September 11, Thursday:
The 2001 9/11 attacks had a permanent cultural impact on the world, and the game industry was no different. Although few games have ever tried to represent the attacks explicitly, developers and publishers had to redesign ongoing projects, modify offending material, and react to changing cultural concerns.
Games explicitly about 9/11 are still unusual and controversial
The biggest example is 8:46, a 2015 virtual reality experience that drops the player into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on the day of the attack. The game was roundly criticized for being in poor taste, even though it was presented as a serious experience. Another game, Scenario Set 9-11, provided virtual scenarios for Xbox that reenacted parts of the tragedy.
Conversely, the majority of mainstream corporations kept their distance from overt depictions. Sega, for example, cancelled Propeller Arena for the Dreamcast over concerns that its dogfighting close to skyscrapers would be too reminiscent of the attacks. Valve similarly removed a plane crash into a building sequence from Half-Life 2 in mid-development. Electronic Arts even suspended its alternate-reality game Majestic, which featured terrorism references.
The emergence of the post-9/11 military shooter
Where developers did engage was in tone and subject matter. By gaming historians' accounts, the post-9/11 era witnessed a boom in military shooters such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, in which players were positioned as virtual protagonists fighting foreign aggressors in the so-called "War on Terror." Urban environments and especially New York City, were reimagined as metaphors for American weakness and resilience.
Online communities responded as well. EverQuest and Asheron's Call MMORPG players formed in-game memorials and candlelight vigils to make sense of national trauma together.
Some critics contend that post-9/11 games were not only reflecting increased worries about terrorism but also contributing to nationalist mythologies and conceptions of identity in an unsettled period.
