Adventurism v. Class Engagement: Lessons from the Final Fantasy VII Remake

Why discuss a fictional group from a Japanese video game? Very simply because as the extraction of mako threatens the world of our characters, so too does the extraction and burning of fossil fuels threaten the death of our own. We see a similar trend among ecological movements here too. Groups such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Earth First!, though correct in their analysis that climate change is a matter that will have catastrophic effects on us all, have disconnected the ecological movement from the broader class struggle, missing the forest for the trees, if you’ll indulge me.

What Actually was a Gulag? – Call of Duty’s 2020 Red Scare

The Soviets are frequently represented in fiction as comically excessive villains. The gulag is held up as the pinnacle of this malevolence, but is this focus on demonising socialist states a way for developers to avoid more relevant social criticism at home?