Games with the word war in it

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FAQ

What are the most popular War Games?

1. Bullet Force
2. Air Wars 3
3. Air Wars 2
4. Kiomet
5. War Brokers
6. Call of Tanks
7. North Kingdom: Siege Castle
8. Air Toons
9. Pixel Warfare
10. STUG (.io)

What are the best War Games to play on mobile phones and tablets?

1. Battalion Commander 2
2. Age Of War
3. Compact Conflict
4. 1941 Frozen Front
5. Tanks PVP Showdown

What are War Games?

War games involve nations, tribes, and continents battling for dominance. They tend to mirror franchises like Age of Empires or Command & Conquer, where the player takes control of large armies, builds cities, castles or bases and gathers resources to buy upgrades or more units/buildings.

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Strategy Games are so much fun. Strategy War Games are the most fun! Let’s find out the Top 15.

Is war the most frightening and horrid thing that can happen to humanity? Maybe. But war and video games go well together like peanut butter and jelly. Who doesn’t want to get inside historical well-known or maybe sci-fi war conflicts? The main objective in these types of games is a blast. Literally. You control big amounts of soldiers who are loyal to your every command and you get to blast everything in sight using them as much as you want. It is all up to you to strategize and lead them into that long-awaited victory. Here are the Top 15 Best Strategy War Games that test those commanding skills inside you.

15. Civilization 6

Civilization 6 — Launch Trailer

Civilization 6 is a game about the beginning and evolution of your civilization. You get to see it grow from a pack of nomads into a Terminator-style robotic haven. Growing your civilization through time will be involved in a lot of warfare, whether it is defensive and right, or just offensive and without a just cause. War in Civilization 6 is a big part of it, and some might argue that it is the most fun thing about the game.

Blast away cannons

It is very fun to play as a caveman and bump people’s heads with their wooden sticks, but as the game proceeds and you unlock a big chunk of the technology tree, you can feel the game actually changing as well. You have to explore new strategies, because right now the enemy instead of an arrow, has a firing stick and an even bigger one behind him!

Different kinds of modern military instruments

So make an alliance with Gandhi and attack Alexander the Great to steal his Rice fields! Boost and prioritize your technology skills to rush to the Robots ahead of your foes. Laser burn their cities into dust. Make sure you do everything you can in order for your Civilization to be the greatest of them all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZREqsiafTxc — The lore behind every Fallout game.

14. Broken Arrow

Broken Arrow — Reveal Trailer

This should be the next big thing in the War Strategy genre. It is still not released nor does it have a release date, but I wanted to include it because of its huge potential. It is said to be an extremely massive-sized real-time modern warfare that implements a whole new perspective on the genre. It offers a very complex strategy war game system and a typical real-time action-packed shooter experience.

In-game footage of artillery being OP as usual

It has over 200 units to choose to directly control in your battles. You can choose the Russian and American factions. The biggest part of this game is of course the different combinations and ways how to outsmart your enemy on the battlefield. The roads are unlimited. My favorite thing is how customizable the instruments of war you are using are. Everything from how a tank feels and operates, to how ships fire upon from the skies, to how helicopters and planes fly above the enemy’s heads. Every small individual in this game has his own style and way that you can change and tweak to perfection.

The biggest and scariest thing to see in front of you — a TANK

So go ahead and choose your road to victory. Will it be from the sea? Or maybe throw tons of friendly soldiers across the map like god himself. Or just make a modern blitzkrieg with your cavalry of fast and swift tanks — the enemy will never see it coming! The biggest part of every battle is the planning before the firing and it is entirely up to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySyMxD3CbIs — Modern warfare at its finest

13. WARNO

WARNO ‘Warning Order’ — Official Trailer

World War 3 is something that crosses our minds these days. But did you know that this isn’t anything new and it was much scarier and it could have really happened before? Oh, it did happen?! Well in WARNO it did. This is a game in which you lead NATO or the Soviets into total destruction. It is still in Early Access but the amount of research on war instruments in the Cold War Era it had, it’s crazy. It is so realistic and immersive that some might call this game a world war 3 simulator. In my opinion, it is.

This could be you leading your army and kicking ass

You get to command and customize your own Cold War battle troops. The ways you can do this are very broad -around 600 different military units-and changeable to your liking. The battlefields are all made to look like modern-day terrain and every map has its own meaning. It has every single detail up to small chicken farms and villages to make your immersion great. Yes, you can destroy those too. You get to control what feels like a real war, and you are actually the observer of something that someday might actually happen.

Tanks holding the line — You shall not pass!

So go on ahead and test your military skills in action! Get your artillery and tanks at the ready, and march your infantry to Ai enemies or multiplayer foes too. Turn big cities into dust just so you can say that they are yours. Who knows, you might even learn something about how to wage a real-time World War 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6A7dw_42Ps — Humans in their natural habitat

12. Command and Conquer: Rise of the Reds (Generals Zero Hour mod)

Rise of the Reds — Release Trailer

Words aren’t needed when it comes to explaining Command and Conquer games. Just open the trailer, put your volume to the maximum, and hope that you have quality speakers or headsets. The music alone should let you know that you are in for tons of fun and explosions. This mod improves on the whole C&Q experience and makes this look like its own release. If you have nostalgia for these types of games, well be sure to check this out because it will surprise you how well it can keep up with modern strategy genres.

A full-on C&Q experience — war chaos everywhere

We all love this franchise because of all the things happening at once. The quiet period when you prepare for war and battle, and then just explosions, blood, and chaos everywhere. It is up to you to control your soldiers in this havoc, and just unleash hell on your enemy. Rise of the Reds improves on the old C&Q formula making everything much much better, and slightly new and fresh as well. There are a Russian and European Alliance new factions, and every other faction is greatly improved and worked on. Don’t get fooled by the year of release, if you’re looking for a real old-school war strategy game- this is the one for you.

My favorite in C&Q — nonstop airstrikes and bombing raids

So go on ahead and make the whole map dark after your big explosions. Cover your screen red from the blood of your enemies and conquer everything that can be conquered even after bombing them with nukes several times. Get your adrenaline as high as possible with his high-action-packed old-school strategy game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OCBfcQ83q4 — Queue heavy metal guitar

11. Age of Empires 4

Age of Empires 4 — Official Gameplay Trailer

For as far back the memory can go for each and every one of us strategy lovers, Age of Empires has always had that special place in our hearts. This strategy emphasizes the war sector, and it tops many others in the genre because of its simplicity and skillfulness at the same time. For many, this is the Dota or the Counter-Strike of the strategy genre. Age of Empires 4 is the newest edition, and it may have some issues at the moment, its potential is great and it has a vast multiplayer active community even right now. Try to play and improve yourself in these 500 years of Medieval combat warfare to become the best strategist ever.

In-game footage of an elephant attack

You know how you need to play some competitive games over and over again in order to get better. Well, that’s the case with Age of Empires 4. Every time you play you will discover a newer, better, and far more successful strategy than the last. It is highly addictive and rewarding. You get to choose from 8 different civilizations playing from the middle ages until the renaissance. How you upgrade and advance through the years is all up to you. How you lead your troops, and what you decide to use as an army, is also, entirely up to you. The real beauty of it is, especially in the multiplayer, that every once in a while a new strategy gets discovered and it changes the whole game meta. It has a lot of historical topics which are deeply researched and very fun.

High and sturdy walls are my strategy — defense is the best offense

So go on ahead and put in over 5.000 hours and perfect your own war strategy to t-bag over your multiplayer enemies. Master your favorite civilization from taming sheep to spamming archers. Go on a historical adventure and relive huge medieval moments. Relive the old-school Age of Empires games and nostalgia with this new edition. And believe me, this is as addicting as the others, and maybe more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-tJMtAOpU — Just to see how far this franchise has come

10. Men of War 2

Men of War 2 — Official Trailer

Everybody knows the Men of War franchise, especially Men of War: Assault Squad 2. This is the long-awaited new edition of this beloved RTS game. Relive through that old nostalgia and World War 2 as you’re supposed to. Even though it is not released yet, the way the development diary has been and the road map of this game are outstanding. The future is very bright. Tons of new ways to improve on the old working formula. And again, that big single-player campaign will be finally back. No longer will it just be looked out after the multiplayer fanbase.

Defending your supply convoy from an ambush attack

The way this game tries to make you feel intense while playing is through realistic warfare. Everything feels natural and connected. The way you move your supplies, hide your infantry, or lay mines for the enemy tanks, is just smooth and you don’t get that sense of being overpowered. The environment is very destructible so the way to change your road to victory is up to you. You can play as the Allied or the Soviet campaigns leading their way to Berlin. The multiplayer experience is a whole different thing, as well as the co-op mode.

A friendly discussion between friends

So get your infantry to sacrifice themselves so that your tanks can pass through the enemy lines and destroy the living hell out of your enemy. Bombard forests into twigs so that no germans can be able to hide in there. Get yourself immersed in the beautiful World War 2 experience and try not to get humiliated by that genius new AI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O87RY81XOVE — A little preview of the multiplayer aspect

9. Medieval 2: Total War

Medieval 2 Total War — Official Trailer

No matter what other strategy games I play, no matter how new and how stunning its visuals are — I still keep coming back to this oldie but goldie of a game. If you are a fan of the newer Total War games and you haven’t given Medieval 2 a chance, boy oh boy, are you in for a surprise. The nostalgia factor is huge, but somehow this game can keep up with everything of today’s strategy and total war standard, and even, in my opinion, excel some games. They even try to make mods to pass on the same experience as this game had, but still the original is unique.

Honey! The neighbors are here!

Dive deep inside the medieval ages and experience the warmongering of this era. Everybody around you, one way or another, is planning to go to war. It can be small, just for supplies, money, or prisoners. Or, it can be the biggest thing in the world — a full-scale Crusade of Jihad! You can play as many factions in this world, and how you tailor the experience is entirely up to you. You get to choose your tactics, how to improve on your generals, manage the economy, and grow your dynasty through marriages. And the most beautiful thing is how well the battles are handled in this masterpiece. The multiplayer community is still active, and the modding community is as well. No matter how old this game is, it is still very much alive.

Merging the tea and baguette into one country? Hell, why not

So sharpen your cross and lead your army into the heathen’s land! This is how you spread love and positivity in the medieval ages. Forge family ties with all your neighbor countries just so you can backstab them and take all of their lands in the end. Wear your shields, because a new terrible pandemic is on its way to spread across the world — the MONGOLS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z8oM3d_3z0 — A battle to the death

8. Total War: Warhammer 3

Total War: Warhammer 3 — Official Cinematic Trailer

Warhammer franchise goes way back, even before gaming with books. We all love the Total War games because of their historical epic battles. But what about trying something new and delving into this living Warhammer world with very deep lore. Lots of people just gave up on the whole historical side from battles, like shield walls and rain of arrows to leading hordes of orcs and fire-breathing dragons. Total War: Warhammer 3 improves in a lot of aspects over the other Warhammer games, and it keeps going with the amazing story.

Be prepared to experience the most epic battles

Do not get thrown off by all these massive battles with tons of different units. Actually, that was what was holding me off the Warhammer franchise, but once I played it. Oh my god, my perspective changed. Going through the story and building your massive army filled with giants, undying zombies, sea pirates, chaos warriors with only the goal to destroy everything, Norse Viking style raiders, and plain old human empire. It has everything, and it is all so well connected and tied together, making you feel like this is part of history too. Warhammer 3 improves on the old games, as well as the story proceeds to meet its final conflict with darkness and despair. Multiplayer experience is a must-try at least once.

What a beautiful day to slaughter each other

So go on ahead and play as your dream orc to enslave every human being. Or maybe play as the hellraiser himself! The chaos to spread darkness and death everywhere. Build your dream empire in this fantasy world, level up your heroes, and modify them with weapons and gear to your liking, so they can duel 1v1 against every other lord in the land. Explore every playable faction, because each and every one of them is so different, it feels like you’re playing a whole new game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YdDNzseqo0 — You feel like you are a director of a sci-fi war movie while playing

7. Foxhole

Foxhole — Unofficial Trailer

Have you ever thought, what it must have been like just to be a regular soldier on a frontline? The waiting for the enemy, the hunger, the digging and building forts or trenches. The long-awaited supplies and bullets to start shooting again and take back control of lost land. Foxhole is a masterpiece of a game. I would call it art of how it shows you that one soldier fits inside the bigger picture of the war, and it is the most important. It is a unique and one and only game experience, where everything you do changes the outcome of the war and the world around you.

Trying to retake a small village after having controlled it for a month

You are walking with your comrades trying to surprise your enemy, and suddenly an artillery strike lands near you and kills your entire squad. This shot was actually fired by someone sitting behind the lines and arming, reloading, and shooting while talking about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. This is how real Foxhole gets. It gets you immersed into this whole wide world, where everything is moving and very changeable. The convoys that arrived with ammo and medical supplies, they are driven by a driver whose job is to supply the front. That trench that you are hiding inside was dug by someone 2 days ago. It has a way of making you feel that you matter because you do! You can play with different classes and multiplayer friends and together change the outcome of the long war in your favor.

This is what you will be thinking of before sleep

So go on ahead and become a World War ½ soldier and befriend lots of people in your squadron to go on offensives together. Build and dig trenches and cover walls so that your medic can heal the dead ones safer behind them. Artillery strike enemy bases and make them rage quit after being on patrol for hours. Forget about your girlfriend and family and build your own one in this wonderful masterpiece art of a strategy game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PsS30fuT10 — No video can do justice to how amazing this game is

6. Call to Arms — Gates of Hell: Ostfront

Gates of Hell — Trailer

The well-known and beloved strategy war games from Call to Arms have done it again. Gates of Hell Ostfront is that new thing that will keep people talking about CTA titles. This is a DLC that of course requires to have the original Call to Arms to be able to play, but it functions like its own standalone and really feels like one. The whole setting set in World War 2 is amazing that goes very well with the Call to Arms strategy and 1st person highly combat active game.

You will be seeing a lot of these scenes in your gameplay

Go inside the Easter Front from the Barbarossa operation in 1941 to the end of the war in 1945. Face across all sorts of enemies in the vast front that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. A lot of soldiers. A lot. Lead them into the front, put them in cover while getting bombed, open suppressive fire, build flamethrowers on your tanks, and literally destroy your enemy in order to advance and be the winner of the war. There is a very fun and dynamic campaign, as well as a very big variety of multiplayer options to play with your friends. The most fun thing for me is how you can switch from a birds-eye view to holding a rifle in your hands and shooting through a small crack in a window towards your enemies. For a lot of strategy lovers, this is the main point that makes this game a fan favorite.

You ordered these soldiers to ambush, now you play as one

So go on ahead and order your troops to war and chaos while simultaneously being one of them yourself. Control the airspace and burn everything in 1st person with your flamethrower tank. Or maybe go historical campaigns and order and lead your soldiers into a victory. The options are vast, and the fun is unending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF3Yboi2Wls — You feel like you are in Saving Private Ryan while playing

5. Company of heroes 2

Company of Heroes 2 — Gameplay Trailer

Company of Heroes 2 is that RTS game that we used to love and enjoy a long time ago. But this game just keeps getting better and better with every DLC added since then. If you haven’t played it in a long time, believe me, try it and it feels as fresh as ever. Just like it is a brand new release. If you thought the AI was good back then, well this game is using a new engine that makes the AI feels almost like real-time players. Company of Heroes 2 is that RTS that questions your every move, just before you decide to take it.

Believe it or not, this is in-game

It can become really chaotic at times like in this picture, but hell, it is World War 2 isn’t it?! You can choose between playing the Soviets, German east army, German special west army, and with the DLCs, you can get U.S. and British forces as well. The amount of choices for war instruments is crazy and very very different. Every single battle feels different than the last. The real beauty of it is the unit versatility as well as timing advantage. It is set as historical or can be modified, but as you proceed with the war, the battles are changing in favor of other factions which gives it very unique gameplay. There are single-player campaigns which are very fun, but multiplayer is where this game shines in my opinion.

Yeah try to split up your troops, because that plane is blasting them to pieces

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lAFMjvBzCo — Hyping you up for the upcoming Company of Heroes 3

4. Steel Division 2

Steel Division 2 — Launch Trailer

Are you ready to push your limits in the war strategy RTS sector? Well, Steel Division 2 is the game for you. This game puts you in charge of the whole front and you decide what to and with what to attack your enemy as well as how to coordinate your plans. How the whole game operates makes you feel like you are really the commander of all these actions, and the outcome changes from a single infantry squad getting deployed by you into a different area of control.

You zoom out all the way or zoom in all the way into your soldier’s rifle

The strategy plays a big part in Steel Divison 2. You have these huge vast maps, which are all different and historically accurate that go 150×100 km. And on top of all that, you have an even bigger map of Europe. You control every single decision of your army, the infrastructure, the supplies to your troops, what to bring into battle, and what to use as reinforcement. The Dynamic Strategic Campaign brings in a very real side of the war. The battles can last hours, and how you play them out, is all up to you. Choose over 600 historical units, and between different factions of World War 2. There are tons of multiplayer events and it is highly addictive to play team vs. team.

Customizing your Panzer and army

So go on ahead and make that big flank that will take 2 hours to go across these huge maps just to flank and surprise your enemy. Send an army full of grenade launchers as well as bazookas and destroy forests as you go just so the view is more clear. Lead the biggest of tank convoys and never forget — artillery is op!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHCk49NK4ns — Spreading communism with love

3. Graviteam Tactics: Minus-Front

Graviteam Tactics: Mius-Front Trailer

I can describe this whole experience as a real simulation. Maybe the controls are not so user-friendly, but once you get a hang of it and master all the little peccadilloes, this game will be a blast for you. I have put it so high on the list, even though it is not very played or well known, but really the whole tactics and the soldier in-game controls make this really worthwhile. Everything is made very realistic and may be complex, but at the same time very rewarding and enjoyable.

That quiet period where you can hear your inner thoughts before shooting

It has these long periods where you are just thinking of what would be the best strategy, as a real commander in a sense. Everything you do will impact your chance of success. The biggest thing for me is those big wide open maps and how you interact with them. It is not made to be full of chaos and shooting at all times, but as a real-life battlefield — there’s havoc, and there’s peace in the chaos. You operate on the map with how to move your army, and you get inside real-time battles where tactics are needed. It is highly replayable and the battle simulations are very intense. Almost everything can be blown off which is a big bonus, and seeing that ultra-realistic soldier behavior is very welcoming and unique.

Throw all the arrows on them!

So go on ahead and put on your tanker cap as you are about to enrich your historical war strategy simulation. Control full large-scale World War 2 operations and add your tactical touch into it all like Salt Bae himself! Immerse yourself and try to get to the realism of a real-time war strategy game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lkA-7CxiM0&t=1399s — Just a little preview of how realistic this game is

2. Wargame: Red Dragon

Wargame: Red Dragon — Trailer

From the creators of WARNO, this is their older game but do not ever let the release date fool you. This is a masterpiece of a war strategy game. The things that you see on the trailer? They do not do justice to how well this game performs and handles war. It is the same scenario as always, it is a World War 3 between the western and the communist bloc but it makes everything seem so realistic and breathtaking. You can almost spot a tractor stealing a tank along the road.

Getting Gandalf flashbacks

This game is an RTS treasure in my opinion. Maybe WARNO is going to outdo it, but for now, this takes the lead. You can play as 17 nations into a full-scale war and use a selection of 1.450 units to destroy the world! You are the commander on the drawing board, you are leading helicopters, planes, tanks, and also the biggest warships you have ever seen. Every battle from big to small has its own intensity and tactical depth and yet you see it all. From planes making bombing runs onto a building to a couple of infantry soldiers holding a bridge from a convoy of tanks. Maps are huge and realistic it has a campaign system too, as well as the choice to play multiplayer battles with up to 20 people.

Control, control all the territory!

So go on ahead and try your chance to fall in love with this game after getting your ass kicked multiple times over and over again. Strategize and learn how to prioritize artillery over everything else, because everyone knows it is the most op thing ever. Hunt down enemy commanders to bombard them into pieces with rockets. Never forget, getting frustrated is for noobs. Keep going and believe me, you will fall in love with this amazing Strategy War Game and in a blink, you will have well over 1.000 hours of gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2witXv8hGBE — Using artillery is a sign of a very high IQ

1. Hearts of Iron 4

Hearts of Iron 4 — 5th Anniversary Trailer

The best of the best War Strategy Game in my opinion. This is a grand strategy where the opportunities and ways to do even the smallest of thing is changeable and customizable by you — the leader of a World War 2 nation. What happens behind those tanks being led into a blitzkrieg, or those paratroopers falling from the skies, how about a massive infantry march? Well, it all comes from your planning it on the drawing table and making all sorts of crazy ideas about how to win the war. 

Spreading the anime culture throughout the world

You don’t get directly thrown into the war conflict. Instead, you start in 1936 and have some time to get ready for the war. Will you choose to go historical, or side with some bloc? Maybe create a new one? Whatever it is, these years of peace before the war feel like the most relaxing thing ever, building infrastructure, designing tank models, whether to focus on guns, supplies, planes, or walls. You plan for a long time, and then when the first bomb lands, then another game starts. You choose your commanders and start drawing arrows and lines about where your troops should move and attack. Hope that the technology that you researched will be better than the enemies and there’s no looking back! The Multiplayer experience is the most beautiful thing in this game, modding community is also superb.

How will you lead your troops into battle?

So go ahead, and never forget to put 50% of your war factories into artillery production. Build your infrastructure, industry as well as political stability in your country for better war propaganda! -Of course, we are the good guys in this war. Have the biggest army of them all, just to see them get nuked to dust. How will you lead your nation, which path will you take which will grant you total victory?. This Strategy War game brings it all, peacetime, the planning time, the fighting time, and the post-war time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nLKYChTBdw — It is the Christmas spirit with lights everywhere

You May Also Be Interested In:

• 21 Best Strategy War Games of All Time
• Best Strategy War Games That Are Amazing
• Top 15 Ultimate Best Strategy War Games For PC
• 10 Free War Games Loved By Millions Worldwide
• 10 Best Civil War Games of All Time
• Top 15 Online Multiplayer War Games

War Is Hell in Video Games.

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• Cosette, princess of Erusea, get a dose of this during Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. At the start of the war, she’s happy to be the face of the aggressors, rallying her people and boasting how Erusian drone attacks hit only military targets. Then the Oseans start punching back, ultimately bombing government centres right in front of her, and she struggles with some harsh realities.
• Ace of Spades suprisingly enough. Players look like a mix between WW1 infantry and toy army men (having brightly-colored uniforms). Everything is voxel-based blocks, and the main gimmick of the game (the destructible environment and the ability to build) means that most maps, even if they start brightly colored and beautifully made, tend to become muddy landscapes of craters, hastily-constructed pillboxes and trenches, and corpses. It doesn’t help that bullet damage is taken rather realistically; most of the time, due to the Minecraft-esque proportions players have, deaths will be very, very quick (the standard rifle is a one-hit-kill headshot, and heads are large in this game). The end result of all of this is a lot, and we mean a lot of dead bodies, grenade craters, torn-down buildings, and churned mud in what’s a chillingly real approximation of WW1’s landscape.
• The ending shot for the first two Age of Empires games opening cinematics invokes this, with almost every soldier on both sides dead, their corpses strew about in a rather horrifying fashion.
• In the backstory to Another Code, both of the Edwards brothers got drafted into World War II. Henry manged to recover despite losing an arm, but Thomas turned into a Shell-Shocked Veteran and lost his trust in others, setting up in the tragedies that would befall the Edwards family.
• The snippets of story that accompany Armor Alley emphasize this theme.

  I don’t recognize any of the guys I’m with here, and I don’t know if it’s because they’re green troops and all my friends are dead, or because I’m losing my mind.

• Of all works, Army Men: Sarge’s War has this as its theme. The fact that the characters are only Living Toys doesn’t make the ending any less of a Tear Jerker.
  • Before that were the Army Men World War games. Such levels included beach landings with troops getting mowed down by the dozens, fighting in bombed out cities, and war crimes.
• Artery Gear: Fusion: It�s hinted at earlier, but the story begins to take a darker turn in the later chapters. Many named Artery Gears are killed in battle, and the psychological toll of losing so many comrades is discussed openly. The politics of the various human factions comes to a head, with one human citizen being branded a wanted fugitive for trying to expose Autoluna�s corruption. Even the commander is stated to be exhausted from the constant battles in the Puppet War.
• If there’s one thing many of the named protagonists in BlazBlue can agree on, it’s that this trope applies to the Ikaruga Civil War. Here are a list of reasons why:
  • While Jin Kisaragi ended the war in a matter of days once he was let loose upon the battlefield, his life was made miserable as a result of it by being Kicked Upstairs with Noel Vermillion assigned as his secretary. His memories of the war are vague due to a second dose of mindrape from Yuuki Terumi — the first instance being Ragna’s Dark and Troubled Past.
  • The survivors from Ikaruga lost their land to the «ruthless dictators» of the Novus Orbis Librarium, with a number of them fleeing to settlements like Kagutsuchi’s Ronin-gai to build anew. While Bang leads them in their labors and helps defend the people from lawlessness, even he feels the war was «a foolish quarrel in which neither side was innocent». Slight Hope reveals that not every timeline ended the war swiftly wth Jin’s arrival, and Lord Tenjou Amanohokosaka’s death by explosion shockwave turned the affair into a total meatgrinder that saw Ikaruga completely destroyed.
  • Not even the NOL is free from the sin of the war. Many neutral parties view the NOL as becoming more tyrannical as a result of the war, and the inhabitants of Orient Town are unduly resentful. House Mutsuki even voiced complaints to the war’s necessity, and were delegated to the Ikaruga reconstruction effort for their trouble. Lord Tenjou’s other disciple, Kagura Mutsuki, was disgusted by the utter lack of regard for the sanctity of life involved, and has been planning a coup to install the rightful heir, Tenjou’s son Homura, to the throne.
  • While the official reports say that the people of Ikaruga violently revolted against the NOL, Makoto reveals that Ikaruga attempted diplomacy first, but the NOL insisted upon bloodshed anyway, with the intent of causing as many casualties as possible («The more death, the better!»). Likewise, Jin reveals that NOL dissenters to the war save House Mutsuki were summarily executed for treason against the throne.
  • This is where things take an even darker twist than the norm for this trope: the entire war was waged by then-Imperator Hades: Izanami, Relius Clover, and Yuuki Terumi for precisely three purposes — first to clean up (we mean murder) former Imperator Tenjou, second to close the net on Kushinada’s Lynchpin and Nox Nyctores Houyoku: Rettenjou, and third to use the souls of the war victims to create a new Black Beast (the goal was still Kusanagi) with which to destroy Master Unit: Amaterasu, using Yuuki Terumi and Boundary Interface Prime Field Device Number Twelve (aka Noel Vermillion) as the final components; while Terumi was willing to commit to the merge for the power to destroy, the remnants of Saya within Noel were not, which gave Take-Mikazuchi the time it needed to destroy Ibukido. The Library for Chronophantasma also suggests that Terumi founded both the NOL and Ikaruga’s backers in Sector Seven to perpetuate an everlasting war for his own benefit. With Doomsday averted and the world’s seithr neutralized by Kushinada’s Lynchpin, the world’s only hope for survival lay not just in terminating the villains, but also preventing what’s left of it from erupting into yet another large-scale conflict…
• The Brothers in Arms series started with a fairly strong anti-war message and has been gaining in intensity since then. Hell’s Highway is particularly not only kills off or maims established characters, but depicts PTSD (sometimes in frightening ways.)

  Leggett: Well, this looks familiar.

• Call of Duty lately has been sporting a coat of anti-war paint with some of its quotes. Ever knew how much a Tomahawk missile cost? War ain’t cheap. Of course Call of Duty falls victim to Do Not Do This Cool Thing since you play as a badass soldier who’s protecting the free world, which is kind of hard to paint as a rigorous and stressful affair while still being appealing to play. Despite that, the soldier you play as rarely survive to the end of the campaign. While the series may honor the sacrifices of the soldiers who fought, it treats the conflicts as somber affairs where the survival rate is extremely low.
  • The part in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare where you play as a soldier crawling around just before dying from the aftereffects of a nuclear explosion to show just how terrible war can be. The worst part of that one scene hits so much harder because of the level before, and the reason you’re not at a safe distance. You stick around to rescue a downed pilot, because «No One Gets Left Behind», and it seems like things will turn out well. And then NUKE, ruining any hopes of a happy ending. Despair hits so much harder when it has hope to contrast with.
  • However, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) on the other hand plays the trope fully straight. Farah and her brother Hadir is exposed early to the horrors of war in their youth, watching their parents get murdered by Barkov’s forces and getting captured and spending most of their lives inside a concentration camp and brutally dehumanized by the Russian occupation that serves a Cynicism Catalyst for Hadir as he joins Al Qatala to attack Picadilly in London in a brutal terror attack including a civilian having a bomb vest strapped with no way to disarm the bomb followed by a ruthless house raid which sees the deaths of mothers and children being orphaned by Price’s squad.
• Cannon Fodder, despite being the Trope Namer for War Has Never Been So Much Fun, is ultimately this, using cutesy graphics and the cheerful intro satirically to show just how horrible your actions are and keeping track of all the Player Mooks you got killed during the game.
• Naive and impulsive young Action Girl Kari of Dead In Vinland is thrilled to hear that her father Eirik once participated in a Viking raid in his youth. When she asks him whether it was exciting, he replies «Exciting, yes. Also scary, hard, violent, depressing, unfulfilling, shameful.»
• Dragon Age: Inquisition goes to great lengths to show the effect that the now continent-wide Mage-Templar War has been having on those involved and the unlucky people caught in the middle of all of the fighting. Most of the sidequests early in the game deals with trying to find as much relief for the refugees as possible. The worst part is that the only ones still fighting are the zealots and lunatics on both sides who don’t really care if refugees are caught in the cross-fire.
  • It gets even worse as it depicts the aftermath of the Orlesian Civil War, which occurred in parallel with the Mage-Templar War one country over, when you enter the location known as the «Exalted Plains.» What you get is, essentially, a High-Fantasy version of the First World War, complete with abandoned trenches filled with dead (and not-so-dead) bodies, ruined siege weapons, and opposing armies that have retreated from the fray and too weary and shell-shocked to care about fighting each other any more. And of course, to drive the point home, all of this lovely scenery is accompanied by ambient music which consists of a low droning sound mixed with a mournful, constant strings chord.
• Elden Ring is set in a land ravaged by a civil war (aptly called «the Shattering») between demigods that ended with everyone losing. Every region in the Lands Between bears the scars of warfare. Caelid in particular has been left in total ruin due to the equivalent of a biological weapon being unleashed in the final battle of the Shattering. Even Leyndell, the capital city and the only place that still has some semblance of order, has many buildings in a state of ruin and sealed up with corpsewax. The situation being this bad is precisely why Tarnished like the player character have returned to life to try to set things right despite being rejected by the Grace of the Erdtree in the past — there are no other options at this point to salvage the Lands Between.
• Enemy Front drives this point in during a cutscene where you come across a bunker filled with wounded civilians, resistance fighters and partisans, with one of the wounded begging you for water as you pass by only for your comrade to tell you to move along as a nurse takes over.
• Eternal Darkness features a chapter set in a Creepy Cathedral used as a field hospital in Amiens, France, during the Battle of the Somme, with all the gruesome sights and somber atmosphere that one might expect of such a setting. It is even implied that Pius and his acolytes manipulated events towards the war just so that there would be more death to harvest. Mind, given that this is a Lovecraftian horror story, there are far more horrific things than the war in the cathedral…
• Fallout has a famous quote that starts «War… war never changes.» The series is the aftermath of the whole world being destroyed by nuclear weapons in two hours over the last resources left in the world. In the years leading up, both the United States and China (the only remaining superpowers) sunk deeper into barbarism and totalitarianism in order to win the war, up to and including the United States using a filmed execution as propaganda to sell war bonds. And the post-war wasteland of the United States hasn’t lightened up any with the horrors of war, with factions such as Caesar’s Legion from Fallout: New Vegas and The Enclave routinely committing horrific war crimes in their efforts to conquer the wastelands.
• Far Cry as a series. Far Cry 2 has you hunting the Jackal, who understands that the geopolitics of Darkest Africa make it impossible for any meaningful peace to be made there, and trying to fight back against this fact will simply see you consumed by the same violence yourself. In Far Cry 3, your character begins as a young adult who’s never fired a gun outside of a shooting range, desperately scrambling to survive. In the end he’s approaching the same threshold of madness crossed by the villains, reveling in bloodshed and obviously suffering violent psychotic episodes. In Far Cry 4, Ajay handles murder like he was born for it, but ends up helping the wrong people — either Sabal will betray half his comrades at the end of the war (the half that chose not to worship Sabal’s religion) and begin a crusade against most of Kyrat for its ‘heresy’, or Amita will start forcing children to work the opium fields and fight against the remnants of Pagan Min’s military-grade army. By the end, Ajay has to deal with the fact that he used ‘justice’ or ‘sanity’ as an excuse to murder people indiscriminately and have fun doing it, all because civil war has no absolutely good side.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy II starts off with the heroes being orphaned by war and barely surviving the siege on their hometown. Throughout the course of the game, numerous major characters and innocent NPCs are killed, including several towns that are completely destroyed with no survivors.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, to prevent Princess Garnet from experiencing this is exactly why Steiner doesn’t want her to get involved with investigating whether her mother, Queen Brahne, was responsible for an attack on Burmecia.

    Steiner: War is a terrible thing! You must never experience it like I have.

  • Similarly, in Final Fantasy XII, Basch tells Ashe that if he could but protect one person from war’s horror, he would, noting that shame is nothing to him after the loss of his own homeland of the Kingdom of Nabradia. Larsa, too, aims for peace to protect the ordinary citizenry from the trials of war.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has the war between Eorzea, Garlemald, and the beast tribes’ summoned primals as one of its central conflicts. As the Warrior of Light, the Player Character is at the forefront of these and other conflicts, witnessing the deaths of innocents and close friends one after another. Stormblood, in particular, shows that the wars in Ala Mhigo and Doma have not only physically ravaged the nations, but left their populace defeated and broken: it takes great effort to convince the Domans, alone, to overcome their fear of reprisal from the Empire and rise up in rebellion. Near the end of Stormblood and into Shadowbringers, the situation becomes increasingly perilous. As revealed by the Crystal Exarch, Eorzea’s future was in peril due to Black Rose, a deadly chemical weapon developed by Garlemald that, combined with a massive influx of light aether from the destruction of The First, poisoned the entire planet, killing all of the heroes (including the Warrior of Light) and destroying civilization.
  • Final Fantasy Type-0 pulls no punches in showing how horrific and brutal war can be right from the start.
    • The intro shows the beginning of the war between Rubrum and Milites. What begins with an effective defense by Rubrum takes a turn when Milites deploys an Anti-Magic weapon, leaving Rubrum’s forces (Child Soldiers at that) at the mercy of an invading army that has no qualms with shooting anyone that crosses their path, regardless of if they are wounded or surrendering.
    • Its opening cinematic features the graphic death of Izana Kunagiri and his war chocobo from injuries as Ace, Queen and Jack stand helplessly (and all Ace can do is weep for him). There isn’t much that could make war seem less glorious than showing Machina’s older brother reduced to the level of complete freakout from his pain and fear of dying.
    • Then it goes downhill from there… on all four sides of the war. In Rubrum thousands died (including all of Class Zero save Machina and Rem), and the ending reveals that the entire nation was left ravaged and would only recover after at least fifty years under Machina and Rem’s guidance. On Milites thousands of soldiers and mechs died serving a charismatic leader who was Dead All Along, possessed by an Omnicidal Maniac, including those reduced to Phantoma by Alexander, the summoning of which required the Heroic Sacrifice of hundreds of Rubrum cadets, as well as instructor Kurasame Susaya and Alexander’s main summoner, Caetuna. Lorica was totally destroyed, its king, Gilgamesh, left to wander Oriense without a purpose in life. Concordia was shaken by its queen’s death, and the revelation that its (mostly ceremonial) king, long scheming for a return to a patriarchal rule, had a hand in it.
• Even Fire Emblem uses this trope, especially in Radiant Dawn when the war causes the Tellian equivalent of the Apocalypse; and Three Houses, which chronicles the outbreak of a massive war in Fodlan that forces everyone at the Officer’s Academy, students and faculty alike, to chose sides and bare arms against each other.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening somehow manages to play this straight and for laughs at the same time. Sociopathic dark mage Henry is a former soldier for Plegia, who your party just fought in a war. So naturally, child soldier Ricken is curious about how Henry feels about fighting alongside those who killed his former allies. Cue Ricken falling into a depression while Henry happily talks about the (suddenly less sinister) bosses you fought:

  Ricken: Remember a while ago, when you told me that you served under Gangrel? It made me wonder… Have you fought against anyone you knew?

  Henry: Yeah, sure! You’ve cut down a few of my former comrades. You interested in who they were? Lemme see if I can recall… Well, there’s Vasto. I liked him! Always ready with a joke or quip.

  Ricken: That guy?! He tried to stop us when we headed east that one time.

  Henry: He was really excited about that posting—it was his first major command. Ha! He used to talk about his mother all the time. «Best knitter in Plegia,» he’d say!

  Ricken: Oh. That’s…nice.

  Henry: Then there was Mustafa. He always gave me a bag of peaches whenever I visited. He said I reminded him of his son and that I should consider myself part of his family.

  Ricken: ……

  Henry: Oh! And Campari used to make little birdhouses for homeless—

  Ricken: Actually, Henry? I don’t think I want to know about your comrades after all.

  Henry: Aw! I thought you were interested.

  Ricken: I was, but now everyone seems more…normal than I expected. They’re not maniacs or monsters. They’re just like us, except they’re dead.

  Henry: Yep. Dead as driftwood, they are. And it was you Shepherds who killed ’em! Their friends and families are probably still crying their eyes out.

  Ricken: …….

  Henry: What’s wrong?

  Ricken: Henry, it’s my job to kill Plegian soldiers… So I have to believe they deserve to die. But now you’ve reminded me that they aren’t faceless blobs with axes. They have friends, and families, and… H-how am I going to fight them if I know that? What if I hesitate?

  Henry: You’re weird. I don’t see the problem here at all.

• This manifests as an entire realm of the netherworld in Folklore called Warcadia, a place built from humanity’s contemporary fear of death, where people go who died suddenly or without explanation end up. The place is under a constant state of warfare without reason or any possible outcome. This is quite literally meant to be a hell of an unending battle.
• The ultimate aesop of For Honor is «there is no honour in war». Only the Dark Action Girl Blood Knight Big Bad really takes the view that war is a good thing.
• The Gears of War Expanded Universe had local big dude Tai, upon finding his village razed to the ground, remarking that, «Some people have said ‘War is Hell.’ War is not Hell, for in Hell, innocence is spared.»
• Halo:
  • While the games were serious from the start, it wasn’t until Halo 3 it became clear that this is the main aesop. Yes lovable main characters were killed in Halo: Combat Evolved, and Halo 2 became uglier about the situation, but that was out-shadowed by awesome playstyle, story, weapons and a badass player character. But by the time of third game, all of that were thrown right out of the window. Halo 3 was not afraid to show how shitty a three-sided war between Humanity, a galactic empire made of genocidal, fanatical aliens and a parasitic species of undead monsters would be; Anyone can (and will) die, even main characters as Sgt. Johnson, Miranda Keyes, 343 Guilty Spark, Prophet of Truth, etc., cities are burned to the ground, billions are killed, even the most Ineffectual Sympathetic Mooks become ferocious, bloodthirsty warriors after they had been through wars long enough, people suffers from psychological damages from the whole thing, and not just biological creatures but also supposedly unliving machines such as Cortana (whose torture at the hands of Gravemind almost breaks her into a depressive Empty Shell), 343 Guilty Spark (whose isolation for the last 100,000 years and status as the canon scrappy becomes too much for him to handle and snaps into a dangerous killing machine), and Mendicant Bias (whose 100,000 years of overwhelming guilt because of his treason against the Forerunners causes him to possibly sacrifice himself to help Master Chief), and Master Chief, The Hero of the story, ends up in unending space without any way to get back to Earth. Plus that great civilization that was destroyed due to the 300 years war against the said undead monsters, which forced them to kill themselves in a massive sacrifice in an attempt to take their enemies with them; their sacrifice only bought some extra time.
  • Halo 4 begins with an examination of the incredibly unethical steps humanity took to create the Spartan-II program, especially considering that they were created to put down human rebels. Of course, Doctor Halsey, the one in charge of said project, notes that without the Spartans, the Insurrection would have destroyed the UNSC or left it even more vulnerable when the Covenant arrived, no one was complaining when they became their best and only hope against the aliens, and ONI, the very people who brought and put her in charge of the project, were performing this interrogation just as much to paint her as The Scapegoat and make Spartan-IV program much more approved in the public eye as answer an ethical dilemma.
  • Halo 5: Guardians starts with a Big Badass Battle Sequence for Fireteam Osiris, but when playing as Master Chief again, he’s suffering from PTSD and is pushing himself too hard.
  • Halo: Reach. The original trilogy had the knowledge of the Halo rings as hope, or at the very least a game-changer, not the same old «stalling against an unstoppable and more technologically advanced horde of aliens who deem your entire people heretical» bullshit. Reach is exactly that bullshit, with each subsequent mission just making it more and more clear that despite Reach being the most advanced colony and the one with the greatest military presence, it will still suffer the same fate as its brethren worlds, and all you are doing is trying to save the most people you can/and or kill the most Covenant before it finally happens. In the last two missions you do (in a way) find out about the rings, and you then give it your all, with almost all of Noble Team (meaningful name) sacrificing themselves to send vital information to the last ship leaving Reach. Yay you did it, all those missions, all those kills, all the obstacles passed by a hairline, now you get your long deserved reward right? Except somebody needs to stay behind to cover the ship’s escape. You are left on Reach, with scattered unorganized resistance in the distance as it’s being glassed. And no matter how hard you fight, you will die. Reach is the game that shows that even if you give your all and be a good soldier, hope is not guaranteed.
  • Of course, in Halo Wars Spartan Red Team tries to make this trope work for them:
• Homefront portrays war as savage, brutal, and inhumane affair where good people die for no reason, as well as driving home just how easy and potentially horrific friendly fire incidents can be in one of its more intense and memorable sequences. It also makes the point that, as horrible as war is, sometimes there really isn’t a better option.
• Iji features a M�l�e � Trois between the title character representing the last surviving humans on Earth, the invading Tasen, and the genocidal Komato, who the Tasen invaded Earth to run from. There are complicated sympathetic characters (who aren’t immune to plot-related death) on the latter two sides even though they’re both the enemy, and trying to solve the situation with violence means the player can watch Iji slowly break over the course of the game, going from shakily apologizing every time she kills to practically turning into a full-on berserker. It also manages to avoid the Do Not Do This Cool Thing cognitive dissonance that some Call of Duty ripoffs have, as well as the But Thou Must! hypocrisy that Spec Ops: The Line‘s white phosphorous scene was hit with, by letting the player go through the game without (technically) killing anyone, and you end up with a slightly better ending for doing so.
• Killer7 — Word of God states that one of the messages of the otherwise unfathomable Killer7 is about the futile, cyclic nature of war. Emphasized by the ending: the entire conflict between Harman and Kunlan is nothing but a game meant to help the two immortals pass the time. The two have even switched roles.
• In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, it is shown that the war in the previous game has had absolutely devastating consequences for the Republic. Most of the playable characters, including the protagonist, are Shell Shocked Veterans who have lost family, friends, limbs, and sense of self. Throughout the game you meet refugees, embittered ex-soldiers, and traverse planets that are still physically and culturally ravaged five years after the war’s end while the galactic government collapses slowly.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV, pretty much nobody who hasn’t been brainwashed by the curse of the Great Twilight actually supports the impending war between Erebonia and Calvard. They know that regardless of what happens it would cause massive casualties on both sides and the populace already starts to feel the effects of it throughout the game as Erebonia’s young to middle age male population is drafted en masse, ripping men from their wives and children and robbing small towns of their economic lifeblood.
• Lost Odyssey, when a completely immortal guy has lived for 1000 years just to see mortal people killing each other in war, you can really feel how much it makes him want to be freed from it. Yet he can’t.
• Mass Effect 3 is built around this trope. When you see a soldier both frustrated and heartbroken over a woman who keeps inquiring about her son, you’ll understand why. The levels are all war-torn worlds that used to thrive with life, but now appear as wastelands with corpses everywhere. Some of the missions even make you watch the homeworlds of your friends getting desolated so you can share their pain. The turian homeworld, Palaven, has fires that can be seen from the planet’s moon, possibly in actuality a place where the crust has been blasted away exposing the lava beneath.
  • From the very beginning, as the Reapers are laying waste to Earth cities, you rescue a young boy and put him on an evacuation shuttle, only to watch as a Reaper calmly blows it out of the sky. For the rest of the game, Shepard is haunted by nightmares of the boy being consumed by fire.
  • Once upon a time, an Asari took a shower without her gun…
  • Javik occasionally talks about how the war went in his cycle, commenting that over three hundred years of galactic war leads to unthinkable atrocities. In one specific case, he says that the Densorin sacrificed their own children, presumably on a planetary scale, in an attempt to appease the Reapers. It didn’t work, and just made their annihilation easier. Notably, he is also the only squadmate not surprised by the truth about Sanctuary. He also cautions Shepard on this:

  «You still have hope that this war will end with your honor intact. Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honor matters. (long pause) The silence is your answer.

• Mass Effect: Andromeda has the Initiative stumbling into the kett-angara war, which has been going on a good eighty years or so, and it’s made clear the angara have had a hell of a time. It started with their leaders being abducted and killed, and their military crippled, and if it hadn’t been for the Moshae, they’d have been screwed. The next eighty decades have been a long ground war as the kett have pushed on every front, with most of the cities on their former homeworld reduced to rubble, and the survivors chased across the frozen wastes of Voeld. Even Jaal, normally a good-natured person, gets incredibly harsh when casually asked how the angara «make do». Every day, they face the possibility that someone they know or love will be killed.
• While Men of War doesn’t directly reference the trope, the very realistic game engine quickly creates this effect as a natural consequence of the gameplay. By the end of a single match or mission, the map often looks like a moonscape. Infantry hit with a tank shell disappear in a puff of red mist. Machineguns tear apart entire squads during attack. Crews of damaged vehicles may emerge, burning and run shrieking towards their inevitable death. Artillery tears the landscape apart, ruining homes and sending bits of soldiers flying across the landscape. Tanks can crush bodies into mush, push burned-out wreckage out of their way, and generally act as unstoppable behemoths as they rumble towards you (and quite often, you won’t have proper anti-tank weapons).
• The Metal Gear series is about many things, but its most fundamental theme is that there’s nothing glorious about war, and everyone involved suffers a lot, one way or another. It does so by playing its tropes so straight they end up deconstructing themselves once they get to where they’re going; Child Soldiers, for example.
  • Metal Gear Solid condemns nuclear proliferation.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty rejects the glorification of soldiers like the previous Metal Gear protagonist by having some New Meat go through similar trials and come out emotionally scarred.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is an unflinching look at war and what it does to its soldiers. The Big Boss is forced to assassinate The Boss, the greatest hero of World War II and the single most important person in his life, all because factions of the Philosophers are fighting over money. The core message is that there is no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms, and that our allies today might be our enemies tomorrow. This is because our enemies are human beings, just like us. The game hammers that point home with the subtlety of an anvil, but it’s a very effective message regardless.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots shows how bad things can get if war isn’t Hell. The nanomachines inside people suppress the psychological and physical stress that brutal warfare normally inflicts on them, and the entire world has become engulfed in a pointless War for Fun and Profit. When the system goes off-line for good, all the soldiers in the world collapse and become sobbing wrecks as the trauma the nanomachines suppressed catches up to them.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain shows Big Boss giving in to his darkest demons for no other reason than revenge. This includes using Cold-Blooded Torture, Child Soldiers and executions, all portrayed in the most serious manner possible, to the point where Big Boss admits that he’s become just as bad as the people he’s fighting, but keeps on going anyway.
    • Human experiments that suffocate the victims with incisions centered around the throat? Check. Dozens of small villages wiped out by fallout from bioweapons research? Check. Mind-raped supersoldiers who aren’t even considered human on both sides? Check. Combat with child soldiers? Check. Obligatory rape scene? Check. Zombie Apocalypse^note ? Check. Forced to euthanize squad members that are subject to said Zombie Apocalypse? Check. And a few other items that are less realistic but still horrifying products of war.^note 
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe, a Hearts of Iron mod where the Axis won World War II:
  • The German Civil War, if it ends in a state of Anarchy, leaves millions of people dead, entire cities wiped off the map, famine and disease spreading across the country, and possibly even nukes being used on their own soil. Germany collapses completely into a lawless backwater split between warlords even worse than Russia, and it is made clear that Germany is never going to be unified ever again. And that’s the relatively good outcome! If Himmler wins the Civil War, he launches a nuclear holocaust on the world and destroys human civilisation, killing untold numbers of people anyway.
  • The Great Asian War between the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere and the rebelling Asian nations led by China, is a war between so many nations and peoples that the final death toll is stated to be higher than OTL World War II, and far eclipsing it in sheer brutality. And if Japan is victorious in the war, it is stated to lead to the Rape of Nanking but on a national scale to crush the very idea of Chinese identity. Thankfully, the canon ending is Japan losing the war, leaving China utterly devastated but free at last.
• We get a second coat of Call of Duty anti-warpaint in the Modern Warfare series. Fancy dying in the Middle East from a nuclear explosion? How about you and your unit being killed so close to completing your objective? Or infiltrating a terrorist cell for the CIA where you have to gun down people at airports, before being killed as a spy? Or your commanding officer betraying and killing you? Or the world entering a third world war and you being branded a traitor for killing the people responsible?
• The soldier sim series Operation Flashpoint pits you in the role of a completely ordinary, completely vulnerable and completely replaceable young soldier… who’s fighting in a small scale conflict that could easily spark World War III… No heavy-handed condemnation of war or sombre thoughts of your squadmates are ever heard, but the depiction of modern warfare in the game (subtle, yet straightforward) says more than a million words : It’s nerve-wrecking, unpredictable, often completely absurd. Virtually Anyone Can Die… And they do — all the damn time…
  • Made all the more poignant in the Resistance expansion, where the protagonist Viktor tries to convince his friends against going to war with the occupiers. He’s a recently retired professional soldier who has seen too much death and suffering to count, so he warns them that their desperate fight to liberate their homeland of Nogova isn’t going to be glorious or easy at all. But even though he’s against the idea of fighting at first, he gets tangled up in the worsening situation and eventually decides to lead the Nogovan resistance cells (because if he didn’t, things would probably end up even worse). And to hammer the point of the trope home, the end of Resistance‘ storyline is anything but cheerful. The resistance fighters only manage to win at a terrible price and with heavy loses.
• While Red Orchestra never outright says it, the game never flinches from the fact that combat was often short, terrifying and brutal. In the game, you are a nobody. You are replaceable, and your death is only very rarely actually worth anything. Death is random, impersonal, and inevitable. If you’re under fire, the first thing you’ll see is your vision go fuzzy and gray, and if you’re unhurt, the only option is to run for the nearest cover, get your head down, and hope that the enemy won’t hit you when you poke your head out to look for a muzzle flash, and those are very hard to pick out. Often bullets come out of seemingly nowhere and cut down a squadmate or the player character with no warning, artillery strikes turn everything in a large area into bloody carcasses with unidentifiable stumps, and if you do end up close-quarters combat, you’ll have maybe half a second at most to consider your options and then act. A single bullet to the head or chest is the end, and often a hit in an appendage will leave you bleeding to death if you don’t get out the bandages quickly. In the event of a person nearby being hit, it’s rare that they’ll die cleanly and quickly — they might scream their lungs out, gurgle through the blood in their throat as they slowly bleed to death, or even beg for their mothers. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Stalingrad was not a fun place to be in the latter half of 1942.
  • And the Rising Storm expansion now introduces flamethrowers for the Americans and knee mortars and booby traps for the Japanese. Now, only a soft whistling noise or a barely-audible click might precede the violent explosion of the guy standing next to you, or even you. It’s really down to personal opinion which is more terrifying: the loud whooshing that means an artillery barrage is about to kill you and there’s nothing you can do about it, or the fact that, at any time, anywhere, you could suddenly become a red mist and you will have no idea until it happens. Usually shrapnel will kill you through rice-paper walls or the viewport of a concrete bunker as easily as it would without anything to go through at all. Banzai charges make your screen go gray as though you were taking fire and make you shake so much you can’t keep your rifle steady. Many times you will sit there, helpless, as a murderous Japanese soldier sprints towards you and bayonets you. Even further, the flamethrowers literally burn anybody they touch on all exposed areas. After the first time you see a person set on fire, the screams will never leave you.
  • Rising Storm 2: Vietnam is set in the even more hellish Vietnam War. So take everything about Rising Storm and crank it up all the way: getting shot from an unknown location was bad? Now everyone has access to automatic weapons, oh, and we’re in the middle of a dense jungle. Think artillery fire was nightmarish? Well, now you can also call in to drop Napalm fire from bombs, wait for planes to fly by and the soldiers shooting at you now only have their screams of agony. Enemies bunched up inside a building? Throw a White Phosphorus grenade and see what it happens. Some maps even include a claustrophobic network of tunnels, where both factions have to fight over tight tunnels were you can only crouch, and if you are playing as the southern forces, you lose the use of their primary weapon and must crawl through the dark with just a handgun. Good luck.
  • If you’re not careful, you can do all of the horrible things above to your teammates.
• Rengoku: Even before the Great Offscreen War have become the Machine War, it’s described as «endless grief and desolation». Nobody even remembers how it started or what it was for.
• Sabres of Infinity
  • Demonstrated by the town of Noringia, which has been heavily bombed and looted by Tierran forces, should you explore the town, you see that starvation and poverty is rampant amoung the refugees still living there.
  • In the final battle, If you successfully repel the Antari assault, the aftermath shows you surrounded by the corpses of the majority of your men, possibly including your Staff Sergeant, and most of the survivors badly wounded, at that point, a horribly maimed Cazarosta suggests piling the corpses into a makeshift barricade to repel the next attack, War Is Hell indeed.
• While Sonic Forces doesn’t delve too frequently into how awful Eggman’s war for control of the planet is, it’s made explicit multiple times the heroes have suffered casualties— most notably, the Avatar’s backstory involves them being the Sole Survivor of a group of soldiers that Infinite effortlessly slaughtered, and their character arc for the game is about them learning to overcome the fear and trauma of such.
• Spec Ops: The Line: The protagonist and his men become increasingly violent, unstable and shell-shocked as the story progresses. It doesn’t help that both sides of the conflict, the CIA and the Damned 33rd Infantry Battalion, are busy killing each other — and civilians — in a hopeless struggle to reassert some sort of order in Dubai’s ruin. Later in the story, the Damned 33rd begin to use white phosphorus on insurgents. The player then uses white phosphorus on a refugee camp, unknowingly. The CIA blows up the city’s only water supply, dooming everyone in order to keep the world from learning about what happened in Dubai. Nobody comes out of the story looking good. Or sane. Or, in some endings, at all. The worst part is that the situation didn’t have to escalate that far. The main reason it did is because Walker, and by extension the player, wanted to play hero. What makes this whole situation even more tragically senseless is that it isn’t even set in a war. This is a simple recon mission gone horribly wrong. All Walker had to do was report on the situation and leave. Walker treating it like a war story and acting like a hero fighting a war anyway makes everything worse.
• Skyrim has this in spades. Many Great War veterans are haunted and scarred psychologically as well as physically, fighters on both sides of the Civil War are becoming this way too, many characters have lost family members, people who were once close friends are now bitterly feuding, and many communities are either trampled in the struggle (Dragon’s Bridge) or left to fend for themselves because most of the manpower and resources are going to the war (Riverwood, Shor’s Stone).

  Brunwulf Free-Winter: There’s no glory in war. It’s just something they tell soldiers so they’ll risk their lives.

• War is always the main theme of the Suikoden series. Many characters get involved in different wars, and more often than not they end up traumatized in a way or another.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: The bounty hunter companion Mako has a few observations about the nature of war on Balmorra, expressing fear at becoming another forgotten corpse in a no-man’s-land battlefield, then commenting on the horrible nature of trench warfare, with people crammed into a hole in the ground with no where to go while artillery rains down on them
• Suikoden II:
  • Pilika, a sweet and joyful little girl, who, in rapid succession, lost her hometown, her whole family, and nearly her own life at the wrathful hands of Luca Blight, an psychotic prince who delightfully enjoys butchering men and women like pigs. All Riou and Jowy could do was nuisance him a bit, get swept away with his sword, and watch helplessly as he was about to kill her, while Jowy could do nothing but yell helplessly at him to stop. They were saved at the last second by an explosion caused by your allies, and escaped during the confusion. However, this last event finally break the mind of Pilika, making her mute for nearly the entire game.
  • Leon Silverberg is a great tactician, who uses ruthless methods in order to end wars quickly, believing that in the end the number of casualties will be less important than if the war lingers.
• In Tales of Zestiria, every time war breaks out between Hyland and Rolance, those with the most sense are concerned because they know it’s ultimately just going to create a lot of problems for everyone and result in a lot of death. Everybody that can even remotely be considered to be on the player’s side is working for peace in some way.
• It is stated often and sometimes shown in Tears to Tiara 2. Hamil considered accepting the enslavement of his entire people to avoid war. Saul was willing to let slide agents from The Empire buying slaves and dead bodies to prevent war. Until Hamil points out to him that he’s only prolonging the inevitable, which he knew, and said agents took Artio which would cause war to erupt anyway.
• The entire This War of Mine is all about this trope. With the war raging all over the city, supplies continue to dwindle, forcing the survivors to starts scavenging for their needs. However, as the war continue to get worse and food getting scarcer, the city descends into anarchy with rampant crime, looting, and soldiers of both side committing all sort of war crimes. Forcing the player to take more morally dubious choices. You are a group of survivors of a Civil War trying to survive, however you have to deal both with the rebel army and the military while trying to scavenge for anything to survive. Choices will be made whether you will raid an elderly couple for their belongings while they beg you to stop or not, hand over precious medicine to children or not, or either play hero and try to rescue a woman who is about to be raped by a drunk soldier or use it as a distraction to gather materials to survive the Civil War.
  • Stories takes a much more somber and depressing tone as even in the main game your characters can eke out a victory and moments of hope. Stories has so far has A Father’s Promise and The Last Broadcast and neither of them ends happily for the survivors involved. In Father’s Promise, Adam suffers from cognititive dissonance from the trauma of losing his daughter and wife and goes through a futile quest to save her. In The Last Broadcast, the common trope of your characters defying the military actually results in consequences as Malik dies telling the truth about the massacres rather then the military ignore the messages like how your survivors confronting the military never results in any repercussions.
• Most if not every entry in the Total War series has some degree of this (compare Medieval II: Total War to the first one for example) , though Total War: Rome II really drives the point home. «How far will you go for Rome?», if that’s not enough, Total War: Attila manages to surpass its predecessors in its bleackness by not only being the most realistic of all the games before, but by its very setting, the Late Antiquity, just before the fall of Rome.
• Both Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron graphically shows players how the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons has violently decimated all life on the planet and rendered it inhabitable to live on in the future. It was because of this war that forced all transformers to abandon their home and desperately search for a new place to live in, leading them to Earth.
• Trenches (2021): A survival horror game set during World War I, which would be horrifying enough, but the player character is losing his mind while being pursued by monsters in empty trenches filled with smoke and fog. The photographs and letters found along the way illustrate the soul crushing experience the soldiers went through while there. The protagonist even quotes dead as the only witnesses of the war’s end. What makes it even more horryfying and heartbreaking is that the monsters are actually corpses of the protagonist’s wife and children, whom he murdered in PTSD induced psychosis before also killing himself. This place is his personal hell.
• Valiant Hearts is set in the World War One, so this trope is not suprising. At one point you need to hide from machinegun fire behind a pile of corpses, as you are watching your friends die one by one.
• While the Vietcong series doesn’t demonize war, its hard difficulty, not to mention its focus on realism screams this trope at the top of its metaphorical lungs.
• Valkyria Chronicles despite the fantasy elements is pretty strong in terms of the anti-war tone. Two superpowers are locked in a brutal conflict that has reached over 10 million in casualties on both sides as the Darscen faces brutal discrimination for their supposed role in the Great Calamity thousands of years ago. This has resulted in forced labor and genocide, this eventually pushes one of their members to start a resistance movement that gets used by the Empire and pushed to a point where the leader unearths weapons from the Great Calamity to use as an act of defiance. Meanwhile, the Valkyria, who supposedly saved humanity don’t fare much better, being treated as experimental guinea pigs meant to be living weapons on one side and the other side uses them as a power source and in a desperate situation, used as a living bomb to wipe out the Empire, unaware that it will result in a genocidal war with no way to stop it. Even after both sides have signed a ceasefire did little to stop the bloodshed as Gallia is forced in a violent civil war where the experimentation has extended to the regular population and Lanseal Academy where the whacky school antics is the center stage of such experiments and later the target of a devastating attack.
• World of Warcraft: The Bolvar/Wrathgate cutscene, where a standard piece of Heroic Fantasy fighting is unexpectedly interrupted by a poison gas attack and followed up in game with all of its horrific consequences.
• Yggdra Union. Any war game that pits you against an enemy army of genuinely good people and points this out to you repeatedly is gonna hurt.

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