Agent 47 isn’t the deadliest force of nature in there Assassin 3. Covid-19. Yes, IO Interactive’s Murder Sandbox is the latest video game to acknowledge the pandemic is infected nearly 100 million people, more than 2 million dead, and turn life as we know it upside down.
In the first level of the game, the Dubai set “On the roof of the worldSays one of your targets, Carl Ingram, perhaps a line indicating that he is clearly not happy to be there. “I bet people with the coronavirus get more rest than this,” he says.
Okay, for starters, what a silly, rude comment.
But let’s also take a moment to recognize the broad implications of this comment. The people inside Assassin 3 Don’t exactly follow the guidelines recommended by almost every official public health expert in the world. “On Top of the World” takes place during an event in a lavish supermarket with several bars, a sea of high tables and a whole freakin ‘art exhibition. A later level, “Apex Predator”, sends Agent 47 to a rave in the outskirts of Berlin.
You will not see any mask in either phase. Nobody practices social distance. People huddle in tight circles and swing carefree to bars. They stuff themselves shoulder to shoulder in small spaces. Are these people not reading the news? Have they all been vaccinated? Considering how the rollout is going:or not– in the real world, the latter seems unlikely.
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Assassin 3 isn’t the only game in which covid-19 exists in the universe. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla contains a series of emails between the meta character, Layla Hassan, and a concerned family member. “I don’t have Covid, no,” writes Layla. “And I am well insulated.” You can see this correspondence by interacting with the in-game laptop when you are outside the animus.
Last fall Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 does not explicitly mention covid-19, but a series of environmental factors in the “School” phase mention working towards a “new normal”, parades for frontline workers and the difficulties of working from home. There is also a desire for good health and safety. Again, not an explicit callout, but those messages are very similar to the messages surrounding covid-19.
Assassin 3 isn’t the first game to recognize covid-19. I doubt it will be the last.