Mobile game Tom Clancy's Elite Squad didn't seem likely to make waves when it was released a week ago, but the game's intro video featured problematic framing of UMBRA, the game's villains. UMBRA is described as a shadowy organization planning to "take advantage of escalating civil unrest" to "build a new world order." While none of that is groundbreaking for a military game's villain, the context of the current time makes it particularly tone-deaf.
The most prevalent source of "civil unrest" in the United States at the moment is the continued killing of unarmed Black civilians by the police. The death of George Floyd in May sparked months of protests throughout the country, continuing to the current day.
As such, suggesting a shadowy organization is co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement to push forward a malicious agenda is at the best tone-deaf -- at worst, it's intentionally harmful. What makes things even worse is UMBRA's logo, a clenched black fist, which co-opts the Black Power fist that has long been a symbol of revolution and solidarity.
Ubisoft has since pledged to remove the logo from the game, but it may be too little, too late. Removing the logo now fails to change its original implementation or any of the problematic aspects of the game's framing. The game's narration states UMBRA "[claims] to promote an egalitarian utopia in order to gain popular support" while inciting violence against the domestic population.
This presentation of a populist uprising as a mere facade for more sinister goals only serves to perpetuate false and dangerous narratives when it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement. While removing the logo is certainly a good thing, it means little if the company doesn't change any of the other aspects of the game or its villain.
Looking past the brief section devoted to UMBRA in the trailer makes clear how Elite Squad's core premise is flawed. The proposed solution by the world government to UMBRA is an "Elite Squad" of military and paramilitary forces to sweep into these troubled areas and take out the organization.
This hits a bit close to home when the city of Portland is currently being occupied by agents sent by the federal government to clamp down on protestors. The opening video then follows this up by claiming "playing by the rules will not win this fight." While that sounds like an edgy-but-thoughtless line to put into a game like Elite Squad, it bears further inspection in an age of rampant police brutality.
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The rules don't exist to handcuff police in their attempts to regulate crime; they exist to protect the people from undue violence from the police. Part of the growing movement driving these protests in the real world is the recognition that the law is inherently flawed -- police are literally tasked with protecting property, not people. An extrajudicial military force fighting protests without "playing by the rules" doesn't sound like a recipe for zero civilian casualties, and is exactly what Black Lives Matter is actually against.
It might be easy to say Elite Squad is just a game and that its actual gameplay might bear little to no resemblance to what the introductory video describes. However, media like this reinforces false and harmful narratives being used to paint the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist cell, instead of a civil rights movement. Portland continues to be a battleground between federal forces and local protests, with President Trump even suggesting the National Guard be brought into other "crime-ridden" Democratic cities.
Elite Squad might be a game, but it's another discordant note in the vast array of media Americans regularly partake in.
Tom Clancy's Elite Squad is now available for Android and iOS.