Stalin For An Enemy Rather than Hitler in Games

[Legion]

In regards to the World War Stalin was not a "bad guy", the atrocities committed under his regime were almost entirely against his own people, so a game involving him as the antagonist would really need to be set in Russia as a Russian character.

The problem with that is that it'd be hard to sell to a US audience.

 

[Festus Moonbear]

In regards to the World War Stalin was not a "bad guy", the atrocities committed under his regime were almost entirely against his own people, so a game involving him as the antagonist would really need to be set in Russia as a Russian character.

The problem with that is that it'd be hard to sell to a US audience.

Well there is a rumour that Stalin was assassinated, so I suppose they could do some revisionism and make it a Black Ops mission or something. Wait... forget I said that.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

In regards to the World War Stalin was not a "bad guy", the atrocities committed under his regime were almost entirely against his own people, so a game involving him as the antagonist would really need to be set in Russia as a Russian character.

The problem with that is that it'd be hard to sell to a US audience.

I had the thought about making a game with a Russian character, or group of characters.
I wonder if such a game would have a "happy ending" considering how ruthless Stalin was.

 

[Legion]

In regards to the World War Stalin was not a "bad guy", the atrocities committed under his regime were almost entirely against his own people, so a game involving him as the antagonist would really need to be set in Russia as a Russian character.

The problem with that is that it'd be hard to sell to a US audience.

Well there is a rumour that Stalin was assassinated, so I suppose they could do some revisionism and make it a Black Ops mission or something. Wait... forget I said that.

Well to be fair, it's not like they need to keep it realistic anyway. They could quite happily do an "alternative past" with Stalin as a more prominent enemy if they wanted. It's not like most media based around the Second World War is in any shape or form realistic as it is.

Although a game where you play as a Russian spy attempting to assassinate Stalin is an interesting idea. Although to be honest it wouldn't get a large enough budget to be anything above average.

I had the thought about making a game with a Russian character, or group of characters.
I wonder if such a game would have a "happy ending" considering how ruthless Stalin was.

If the game was trying to be realistic, then I wouldn't say a "happy" ending would be likely, but as mentioned before, games are very rarely realistic, even the ones that claim or try to be, so there are many ways of making it so it did.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

The only way that could possibly work would be if you were playing as the Nazis, since you know, the Russians and Stalin were on the side of the Allies during WWII. In fact, the Russians (and the Poles) were the ones who captured Berlin forcing Germany to surrender. So no, Stalin wouldn't make a very good enemy in a WWII game from the perspective of the US.

In regards to the World War Stalin was not a "bad guy", the atrocities committed under his regime were almost entirely against his own people, so a game involving him as the antagonist would really need to be set in Russia as a Russian character.

The problem with that is that it'd be hard to sell to a US audience.

Not true. As Germany was invading easter Europe from one side Russia was invading it from the other. You could set your game in Poland, fighting off the Soviet invasion. In places like the Ukraine you had independents being fighting both the Nazis and the Soviets, both parties showing no regard for the lives of the Ukrainian civilians.

Of course, you'd have to be willing to put out a game where you're fighting for the losing side.

 

[Blue_vision]

The only way that could possibly work would be if you were playing as the Nazis, since you know, the Russians and Stalin were on the side of the Allies during WWII. In fact, the Russians (and the Poles) were the ones who captured Berlin forcing Germany to surrender. So no, Stalin wouldn't make a very good enemy in a WWII game from the perspective of the US.

Or as Japan. In fact, it'd be really cool to see a WWII game focusing on the Chinese area of the war. You could incorporate part of the Soviet's invasion of Manchuria into it, maybe as a final chapter or something.

 

[sageoftruth]

One way Stalin could be worked into the role of the big bad end boss would be if you played as a Russian. Either a soldier gone AWOL (without getting gunned down) or a civilian who has been indoctrinated into some fictional anti-Russian government movement. You wouldn't be fighting on the front lines of famous battles, but perhaps you could be performing espionage in the midst of famous battles.

The best part would be that you could be fighting against Stalin AND the Nazis. You'd be fighting for the people of Russia rather than for Stalin, working to do things like rescue political prisoners, while also doing things to sabotage the Nazi forces when their presence becomes impossible to ignore. You'd have to worry about what you did in your missions against Stalin to avoid undermining Stalin's campaign against the Nazis. I imagine it would be a series of missions, perhaps ones that you could pick and choose, depending on which ones you considered more important.

 

[Olas]

Snip

Sometimes I do wonder if people think the 'world' part of "World War" is just there for dramatic effect.

Still, I can at least sorta understand why someone not well versed in the specifics of the war might get confused about Russia, considering Stalin is usually painted as an even 'eviler' dictator than Hitler, and anyone who's evil must be the United State's enemy right? And the third great dictator of the time, Mussolini, was sided with Germany. And the media tends to lump Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin together into a sort of evil triumvirate, despite only 2 of them actually being against us.


And then there's the whole cold war and communist scare following the war, basically turning Russia into the new bad guys for almost half a century. And truthfully even during the WWII we were only allies with the soviets in the sense that we had a common enemy. Even before the war there had been tension between the soviets and the west

And then there's the media with all the evil Russian bond villain's and Ivan Drago from Rocky IV and so on and so fourth, drilling americans with the belief that Russia was always our nemesis.

I guess what I'm saying is that, as someone who's grandfathers also fought in the war, I'm not as much offended that someone might not know this as I am saddened by the fact that the media has twisted things around so much that people could have this misunderstanding.

 

[karma9308]

In fact, the Russians (and the Poles) were the ones who captured Berlin forcing Germany to surrender.

Stalin only captured Berlin and Prague because FDR was a leftist **** who ordered that Berlin and Prague were to be taken by the Russians. Amusingly enough, Patton wanted to roll the Russians right back into Russia, which would have vastly improved the living conditions in Eastern Europe and avoided the vast majority of the Cold War with Russia.

...Which would have started WWIII literally months after finishing WWII. No country was ready for another war on the scale of WWII so soon after it was finished. Hell, besides America, no country could really afford to lose the manpower in another war.

Also, the Russians got the 'honor' of taking Berlin, which included nearly 100,000 dead with almost half a million wounded. For reference, only 416,000 American troops died in total.

OT: It's already been addressed, but if Stalin is the enemy, the only way that would work is alternate history, playing as a German, or playing as a Russian fighting the Stalinist purges.

 

[Glongpre]

Mongolia (1945)

They should make a game from the perspective of the Mongolians.




This is GOTY material, I should be a developer.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I think it goes beyond the "everyone hates the Nazis so we'll use them as bad guys all the time" thing. The Nazis have an almost mystical quality to them, helped heavily by all the years of conspiracy theories regarding them. That's why we're so easily able to just have fun with stories where the Nazis are using magic and the occult (Hellboy, Captain America) insane super-science (Wolfenstein, Iron Sky), or Zombies (more stories than I can count).

With the Soviets those kind of things don't really 'click' quite as well (for me at least). Also the fact that we actually had a war vs. the Nazis (and not against the USSR) makes it fall into place more easily.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

Snip

Sometimes I do wonder if people think the 'world' part of "World War" is just there for dramatic effect.

Still, I can at least sorta understand why someone not well versed in the specifics of the war might get confused about Russia, considering Stalin is usually painted as an even 'eviler' dictator than Hitler, and anyone who's evil must be the United State's enemy right? And the third great dictator of the time, Mussolini, was sided with Germany. And the media tends to lump Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin together into a sort of evil triumvirate, despite only 2 of them actually being against us.


And then there's the whole cold war and communist scare following the war, basically turning Russia into the new bad guys for almost half a century. And truthfully even during the WWII we were only allies with the soviets in the sense that we had a common enemy. Even before the war there had been tension between the soviets and the west

And then there's the media with all the evil Russian bond villain's and Ivan Drago from Rocky IV and so on and so fourth, drilling americans with the belief that Russia was always our nemesis.

I guess what I'm saying is that, as someone who's grandfathers also fought in the war, I'm not as much offended that someone might not know this as I am saddened by the fact that the media has twisted things around so much that people could have this misunderstanding.

Oh it wasn't the Russian bit which offended me, it was the comment which basically took my post pointing out there were more countries involved and turned that into the US vs Japan and Germany. It was the fact that he didn't even seem to get that CANADA was involved Or the UK (I apologize to the person above who pointed out that my use of England should have be United Kingdom) let alone my own country of Australia and NZ. Hell he didn't even acknowledge FRANCE and they almost lost everything in that war.

His attitude was that the war didn't start until the Americans arrived and that's what I took offense to

 

[Trololo Punk]

I remember reading a few years ago about an RTS (cant remember its name or if it was ever released or not) that was set just after WW2 (still in the 40s) where the West and the Soviets go to war against eachother

You could be thinking about Hearts of Iron, which is a grand strategy game. There is also a special scenario which came with one of the expansion packs (I believe it was Their Finest Hour) where the it's all about what would have happened if operation unthinkable ("code-name of two related plans of a conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union") had actually happened.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I remember reading a few years ago about an RTS (cant remember its name or if it was ever released or not) that was set just after WW2 (still in the 40s) where the West and the Soviets go to war against eachother

You could be thinking about Hearts of Iron, which is a grand strategy game. There is also a special scenario which came with one of the expansion packs (I believe it was Their Finest Hour) where the it's all about what would have happened if operation unthinkable ("code-name of two related plans of a conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union") had actually happened.

There's also one called "World in Conflict", where in the single-player game you play as either US or NATO fighting against Soviet forces when they invade the US.

 

[FalloutJack]

Stalin was the enemy of his own people back then, not the Allies. If you marketed this to Russians (or any country formerly of the Soviet Union for that matter), I can see some buyers, but the rest of us would be lukewarm.