5 Most Thought Provoking Video Games Of The Decade

Adapting Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, Spec Ops' descent into trauma and the horrors of war will show a side of conflict that Call of Duty never could. From the outset, Spec Ops seems like your bog standard shooter. Spec Ops: The Line becomes a deconstruction of its own genre focusing on the glorification of the military while slowly sinking into the horrors of war leaving the player deeply disturbed by their own actions.

The game uses intense violence to comment on American nationalist foreign policy, while making us feel guilty for doing the things it told us to do. Meanwhile your character, Walker, tries to justify his actions based on orders in order to maintain his slowly dissipating sanity.

From PTSD fueled hallucinations to introspective monologues, The Line asks the player if they are the hero in this story as you continue your relentless massacre across Dubai in the name of salvation. The final scene shows your journey to find Conrad was based on a lie you told yourself to ignore the true horrors of your actions, confronting the true darkness within man and the lengths one will go to justify their guilt.

The spiral that Walker and his men drown in culminates in arguably one of the greatest and most introspective moments in all of gaming that leaves you truly horrified and it touches on culpability in such a way that leaves one scarred. The self awareness in Walkers destroyed mental state as he leads his men who slowly lose faith in him is a testament to the self awareness of the player as they slowly become aware of the atrocities they are committing, as we begin to disconnect from the character we once knew in the same way we begin to disconnect from reality.