"The events on the Eastern Front were likely the most grim four years in the history of mankind. "The campaign is basically one giant, offensive stereotype," he said. But he charges Relic with distorting the facts about the Eastern Front. Lukasz Markiewicz is Polish (and Poland, he says, has "the fewest reasons to say anything good about the Soviets"). Russia's war, of course, was fought on Russian soil. The United States lost 420,000 lives, about 0.3 percent of the population. That's about 14 percent of the population at the time. In Russia, it is about the necessity of sacrifice.Īround 20 million Russians lost their lives in World War II. For Britain, it represents pluck against terrible odds. For America, the war validates ideas about the struggle for freedom. National myths are extremely powerful, and never more so than with World War II. Current president Vladimir Putin wants to pass a censorship law making it illegal to portray the Soviet war effort as anything other than a glorious march to victory. Official Soviet documentation was censored and colored to the point of absurdity.Įven today, attempts to portray the Red Army negatively cause outrage in Russia. Facts are obscured by a long, hostile political climate that has always sought to make claims on history.įor decades, the most reliable testimony to come from the Eastern front was sourced to Soviet dissidents or Germans. The issue is complicated by Cold War myth-making by the Soviet Union and by Hollywood. In Russia and other former Soviet countries, the Great Patriotic War is about a heroic unified cause, not about repressive leaders throwing men against machine guns. Its critics say that while the Eastern Front did see unprecedented barbarism and cruelty, Relic has been selective in its narrative choices, preferring to ignore what people in Russia celebrate as a noble sacrifice that did more to save the world from Nazism than the American-led invasion from the West. Relic says that the game reflects historical realities, and points to historical research and personal testimony from Russian soldiers. The game's story focuses on the Soviet Union's repressive political climate and how this played out in the field of war. The second game focuses on the brutality of the Red Army's generals, including tactics like sending soldiers into battle without weapons and mass shootings of retreating soldiers. The original Company of Heroes has a definite Band of Brothers vibe that portrays men and officers working in harmony.
He points out the differences in CoH 2's narrative compared with the first game, which dealt with Western forces in France. By the third mission I was honestly expecting to see bear cavalry." "Gulags, army without any weapons, Russians shooting their own soldiers in the back. " CoH2 manages to use almost every single Russia-related trope," he said. Sergey Galyonkin runs a popular games blog in Ukraine and works for Russian developer Nival, which has created military games like Blitzkrieg. The petition brands the game as "disgusting." Thousands of people have signed a petition that attempts to persuade Steam to block the game in CIS countries. Another added that the game had taken "dirty myths about war and turned the story into ideological rubbish." "The story is not true and is a complete falsification of the history of Russia and its methods of warfare," wrote one.
But there's one group of people who really don't like the game.Ĭritics in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union say its portrayal of the Eastern Front in World War II plays to Western bias about history and clichés about the Soviet war effort.įollowing a video posted by 'Bad Comedian' in Russia, fellow countrymen bombarded Metacritic, dragging the game's user score down to 2.2. Company of Heroes 2 found broad favor with the media, gaining an 80 percent average on Metacritic.
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