Warhammer 40,000: Darktide reviewed by Kyle Campbell on PC, also available on Xbox.This 40k follow-up to Fatshark's Vermintide games is one of the most enter...
Type “Commissar” into Google image search and see how far you have to scroll before you see an actual commissar.
Humanity is a storytelling species. For the vast majority of human existence storytelling has been our primary means of transmitting knowledge, and it remains the most effective.
Ask the average (non ML) 40k fan what a Soviet Commissar was. Specify a Soviet Commissar, not a Space Nazi Commissar. See how many gaps in their knowledge are filled in by assumptions that match what’s been modeled by Games Workshop.
It’s a fascist fantasy that toes the parody line just enough to use it as an excuse, but it draws in fascists and imperialists like flies to shit. They love immersing themselves in a setting where the fictional context establishes that their hateful little convictions are correct. All of the 40k-loving circle of friends I’ve distanced myself from since the 2019 HK riots were predictable as clockwork when it came to opions on the British Empire, Israel, Iran, Libya, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Capitalism and economics.
40k has a schools programme. There’s a club for it where I teach. They don’t tell the students (ages 8-11) what the Adeptus Astartes are, they just paint them in school for free and the kids can take their models home. First one’s free on their path to establishing Space Nazis as a beloved cornerstone of their childhood.
And it’s not the franchise faction? It’s not the focus of most of the literature? Center stage on the posters? If I open the school kits they give to fucking nine-year-olds am I going to find an ork or am I going to find a heroically posed space nazi?
You play the fucking video game. When are you getting checked?
Yeah, I’ve also played COD and hate the US army, I’ve bought cinema tickets and hate Hollywood, I’ve eaten fast food and I’ve used products and services from Amazon and Google and hate capitalism. Put me up against the wall; pull the trigger when you hear me defending any of those things.
40k fandom is in a league of its own though. Look at how much fan art is created with the ‘my armour is contempt’ quote. “Parody” is not the aesthetic they are going for.
You play the thing, but you don’t subscribe to fascist ideology, so it’s super fucking weird for you to then turn around and say everyone else who plays the thing probably subscribes to fascist ideology.
First off played, second I’m saying people who choose the 40k universe as their escapism. It’s not exactly The Man In The High Castle levels of nuance. The 40k universe doesn’t just depict fascism as inhumane; it depicts it as a system necessary for the survival of humanity. It depicts people who knuckle down and endure the system as heroic.
Playing the videogame might be comparable to buying Nestle products or signing up to Audible, but supporting the fandom that produces t-shirts like this:
…is not the same as having a Starbucks tote bag.
When Pokemon first got big people used to joke that kids in the future would be able to name more types of Pokemon than they would real animals. It’s definitely true of the kids I teach. 40k is just as embedded into Western culture and it fucking shows, meanwhile GW has been trying to fester its community in HK from just Westerners and Westernized kids into the local community.
Oh jeez good point. I can’t possibly have enough fucks to give about both. I shall immediately cease my bafflement at people in a Marxist Leninist community defending the normalized acceptance of a completely unsubtle space nazi fantasy world.
Yes. There are also more important things than defending Space Nazi Fandom.
And yet here we are in a 40k Darktide review thread (implicitly soliciting opinions on the game) where the sentiment “Gameplay is good, Space Nazi Fantasy is disgusting” has roused a fervent defence of a Space Nazi Fantasy.
I disagree.
Type “Commissar” into Google image search and see how far you have to scroll before you see an actual commissar.
Humanity is a storytelling species. For the vast majority of human existence storytelling has been our primary means of transmitting knowledge, and it remains the most effective.
Ask the average (non ML) 40k fan what a Soviet Commissar was. Specify a Soviet Commissar, not a Space Nazi Commissar. See how many gaps in their knowledge are filled in by assumptions that match what’s been modeled by Games Workshop.
It’s a fascist fantasy that toes the parody line just enough to use it as an excuse, but it draws in fascists and imperialists like flies to shit. They love immersing themselves in a setting where the fictional context establishes that their hateful little convictions are correct. All of the 40k-loving circle of friends I’ve distanced myself from since the 2019 HK riots were predictable as clockwork when it came to opions on the British Empire, Israel, Iran, Libya, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Capitalism and economics.
40k has a schools programme. There’s a club for it where I teach. They don’t tell the students (ages 8-11) what the Adeptus Astartes are, they just paint them in school for free and the kids can take their models home. First one’s free on their path to establishing Space Nazis as a beloved cornerstone of their childhood.
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And it’s not the franchise faction? It’s not the focus of most of the literature? Center stage on the posters? If I open the school kits they give to fucking nine-year-olds am I going to find an ork or am I going to find a heroically posed space nazi?
Yeah, I’ve also played COD and hate the US army, I’ve bought cinema tickets and hate Hollywood, I’ve eaten fast food and I’ve used products and services from Amazon and Google and hate capitalism. Put me up against the wall; pull the trigger when you hear me defending any of those things.
40k fandom is in a league of its own though. Look at how much fan art is created with the ‘my armour is contempt’ quote. “Parody” is not the aesthetic they are going for.
deleted by creator
First off played, second I’m saying people who choose the 40k universe as their escapism. It’s not exactly The Man In The High Castle levels of nuance. The 40k universe doesn’t just depict fascism as inhumane; it depicts it as a system necessary for the survival of humanity. It depicts people who knuckle down and endure the system as heroic.
Playing the videogame might be comparable to buying Nestle products or signing up to Audible, but supporting the fandom that produces t-shirts like this:
…is not the same as having a Starbucks tote bag.
When Pokemon first got big people used to joke that kids in the future would be able to name more types of Pokemon than they would real animals. It’s definitely true of the kids I teach. 40k is just as embedded into Western culture and it fucking shows, meanwhile GW has been trying to fester its community in HK from just Westerners and Westernized kids into the local community.
People in a ML community are defending 40k.
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Oh jeez good point. I can’t possibly have enough fucks to give about both. I shall immediately cease my bafflement at people in a Marxist Leninist community defending the normalized acceptance of a completely unsubtle space nazi fantasy world.
deleted by creator
Yes. There are also more important things than defending Space Nazi Fandom.
And yet here we are in a 40k Darktide review thread (implicitly soliciting opinions on the game) where the sentiment “Gameplay is good, Space Nazi Fantasy is disgusting” has roused a fervent defence of a Space Nazi Fantasy.