Developer Charles Games have revealed their WW2 game Attentat 1942 has been removed from the Google Play store in various European countries, because it contains references to Nazis.
The game is a narrative adventure, talking to Holocaust survivors about the events of 1942 Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Specifically around the time “Deputy Reich Protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated.
The Nazis responded by sending many to concentration camps. Among them was the player’s own grandfather. Players’ choices affect what they learn of the past from those who lived through it, and what happened.
However, Charles Games have announced that Google have removed the game from being sold on Google Play in Germany, Russia, Austria, and France; because it contained Nazi references.
The game also does not appear to be available in the US [1, 2] or UK [1, 2] as of this time of writing. This is in spite of numerous WW2-based games being available on the platform. The developers also point out how My Child Lebensborn also suffered similar hurdles.
Charles Games also point out how in their appeal they quoted “both the nature of our game, the fact it’s made with historians from Czech Academy of Sciences and most importantly – our USK (German authority) approval. Result was another rejection e-mail.”
“We’re also frustrated because it hinders what mobile games are allowed to do. We firmly believe that videogames are art and can be an important part of public conversations. When we ban everything with any controversial keywords no matter the content, everybody loses.
We hope @Google will retract their decision and approve Attentat 1942 in the end. We want to keep history alive and considering how vast the mobile audience is, it would be a huge shame to lose them.”
It is also worth mentioning that in 2018, the German video-game rating board USK has lifted the ban on Nazi images in video games.
Attentat 1942 is available now on Windows PC, Linux, and Mac (all via Steam).
Image: Steam
