Video games don’t show the Vietnam War as much as they could. These books, on the other hand, are among the best.
There haven’t been nearly as many games about the Vietnam War as there have been about other major wars. To be clear, there are some very good reasons for this, such as the questionable reasons for the war on the Western side, the brutal way it was fought by all sides, and the fact that, from the American point of view, it was a failure.
All of these things make it harder to show than, say, World War 2. Still, some games have come out more recently that do a good job of turning the war into an interesting experience. From Call of Duty to Rising Storm 2, games about the Vietnam War have shown that it is a hard but still interesting subject to explore.
Battlefield: Vietnam – 2004
- Platform: PC
- Developers: Dice Canada
- Publisher: Electronic Arts
When it came out for Microsoft Windows in 2004, Battlefield: Vietnam was probably the best FPS game with a Vietnam theme. It is the sequel to the popular World War II game Battlefield: 1942. It is also the second game in a very successful series of large-scale first-person shooter games made by Dice and published by Electronic Arts.
Like 1942, Vietnam has weapons and vehicles that fit the time period and maps that are based on historical places and events like the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Ia Drang Valley, the Battle of Hue City, and the Fall of Saigon. The game even has a soundtrack that sounds like it came from that time period.
Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War – 2020
- Platform: Xbox, PlayStation, Android, PC
- Developers: Treyarch, Raven Software, Beenox
- Publisher: Activision
Like its predecessor, Black Ops Cold War isn’t mainly about the Vietnam War. However, the war is a big part of the game’s story (even if only indirectly), and it’s one of the best parts of the single-player campaign. There are two Vietnam War-themed single-player levels: “Fracture Jaw” and “Break on Through.”
BOCW is also the first game in the series to have a zombies map called “Firebase Z” that is set in Vietnam. Some of the coolest weapons in the game are also from the Vietnam War, like the locked-in M16a1 and the Stoner 63 light machine gun. Overall, COD: Black Ops Cold War is a mainstream AAA game that does the Vietnam War surprisingly well.
Far Cry 5: Hours of Darkness – 2018
- Platform: Xbox, PlayStation, PC
- Developer: Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Toronto
- Publisher: Ubisoft
Even though Hours of Darkness is just a DLC add-on for Far Cry 5, it is still a fun Vietnam War-themed add-on. Hours of Darkness strips Far Cry down to its best parts, leaving out things like story and characters that the series only reluctantly cares about.
The player has to save their fellow POWs who are spread out around the valley before they can leave. In between, they have to deal with all the usual enemies, bases, checkpoints, and other tasks. It doesn’t say much about the war itself, but it’s still a pretty fun expansion.
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam – 2017
- Platform: PC
- Developers: Tripwire Interactive, Antimatter Games
- Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
After the success of the World War II multiplayer game Red Orchestra 2, Tripwire Interactive would work with the modding community to make Rising Storm, a spin-off/expansion set in the Pacific theater, which would be released in 2013. The success of this expansion led Tripwire and Antimatter Games to start making Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, a sequel about the Vietnam War, which came out in 2017.
Rising Storm 2 is a large-scale, hard-core, multiplayer first-person shooter game like its predecessors. However, unlike its predecessors, it takes the asymmetric warfare elements of the first Rising Storm and turns them up to eleven, making them a core part of the game.
Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam – 2010
- Platform: PC, Xbox, PlayStation
- Developers: DICE
- Publisher: Electronic Arts
Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam is an expansion pack that re-imagines the original Battlefield: Vietnam game as a smaller, more chaotic, and confined (by Battlefield standards) experience. The game also gives everything a rough edge that neither the first game nor Bad Company 2 had. War-torn environments, unclean guns and vehicles, and tattered player models. Even newer Vietnam War games lack atmosphere, but this one does.
Slope Game is not an exact copy of the first one, though. It only has one map from the original game that has been changed (Operation Hastings) and is missing a lot of weapons and vehicles. Still, the game got good reviews when it came out. Some people said it was even more fun to play than the main game, while others made sure to point out how different the two are.
Vietcong – 2003
- Platform: PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox
- Developers: Pterodon, Illusion Softworks
- Publisher: Gathering
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were a lot of World War II games coming out. When Vietcong came out in 2003, it was a breath of fresh air for many people. The 1967 Vietnam jungle-set squad-based game was inventive for its day, despite its technical shortcomings.
There are single-player and multiplayer modes in the game. The first one has both a story campaign and a mode called Quick Fights. In Quick Fights, the player fights against AI enemies on a map of their choice with no real goal. Multiplayer includes Team Deathmatch, Free for All Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and others. Before GameSpy Arcade closed, the game supported 64 players.
Arma 3: S.O.G. Prairie Fire – 2021
- Platforms: PC
- Developers: Savage Game Design
- Publisher: Bohemia Interactive
People know that the Arma series is one of the most realistic military simulation games out there. Arma 3, the third game in the series, contains a paid DLC expansion called SOG Prairie Fire set in the Vietnam War. This expansion was actually made with the help of veterans from both sides of the Vietnam War.
With Arma’s hyper-realistic and huge battles, the DLC lets the player experience the war from different points of view. They can use historically accurate weapons on massive maps as MACV SOG, the Vietcong, or the Pathet Lao. SOG Prairie Fire has both missions for one player and online play with other people.
Call Of Duty: Black Ops – 2010
- Platform: PC, OS X, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, Nintendo DS
- Developers: Treyarch
- Publisher: Activision
Maybe it’s not fair to call Black Ops a “Vietnam-themed” game, but there’s no denying that the war is an important part of the game’s story. Five of the 15 campaign missions take place in Vietnam in 1968, with two of them happening during the Tet Offensive. Vietnam is also the setting for several multiplayer maps, such as Cracked, Hanoi, and Jungle. Several famous Vietnam War movies, like Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and The Deer Hunter, are also mentioned in the game.
Some of the most exciting and intense parts of the game happen in the Vietnam parts of the campaign. Battles in jungle muck and water or busy cities might last whole missions. Call of Duty: Black Ops is definitely one of the most exciting new games that has anything to do with the Vietnam War.
