Where would you have a WW2 game take place?

[Grape_Nuts]

Finland versus Russia for sure.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

I'm not saying that you couldn't do it but its big risk financially. If you have the choice of two WW2 games both the same development budget you would chose the one that wouldn't run into trouble. In eastern europe, in particular, these are still live issues. Look at the trouble surrounding the film defiance for an idea of the sort of problems that you could get into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defiance_(2008_film)

Moving on to the SS, the reality is that the lines are blurred. Originally the SS was the second paramilitary arm the NADSP after the SA. The waffen SS was formed as the NADSP private army. However the SS was later banned from recruiting in Germany and then started recruiting amongst foreign nationals. You had French, Norwegians, Swedes, Dutch, British, Belgium, Biosains, Ukrainians and even white Russians left over from before the communist take over. Later in the East the SS started recruiting at gunpoint and the soldiers where subject to arbitrary execution by their SS sargent. The SS Einsatzgruppen, who did the main mass murders of jews in the east before the advent of the final solution, had considerable numbers of ordinary german police amongst their numbers. All members of the german police force were drafted into the non waffen SS by the decree in 1936. So a lot the massacres in 1941-42 were committed by people who had been until 6 months before had been investigating burglaries. There also the fact that a lot logistic support for SS Einsatzgruppen came for the regular army. The vehicles that were used to transport 33,771 jews in two days to their execution site in Babi Yar where driven by soldiers of the German 6th army. You can't just neatly divided up responsibility between the SS and the wehrmacht or assume that the every member of the SS was a nazi. Captured German Soldiers' letters reveal that the consensus of opinion was that Slavs were 'the Asiatic-Bolshevik' horde, a subhuman but threatening race that is was necessary to exterminate for Germany to gain living space. Basically in the East there was no consequence for rape or murder of a non German and when there is no law the norm becomes set by those who are most extreme.

Clearly I need to do far more research. I doubt a game like this would ever be taken up by a big developer, for exactly the reasons you've listed, but if well researched and well thought out it could make for an interesting indie title. The reason why the idea interests me so much, is because I really don't know much about the war from the Axis perspective, and I think it's a viewpoint that needs to be considered, as it could provide a lot of insight into the realities of a fascist regime and the real horrors of war, the ones that always go unsaid.

Really, I just want a game that doesn't say "You are american, you're the good guys, those are nazis, they're the bad guys, have at it". I want one that explores the reality of the situation, because if we keep airbrushing WW2 in our representations of it, I worry we risk forgetting some of the most important lessons the war taught us.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Antarctica.
Lead an army of polar bears, penguins, walruses, and whales to those pitiful humans. I shall show them their petty squabbles among themselves are meaningless.
Unity shall be achieved
Peace inevitable
A new dawn has arrived.

But polar bears live on the North Pole.
So do walrusses.

Anyway, I'd probably put it on the moon.
And you're Hitler, building a moonbase and plotting the re-invasion of earth after losing, while directing operatives on the planet, getting the Capitalists and Communists to fight eachother to weaken them in preparation for your return.
Okay, I guess that would technically be a fictional post-WW2.

 

[Cal Shackleford]

I think there is scope, most likely a possibly concerning and controversial avenue but from a narrative point of view interesting, to have a game that simply follows a family trying to survive and escape the war (though I think someone may have already mentioned Jewish refugees, it's a story that merits exploration).

Other mentions go to the many resistances - White Rose Movement might be a good one to look into for novelty's sake though I do not think it would be very "action-y."

Not necessarily part of "World War Two," but both the Italo-Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War I've not once seen depicted in a game beyond Hearts of Iron.

I think other theatres and sides may be a tricky area to get into if you want to go beyond a simple "slice of what happened." Games like Hearts of Iron are unapologetic sims, great fun, but little in way of story other than "this is how it was at this date... go!" And, to me at least, Red Orchestra (& Rising Storm) read like an interactive documentary - while it did not detract from mine enjoyment, it didn't really produce a story as much as throw a series of scenarios at me.

But to go beyond that and try to develop a character around acts and ideologies born from particularly abstract and disturbing perversions of concepts of national good, security and duty so disconnected from an innate humanity and respect for one's fellows, is a tricky path for any developer and storyteller. Games like Company of Heroes and Silent Hunter, albeit far from perfect, do allow for some exploration of the war from the other side of the trenches, but they are somewhat far and few between.

I'd honestly love to see a game from the perspective of the German Army, from rise to fall (ditto for the Imperial Japanese Army), tracing the optimism and confidence, watching it give way to frustration, confusion, despair and anger, before manifesting into grief and violent utter hopelessness. However as wealthy an area might be in terms of story, in simple terms of moral proximity to so many hot button issues that remain to this day, I think it will be a while before such a game receives attention on any major Triple A, multi-million dollar budget level.

That said, if the existence of a game like Valiant Hearts (is it really as good as they say?) is anything to go by, a multiple-pov slice of sorrow might be doable - so there may be hope yet for such a game and its story.

Honourable mention goes to the ANZAC forces, who really could do with a game of their own.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

The Pacific theater, specifically more on the Japanese invasion of China, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and the like and less on the Allies retaking islands and landing on Okinawa. I get it's a sore subject due to our close economic ties with Japan, enmity with China, and a combination of Japanese and Chinese revisionist history, but it's a much overlooked subject as far as western media and video games are concerned. You don't even need to immediately dive into Call of Duty jingoism or the really dark stuff like the institutionalized sex slavery, rape of Nanking, or Unit 731 (unless you really want to).

How about a Saboteur-meets-Sleeping Dogs style game set during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong as a member of the resistance? Or maybe even a survival/guerrilla warfare game set in Singapore featuring a varied cast of Allied soldiers that have just broken out from one of the many Japanese prison/labor camps dotting the area? Hell, why not just a straight prison-survival game taking inspiration from King Rat.

Edit: Or if you want to go full alternate history, how about a resource-scavenging survival horror game wherein Japanese, Chinese, and Allied fighters are forced to cooperate after a Unit 731 experiment royally fucks up and lets loose a bunch of hideously deformed experiments akin to a zombie plague?

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

I'd like to see it set in outer space. Not just Nazi mooon base stuff, I mean the Allies and Axis as separate galactic powers vying for control of each others planets. Keep the propaganda, flags and uniforms the same, just make it high sci-fi.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Nazi Men You're Looking For: Third Reich Theft Squad Adventures

A comedy game in which you must acquire treasure and other luxuries for Herman Goering, even as Germany's war effort collapses around you. Clash with Albert Speer as you divert resources from postwar survival and civil defense to build extravagant hilltop mansions! Scout the widest possible escape routes so your increasingly fat leader can live to loot another day! Avoid the dastardly machinations of Himmler, who wants all the sweet sweet treasure of Europe for himself, and the sad determination of Walter Model, who wants you to actually do your job and fight- maybe if you convince him his cause is lost, he'll kill himself and let you get back to stealing? And of course, those pesky allies just won't stop trying to "liberate" your hard-won swag.

FEATURES
Play as a useless, untrained staff officer bureaucrat, and pilfer shiny things for Germany's worst (and only) Reichsmarshal!
Use stealth, bribery, pleading, pathetic pleading, and crushing tyranical force to secure priceless loot while making no effort to defeat the allies!
Change the course of history- steal enough and you can pay to smuggle Goering to Brazil to live out his days on a banana plantation with a lifetime supply of chocolates and silk bathrobes!
Meet important historical figures and disappoint them with your cowardice and greed!
Enjoy the good life in secluded, liquor-stocked, prostitute-filled mansions while the SS systematically murder everyone the Russians don't get to first, then surrender to America when the cigars run out.

 

[Albino Boo]

Nazi Men You're Looking For: Third Reich Theft Squad Adventures

A comedy game in which you must acquire treasure and other luxuries for Herman Goering, even as Germany's war effort collapses around you. Clash with Albert Speer as you divert resources from postwar survival and civil defense to build extravagant hilltop mansions! Scout the widest possible escape routes so your increasingly fat leader can live to loot another day! Avoid the dastardly machinations of Himmler, who wants all the sweet sweet treasure of Europe for himself, and the sad determination of Walter Model, who wants you to actually do your job and fight- maybe if you convince him his cause is lost, he'll kill himself and let you get back to stealing? And of course, those pesky allies just won't stop trying to "liberate" your hard-won swag.

FEATURES
Play as a useless, untrained staff officer bureaucrat, and pilfer shiny things for Germany's worst (and only) Reichsmarshal!
Use stealth, bribery, pleading, pathetic pleading, and crushing tyranical force to secure priceless loot while making no effort to defeat the allies!
Change the course of history- steal enough and you can pay to smuggle Goering to Brazil to live out his days on a banana plantation with a lifetime supply of chocolates and silk bathrobes!
Meet important historical figures and disappoint them with your cowardice and greed!
Enjoy the good life in secluded, liquor-stocked, prostitute-filled mansions while the SS systematically murder everyone the Russians don't get to first, then surrender to America when the cigars run out.

They have already turned that one into TV series


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Schulz

 

[RicoADF]

A WW2 game about Aussies fighting in the war, perhaps at Tobruk or Kokoda, even some of the lesser known battles. Anything other than the same 3 or 4 battlefields with the same forces.

 

[Shiftygiant]

China

You are a young Chinese dude (or dudette) who has to fight for the communists or the nationalists against Japan and the communists or Japan and the nationalists.

Or

The Winter War and the Yugoslav front.