It seems like alumni from Rockstar Games can’t help but court controversy. Navid Khonsari is a former developer at Rockstar Games and is currently prepping to release the 3D action-adventure title, 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, this spring for the Xbox One and PS4.
The game follows a photojournalist during the protests and riotous revolution during the late 1970s in Tehran, Iran.
Players will snap photos, get involved in fisticuffs and attempt to avoid being beaten and killed on the streets in a story that’s literally based on real life history. Khonsari worked with various historians and political advisers to help shape and craft the story themed around Reza Shirazi, who makes a return home only to find that Iran has turned into a violent and politically hostile place. It’s set during the rule of King Shah, and is themed around players attempting to capture the revolution from the perspective of a photojournalist.
The game will mix narrative-oriented storytelling with action set pieces, exploration and photo processing. You can get a look at the gameplay for the upcoming console release of 1979 Revolution: Black Friday with the trailer below.
The game is being downvoted pretty badly, with half the viewers coming away with distaste.
The problem is that there is only one comment on the page and it’s impossible to get a gauge of why they dislike the game.
I imagine it could be due to the PS2 level graphics? It looks a lot like Rockstar’s The Warriors from 2005 for the PS2 and Xbox One.
Now perhaps it’s the game’s theme? Some gamers have become absolutely tired of politically motivated games and this game is steeped in politics.
The thing is, which side of the fence are people throwing rocks at? Are they anti-revolutionists or anti-Islamic state?
I suppose one could say that simply any kind of heavy politically motivated game is going to get downvoted these days. Of course, this would be most unfortunate for Ink Stories Studio given that they started work on this game back in 2014 when the Kickstarter crowdfund originally failed – but they still kept working on the title and managed to get picked up by publisher Digerati Distribution.
A lot of politically themed games haven’t been selling so well these days, especially when they have certain Leftist bents like Bethesda’s Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
We’ll see how well 1979 Revolution: Black Friday does when it launches this spring, but it appears that receiving a lot of praise from websites that are part of the Intersectional Inquisition has not helped at all with courting the auspices of core gamers.
