may reproach its lack of subtlety, its direct and violent approach. But I think such violence is needed for the game to carry its meaning properly. After all, war is not subtle but violent and unforgiving. Furthermore, there ARE many details and references which reward those who pay attention.

Spec Ops : The Line questions the tropes of the modern military shooter, which tend to show the player a “clean” and staged war, a digital battlefield.

Unlike most of the shooters, which aim to immerse the player, Spec Ops: The Line separates Walker and the player, to allow him to question his avatar’s actions and what he might have learned by playing shooters which hide the “real” consequences of his deeds.

To conclude, I will just paraphrase Lucas Raycevick, because his conclusion on the game might summarize all of the above better than I ever could :

“The game’s point isn’t that we, the gamers, are Walker. [] Spec Ops’s point is that we, the gamers, have far too much in common with Walker