Throughout the history of gaming, it is no secret that games often have subliminal messages. Bioshock 1 and 2 have discussions on dictatorships, Mirror’s Edge talks about the peaceful protest against an oppressive government, and the Fallout series is built upon the idea that war never changes. I am not here to talk about those, but instead, I will discuss the ones that you might not have noticed even though it’s blatantly obvious.

Everybody knows Tetris. It is the third most sold video game of all time, but what you may not know is that every copy of Tetris released till 1994 was used to spy on the average American family. What you may not know about Tetris is that it was developed by the Russians during the Cold War as a device to test brainwashing techniques. The Russians then distributed the game worldwide with the help of Nintendo and got a game of Tetris into every home that had a Gameboy in it. The way the brainwashing worked was with the rhythmic patterns of blocks that fell down and the catchy chiptune theme that plays in the background is a scrambled radio signal that tells the brain to report data back to the U.S.S.R. 

However, this is not the end of Nintendo’s secret symbols.

If you ask almost anyone if they know who Mario is, they will most likely respond with “Yes”. What you may not know is that Mario was created to demoralize Italian-Americans during the Vietnam War. You may not remember it but in the original Super Mario Bros. whenever you reach the end of level Mario tears down the flag of a ruling government and replaces it with a peace flag. This insinuates that Mario was a radical anti-war demonstrator of the ’70s. Furthermore, we see Mario eating a “Super Mushroom” to get taller, which is actually a reference to getting high.

Moving away from Nintendo because I am worried the Nintendo Ninjas will come after me, we can jump into one of the most known puzzle games Portal.

Portal is most notably known for its unique physics engine, its mind-bending puzzles, or the cake being a lie. But what you may not know is that Portal is actually a commentary on robots taking over humanity. In Portal, you play as a female test subject in an experimental test facility being overseen by an AI named GLaDOS who keeps placing puzzles down in front of you to stop you. Throughout the game, you get insulted about your intelligence or the lack thereof, but eventually, break out and shut down the facility, climbing into a deserted wasteland and seeing the remains of humanity.

These are just a few examples of games in our society that try and push propaganda onto our youth. I was unfortunate enough to grow up with this propaganda being fed to me, but now that you have this information you can hopefully think for yourself.