In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss some of the ways politics interact with games, and some of the ways different games have portrayed morality, through systems and narrative.

Topics Discussed:

• Morality in narrative branching choices (KOTOR, Jedi Academy)
• Gradient / reputation systems (Fallout, RDR)
• Frostpunk’s assumption that survival requires — and is worth — moral compromise
• Restorative Justice (wherein we miss the opportunity to say, “He repented but it was something of a Tolkien gesture”) and RDR2
• Unapologetic storytelling by Bethesda in Wolfenstein 1 and 2 vs cowardly corporate hedging by Ubisoft in Farcry 5 and the Division 2
• Does a game have a moral responsibility to tell the truth? If so, is that more or less than any other art form?
• “Liberal” impulse to censore vs conservative impulse to erase

See also:

• Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nahesi Coates
• Wolfenstein 2: Confrontational Black Panthers and very reasonable Nazis, by Rob Zacny at Vice