EA has opened a can of worms with its decision to have its upcoming FPS, Medal Of Honor, take place during the current conflict in Afghanistan.
The decision was conveyed to the public months ago when the game was first announced and stirred a small controversy at the time. The media outrage has been renewed now with the revelation that the game's multiplayer will have one side playing as Taliban.
"We've just come off of the worst month of casualties in the whole war, and this game is going to be released in October - so families who are burying their children are going to be seeing this, and playing this game," Fox News anchor Karen Meredith said. "I just don't see that a videogame based on a current war makes any sense at all, it's disrespectful."
EA issued an official statement standing behind their creative decision and explaining the reasoning behind it.
"Medal of Honor is set in today's war putting players in the boots of today's soldier... we give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us having (sic) been doing this since we were seven - if someone's the cop, someone's gotta be the robber, someone's gotta be the pirate and someone's gotta be the alien," the official statement reads.
"In Medal of Honor multi-player, someone's gotta be the Taliban."
It's not uncommon for mainstream media to lash out against games' violence, but this time around several game reviewers have expressed their discontent with "watching virtual Coalition troops gunned down by insurgents in the ruins of Kabul."
