No one comes out of a war the same way they went in. While I’ve never been in a war, thanks to Spec Ops: The Line, I understand the psychological toll war has on a soldier. If you’ve played Call of Duty, then you’ve seen the violence of a firefight in the middle of a war zone. But like most other games, Call of Duty doesn’t show you the war that goes on when no one is shooting. The third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line drops you in war-torn Dubai for a mission you won’t forget. Warning: this article contains spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line so if you haven’t played yet, go grab a copy and come back when you’re finished. I’ll wait.

Spec Ops: The Line puts you in Captain Martin Walker’s combat boots. His squad of soldiers, Lt. Adams and Sgt. Lugo, accompany him on their sole mission: find survivors in demolished Dubai and get the hell out there. They soon find a US army regiment went rogue and turned against its own country. As Walker, you need to shoot your own army brothers to escape. This event shifts the game from a shoot out against foreign bad guys to an every-man-for-himself experience in the desert. While Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s “No Russian” pitted you against unprotected civilians, you never turned on your own brothers in arms. Having to shoot your own men definitely has a much different feel to it than taking out civilians. You trained, lived, ate and suffered with these men, only to see them turn on you and watch your bullets go right through them. You don’t even have to dwell on this dilemma while you’re playing the game because you know it’s either you or them. Pretty twisted.

Near the middle of the game, you use aerial white phosphorous attacks to kill American soldiers. Ok, so you just obliterated your own brethren to move through the city in the most gruesome and morally reprehensible way possible. As if that’s not enough, as you make your way through the smoke, you see your own soldiers writhing in agony. You then realize you also killed innocent civilians. Sure, you didn’t know they were there, but when you find out they were and you see a dead, burned mother holding her child, you can’t help but see yourself as the bad guy. Yes, you were doing your job, but at what cost?

Since the game began, Walker was in walkie-talkie contact with Lieutenant Colonel John Konrad. After searching Dubai to find this man, you learn Konrad had actually died well before you arrived in Dubai. Who was Walker talking to until this time? If it wasn’t Konrad, who was it? Was it Obama? Or perhaps Zoidberg? Plot twist: Walker was communicating with himself the entire time. That’s right, this game went all Fight Club on our asses. At the game’s end, you see a flashback of Walker picking up the walkie-talkie and communicating with Konrad, however, the walkie-talkie had no batteries! Walker’s mind made everything up to justify his horrific actions. Why? You want the truth? WALKER COULDN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! He blamed Konrad because he couldn’t live with what he did.

Ultimately, you have a choice in how you want to end the game. You can either commit suicide or kill the imaginary Konrad. If you commit suicide, the game ends because. If you kill the imaginary Konrad, you see a soldier approach Walker and ask for orders. Walker turns around and sees no one is actually there. Walker went “cray cray” but it doesn’t end there. There’s an epilogue: members of the US army approach Walker to help him but Walker is visibly broken. Now, you can shoot them or drop your weapon. Since I’m a nice guy, I dropped my weapon. I saw no more use in fighting. A soldier then asks Walker, “How did you survive all of this?” Walker responds with a blank stare and says, “Who said I did?” Yeah, I got goose bumps too.

The video game world has so many shooter titles but none take the gamer through war’s psychological aspect like Spec Ops: The Line. Walker went from a mentally stable soldier on a mission to a man justifying his gruesome “heroic” actions but lost his mind doing it. Spec Ops: The Line takes you on a wild ride but leaves you questioning your morality and realizing that no one wins in war.

 

 

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