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Wolfenstein 3D parody highlights the moral quandary of shooting Nazi villains

This first-person shooter asks, is it actually OK to shoot Nazis.

 

Gavia Baker-Whitelaw

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Posted on Feb 8, 2017   Updated on May 25, 2021, 1:18 am CDT

Have you ever tried to win first-person-shooter game through peaceful dialogue? It doesn’t go well.

Wolfenstein 3D is a simple FPS game about fighting Nazis, but in a new fan mod, players are invited to prevent bloodshed by reasoning with the enemy. The parody game Dialogue 3-D was created by Ramsey Masser, and satirizes the public debate around punching real-life Nazis in the face.

When you come across one of the Nazi villains in Dialogue 3-D, they obviously start shooting at you. But when you try to return fire, a dialogue box pops up to ask something along the lines of, “Is it OK to shoot Nazis?”

Dialogue 3-D

It’s hardly the first time someone has pointed out the discrepancy between pop culture’s love of killing Nazis, and the moral handwringing over things like white supremacist leader Richard Spencer getting punched at the inauguration day protests. But it’s pretty effective, and provides an interesting counterpoint to the new free-to-play game that’s literally all about punching neo-Nazis in the face.

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*First Published: Feb 8, 2017, 11:07 am CST