A new video game is attempting to replicate the atrocities suffered by millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
“The Light in the Darkness” appears to be the first ever video game to attempt to portray the Holocaust with a significant level of historical accuracy. The game allows players to adopt roles in a Jewish family torn from their home during the Holocaust.
“Video games can tell profound, meaningful and universal stories of tragedy and triumph that are more realistic and gut-wrenchingly impactful,” reads a description of the game online.
“Our mission is to connect each new generation with the experiences of those who lived during one of the greatest atrocities in the history of the world.”
Game creator Luc Bernard was frustrated that so many video games with World War II themes barely reference the Holocaust.
“It’s a bit like denying that it ever existed,” the Los Angeles-based developer told AFP.
“My goal is to get more developers interested to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive,” Bernard said.
In the game, players follow along with a Jewish family as they endure life under France’s wartime Vichy regime only to be arrested in 1942 during a massive roundup in Paris and sent to the Pithiviers internment camp, all based on real-life events.
Thousands of Jews HY”D were transported from there to death camps like Auschwitz.
Bernard’s personal interest in the Holocaust is tied to his own family’s history. As a child, he was told about his grandmother in the UK who looked after Jewish refugee children who were rescued from Nazi Germany as part of the “Kindertransport” rescue operation just before the outbreak of World War II.
His fascination peaked only further after his family’s roots were revealed to him as a teenager.
“When that came out, it shook up a lot of things,” Bernard recalled. “And it started to make me do my own research into the Holocaust. And what I learned on my own was way more horrific than what we learned in school. They showed us Schindler’s List, which affected us, but that was about it.”
And later, in his work as a video game director, “I was seeing all these World War II games, but they always failed to mention or talk about the Holocaust, almost pretending that moment in history didn’t exist,” Bernard noted.
There have been fears in the past that such games could trivialize, oversimplify, or cause people to become desensitized to the Holocaust.
Bernard’s research for the game included consulting the archives of Holocaust museums in Los Angeles and Washington.
He also spoke with Holocaust survivors and plans to have some of them recount their experiences in an update to the game.
In addition to being available free at Epic Games, “The Light in the Darkness” is on display at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.
The game is available on computers, with versions for consoles to be released soon.
As reported by VINnews