The Highway of Death being the cause of Russians in Modern Warfare (2019) is a good relatively recent example.
The whole thing is just chalked full of jingoism and nationalism. I genuinely believe it is harmful to peoples psyche.
Probably. But I think the intention is to attract customers, not to push some kind of agenda. So instead of toning it down, I think it would be better to make it explicit and make games from different perspectives.
For example, make a WW2 game from the Soviet. Or perhaps Japan in the Russo-Japanese war of the early 1900s. Those could be as biased as they want because they’re telling the story from a certain perspective.
We know that the US Military contributes directly to Cll of Duty, both financially and through assets and non-tangibles. Whether or not the developers push an agenda purposefully, and I’m inclined to side with you that they aren’t trying to do so, that money and those assets come with strings attached that take the decisions out of the developers hands.
Hell, they put fucking Oliver North in their game, and made him look like a good guy. You can’t get any less contrary to reality if you tried.