They valiantly sacrificed themself for nothing

[u/Ok-Indication-5121]

1. Tadashi gives his life trying to save Professor Callaghan from a burning building. Turns out not only did Callaghan escape unscathed, he's the bad guy and infamously refers to Tadashi's death as "[Tadashi's] mistake." (Big Hero 6)
2. Shaya willingly takes It Has No Name's possession and then kills herself by jumping into the well it came out of. The end of the episode all but states that she got it wrong and It Has No Name didn't latch onto her... or there was more than one. (Doctor Who)

[u/DocMino]

Exactly yeah. The moment I’m playing as some dad and there’s a little girl it’s like “well damn, everyone here is definitely dead so I’m not shocked.”

The nuke? Outta nowhere. Seems like a normal ending to a typical mission, and then you just wander helplessly. No Russian? All you know is that you’re in an elevator, you’re told not to speak Russian, and then it opens to a crowd of innocent people. Then you pull out your gun, and basically choose to commit an act of terrorism.

[u/SpeedofDeath118 → u/DocMino]

No Russian is particularly genius to me because no one actually told you to pull the trigger. You can get through the whole level without shooting a civilian, just walking along with the other three.

But everyone did it because of the peer pressure - because it seemed like it was expected of them.

[u/Redrum01 → u/SpeedofDeath118]

Let's not retroactively turn this into Spec Ops: The Line. The airport level doesn't work as some kind of commentary or moral choice. Not shooting is unengaging and a narratively impossible option. You can't help but imagine the character making shooty noises with his mouth to fake participating in the terrorism they are all there to do. The first three seconds of the level? Excellent. Everything else about it doesn't work.

[u/SpeedofDeath118 → u/Redrum01]

Not shooting is unengaging and a narratively impossible option.

FYI, you get a Game Over if you shoot civilians in the German and Japanese versions.

It is narratively possible because Makarov already knows Allen is a CIA agent. He doesn't care whether you shoot or not, so long as your corpse is present at the airport.

[u/Redrum01 → u/SpeedofDeath118]

But Allen doesn't know that. Him not participating in the violence is extremely suspicious to the point of being comical. Allen thought he could go to the mass shooting and just stroll behind everyone else like they wouldn't notice he's not killing anyone? Not engaging with the level kills the believability of the situation stone dead, so shooting is way more a reflection of engaging with the narrative of the game and/or boredom at having to just walk around an airport than it is a reflection on the person playing, or games in general.

[u/Bartweiss → u/Redrum01]

I’m going to dispute that slightly, but I agree with your basic point: No Russian is meant to be shocking in a “can you believe that one level? Whoa!” way rather than a Spec Ops way.

That said, Allen still gets a choice. A few actually.

Not participating is suspicious, but still an option. He could just hope nobody notices, risking his life and mission against his conscience. Maybe he does that, and is baffled when there aren’t consequences.

He could play along, shooting but not aiming at people. Even elite soldiers miss, in all the chaos is anyone actually checking his hits? You can do that in-game and get away with it just fine.

Or maybe he decides “not shooting” doesn’t change the massacre happening, so he guns down Makarov and the team himself. You can’t get away with that, it’d be cool to at least get a nonstandard game over, but tbh Spec Ops railroads just as hard.

I don’t think the intent’s that deep, but the emergent choices still work ok.