A major new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London will examine how video games such as Call of Duty are being used to train soldiers and teach the realities of war. The 'War Games' display, opening on 30 September 2022, features a special gaming zone where visitors can test their own skills on iconic titles.
Curator Ian Kikuchi said the show aims to challenge the notion that violent video games merely desensitise users to real-life bloodshed. Instead, it highlights how skills from first-person shooters and strategy games are shaping modern warfare. The British Army, for example, uses Virtual Battlespace 4, a training simulator for mission rehearsal and scenario planning.
The exhibition includes games such as Six Days in Fallujah, a tactical shooter based on real accounts from the Iraq war. 'It helps players understand the fear of Iraqi families caught up in the fighting,' Kikuchi said. A new acquisition for the museum is an Xbox 360 controller used to operate the camera of an unmanned aerial vehicle in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Visitors can also play 13 retro titles on classic consoles, from Battlezone on the Atari 2600 to Top Gun on the Sega Saturn. Alongside the games, the exhibition presents historical artefacts like First World War facial prosthetics and personal items from civilians affected by conflict, encouraging reflection on the tension between the thrill and tragedy of warfare.
Kikuchi, a lifelong gamer, hopes sceptics will leave with an appreciation of how diverse and powerful video games are for telling stories about war. The exhibition, sponsored by British developer Rebellion, runs until 28 May 2023.
