It's not really "unfortunate themes", just themes, that's one of the main interest of fiction you can explore different themes, even playing peoples with different values or morale (or even lack of both).

Games, as well as movies and all other pieces of media, can be seen as, and be made as, art as well as entertainment. Art can be made to be disomfertable, to be challenging, to make the audience question themselves. There are several movies (and theater plays) which are exactly as you describe here, so why cannot games be as well? SpecOps: The line is not the only game that makes the player question their own actions and morality, though one of the very few AAA games that do so. It is both a social commentary and a reflection on the game medium.

I think this is good, it is a sgin that the medium is growing up, and that artists use it to express themselves, and I think it is good for an audience to not only having the fell-good empty entertainment all the time. It may not be for everyone, granted, but I think that they are important.

I think I didn't express myself correctly. I completely agree on what you say, except I think Spec OPS doesn't do a good job about that precisely because it isn't really a confrontation with somehting uncomfortable, the game just railroads you into things and then points at you explicitly telling "you're guilty because you could have put it down anytime". That was your choice, not, say, showing you that ultimately whatever you did was pointless and you have to live with the consequences of not being able to change anything; quitting is actually presented as a solution -the only one, at that.
I found it incredibly stupid as narrative tricks go.

Depends on how stuck you are in having to project real world BS into fiction/games. I could be playing a mass murderer simulator (which is what you basically do in every FPS out there) and really wouldn't give a damn if I was having fun with the game. Because it is NOT real world.

Your Mass Effect example made me chuckle. Never once have I thought about Shepard having the authority due to being a Spectre as "unfortunate".

I could complain that nobody is reading the demons in Doom their constitutional rights before shooting at them. But I could also just murder them with extreme prejudice and have fun while doing so.

Remember that "demon" is an offensive term. Better refer to them as "mortally challenged". XD

This discussion reminds me of SaGa 1. While the themes don't feel unfortunate or questionable, they do feel rather disturbing, in a way that you don't expect an RPG from that era to feel.

SaGa 1 SPOILERS ahead:

For example, there's one major world that's been taken over by the evil empire, and at the very end of the world, you just take the sphere you need and leave the world to continue onto the next, only to find that the next major world is in even worse shape.

Or there's the minor world that appears to have wealthy, but busy, people. That seems reasonable, but then on a later floor, you encounter a very similar world, only this one is ruined and has dead children in it. You then find a note here, the game over music plays, and the game gives you (without actually telling you) a nuclear bomb that you can use in combat.

Even more SaGa 1 MAJOR SPOILERS ahead:

And at the end, you realize that the Creator (actually God in the original Japanese version) made all this as just a game.

(Incidentally, I note that another series, Shin Megami Tensei, has actually used the Judeo-Christian god (called YHVH by the game) as a major villain and final boss, something that I suspect many Jews and Christians would consider unfortunate.)

https://nasser.itch.io/dialogue-3-d

I feel there can be certain universal truths even across themes and cultures.

It's debatable in real world, but it's irrelevant in fiction, the only truths there are the one the author decide.

I really doubt that. And even if there was some "universal truth", it wouldn't be the subject of this thread, for (since it's universal) no one would try to argue against it in the game.

Extremely unfortunate? As in hamfisted, as is the case of Spec Ops: the Line that was mentioned before? Or does the unfortunate theme include finding out later on that you were actually working for morally gray or unambiguously evil characters? That one seems to be one of the most prevalent tropes there ever has been in RPG games. Business as usual, nothing "unfortunate", "shocking", "triggering" or exceptional in any way about that.

Absolute motherfucking murder and destruction in a game is simply just normal. I can and will slaughter demons in Brutal Doom and myriads of other Doom wads. I can and will absolutely brutally destroy and slaughter humans en masse in any game just the same if the game mechanics makes it fun.

What would be unfortunate (which is a naive-sounding understatement and a fucking weak way to put it) is that the game is story focused and otherwise good, but hamfists some parts of its content so hard that you end up hating it. Been too long since I played story-focused games that did that, so I can't remember any examples.

Dreamfall Chapters failed as a point & click adventure game, but its story had its perks. The political system of Europolis was making sense. All the extremes were represented, from flat out nazis to Marxists, and of course in true cyberpunk fashion all the parties were in cahoots with each other and the big fat megacorp had long since taken over the reigns of that puppet theatre entirely.

What I found unfortunate was how it ended. The truth comes out, the people rise, the future is fixed.

That's the fairy tale that has not made sense for at least 20 years.

It's completely irrelevant whether the truth comes out. Nothing happened after the Panama Papers scandal, they just killed the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Russian intervention in the US election whistleblown? Nothing happened, Reality Winner imprisoned. Trigger happy drone wars, Chelsea Manning locked up. Trump impeachment/Vindman fired, the list goes on and on. Nothing changed in the politics and political systems, none of the people in power even got a dent in their throne. The people in R***** don't rise. The women in Iran do, and a fat lot of good it will do these brave people. And there are countless instances where the people rose for what they believed in, the regime actually fell, and they got a military or religious dictatorship as a thank you.

Dreamfall Chapters didn't want to be as dark as its cyberpunk equals and ended up just not being as believable as it intended to.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is beyond splendid, but don't go in there expecting to play a remotely decent human being. For all yourvast freedom, the scripted missions are there to hammer back your role of ruthless sociopathic bandit.

And I adore the Watch Dogs franchise, but damn do you play self-righteous twats in there, basically abusing power, technology and citizens in the exact same way as the big corporations that you fight (and that you fight for that very reason). It's just embarrassing.

And I'm extremely fond of WW2 submarine simulators, despite that fact that you play a nazi fighting for the reich's holy right to conquer and genocide the world. Which I think could qualify as unfortunate. If you allow this political comment.

I was trying to carefully circle step around the broad idea that for the majority of cultures around the world, certain practices have ceased or have been relegated to the dustbin of history.
2) Having seen a Let's Play that features a lot of the Privacy Invasions of 1, (and went though the story, of course), I have no idea why anyone would root or cheer for Aiden Pierce, the flattest soda of a Daduncle.

what? :D

anyway, in a Warhammer 40k game you're working for some horrible fuckers no matter what side you pick. The ones presented as the "good guys" of that franchise are like actual cartoonish space nazis (and hilariously enough, extremist internet chuds love to idolize them, never even seeing the caricature) lol :D

Because rreveenge. WD1 is a straightforward "Death Wish" vigilante story. Baddie stepped on your toe, you're entitled to slaughter the city for great justice. It has that fun b-movie flavor. With some sort of brooding antihero you indeed can or cannot root for, and aren't entirely asked to.

It's WD2 that goes with the hackers-against-the-system angle, with a gang of young cool super preachy activists hacking into everyone's mailboxes and back accounts while protesting that, if unckecked, big corps will end up hacking into everyone's mailboxes and bank accounts. The plot and gameplay seriously revolves around gaining followers for that crusade by publicizing how cool your actions are and denouncing how big tech threatens to, basically, treat people the same way you do. It's... not immensely well thought out. At least WD3 pits you against an authoritarian, xenophobic and racist (but also, because randomizer, racially super diverse) londonian dictatorship. It makes... marginally more sense ?

Still, narrative quirks aside, these games are all absolutely awesome.

Also GOG sells a game, which name I don't remember, and which I haven't played, where, according to the description, you're supposed to play as a gang of modern day robin hoods, robbing museums for profit and giving that profit to the poor. Except that, duh, museums are precisely public, democratic institutions bringing art contemplation within reach of everyone, as opposed to private owners and art traffickers who just keep it in their own living rooms. Great job, justice warriors.

All in all, pure baddies who know what they are doing and understand the stakes are less irritating to play.