COD famously did this for the airport scene. I see these Steam indie games like standup comedy, a lot of smaller/younger devs try hard to push boundaries to get attention in a sea of thousands of generic games coming out every month. It is sometimes where good ideas come from. Or maybe another analogy is porn where there's a million niche things for everybody's perverse interests.
The point of "No Russian" is that the mass shooting was unjustified. You're an American who has infiltrated a terrorist group, and you go on a mass shooting with them to maintain your cover. Then, at the end of the mission, it's revealed that the terrorists knew you were an American, so they kill you and leave your body behind so that Russia blames the United States for the attack.
It's subversive because you think it's the typical "sometimes you have to do bad things to stop worse things from happening" plot.
But nope, committing atrocities because that's the standard of the "bad guys" is what allows terrorists to justify their existence and propagate the cycle of violence. The entire plot of the game is that individuals in the US and Russian governments use terrorism to justify even worse actions.
The game mentioned in the OP, on the other hand, portrays Palestinian liberation as requiring violence in order to match the actions of the Israeli military. The killings are not only justified but are necessary. This follows Frantz Fanon, who said:
> At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.
In other words, getting revenge is inherently cathartic and the solution to a violent conflict is to ensure your side performs more violence and ultimately wins. It's a very different message to Call of Duty.
Whatever’s your stance on the conflict, if you include Oct 7 as a playable mission AND you continue to play as the same guy throughout the game - you’re the bad guy.
It’s one thing to create imaginary world of freedom fighter fighting against tyranny of oppressive world hegemony of certain state and it is completely different thing to include some sort of Sep 11 event and then paint it as resistance.
> The game wasn’t fully based on playing as bad guys.
Well yeah... COD is a giant mainstream game where that line has to be from a socially acceptable shortlist of bad guys. Yet it still included a transgressive scene that upset people with calls to remove it. I remember the news heavily covered it. Great for marketing.
This is some small Steam game where you can put together some low effort campaign in an old game engine, spin it with some controversial topic and get frontpage on social media without having to appease a wider audience.
