Memorial Day

Somehow it always seems to be my turn to write the blogs before the three day weekend. I don’t plan it this way, but there you go. Usually, I try and pick a theme that fits the upcoming holiday, and with Memorial Day happening on Monday I was thinking "what sort of experience do I have in the video game industry that might honor our fallen soldiers?"

At my last job one of the main titles I worked on was the extremely popular Call of Duty series of first person shooters. In this game, you take on the role of American, British and Russian soldiers in World War II. Even though the games I produced focused on the combat that they lived through and not the goals the Allies were fighting for in World War II, it did start me on a path where I started thinking a lot more about our men and women in our armed forces. When I watch portrayals like Saving Private Ryan, Call of Duty, Letters from Iwo Jima, or any of the dozens of movies portraying more modern wars, I question if I’d have the courage that these people had, and wonder what the world would be like if it were me on the Beach at Normandy, too afraid to set foot off that boat.

At Legacy we have a different focus on our games. Rather than blowing up bridges and shooting Nazis, the games I work on now try to teach medicine (Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals), have fun with the principles of capitalism (The Apprentice: Los Angeles), glorify family (The Tuttles) or the freedom to choose your own paths in life (Igor). From the educational to the entertaining, the games I make now are usually about creation, or the struggle to preserve life and make a better tomorrow.

I love that.

How does this tie together? Where once I made games that honored the actual deeds that our fallen soldiers performed, now my games try to hold up the principles they died for: family, freedom, and the right to create your own future and not have one imposed on you.

No, I don’t pretend any of our soldiers gave their lives so that I could make an educational veterinary simulator. I’m not that deluded. But the games we make are built on the idea that anyone can do anything they put their mind to; become anyone they want to be, with the work and effort to get there. We at Legacy like to think that we make games that celebrate these principles that have been gifted to us by these fallen heroes.

We wish you all a safe and memorable Memorial Day, however you choose to observe it!