Russell Shanks chooses the clunkiest SOE-related games
Adapting of historical episodes into videogames presents both challenges and opportunities. Scholars such as Adam Chapman and Esther Wright have argued that when approaching historical games, instead of focusing solely on historical accuracy and authenticity, we should ask why a game deviates from the historical record and what effects this may have. Done well, they can present insightful and entertaining versions of the past for players to explore. Done badly, they can be guilty of remediating tropes and create spaces that are frustrating for audiences. In the case of SOE games, deviation, clunky mechanics, and adherence to perceived audience expectations have produced some disappointing results.
To qualify as an ‘SOE game’, digital wargames either need to make direct reference to the organisation in the game or to be clearly based on an episode of SOE history. For instance, a game may not mention the SOE directly but may still be based on elements of SOE history. Games have adapted famous missions and made use of methodologies of covert action, such as the use of SOE-developed weapons, including the Welrod silent pistol.
Here follows a selection of my ‘5 Most Disappointing SOE Videogames’:
5. RAID: World War II (Starbreeze Studios, 2017)
Unlike many other digital wargames which are thoughtful and reverential in tone, RAID: World War II does not take itself seriously, using a great deal of parody in its narrative. The British intelligence group at the centre of the narrative is labelled the ‘Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’, made up of miscreants and criminals tasked to destroy Nazis and steal their wealth. An inspired choice was to cast John Cleese as ‘Control’, who sets the tone for the game as the head of the organisation, providing mission briefings, kit updates, and guidance to the player-characters through a number of humorous cut scenes.
Yet, the premise is only qualified by the extent to which you can actually progress in the game. The game falls short because of the challenging mechanics. It is too much of a struggle to find and acquire ammunition and healing kits; characters are killed far too easily; and it is far too difficult to spot and take out enemy NPCs. It plays like a first-person shooter with stealth mechanics, leaving the player vulnerable to dying frequently. As a player I really struggled to advance beyond the first few levels. It’s overall rating from the gamer community on the streaming platform Steam is ‘Mixed’.[1] It should be comparable to The Saboteur (Pandemic Studios, 2009)in its delivery but is not particularly fun to play. Unfortunately, this was a missed opportunity because the idea is interesting and original.
4. Secret Weapons Over Normandy (LucasArts, 2003)
Secret Weapons Over Normandy is a flight combat simulator with a narrative that follows the ‘Battlehawks’, a fictional RAF squadron that supports SOE’s missions globally. Players can master a variety of different aircraft and munitions, from the Fairey Swordfish biplane (famous for helping sink the Bismarck) to the German Messerschmitt Me 262 (the world’s first combat jet). As a product of LucasArts, unlockable aircraft include the Tie Fighter and X-Wing from Star Wars in addition to mid-twentieth-century experimental aircraft.
The fantastical narrative casts the player as a central figure in determining the course of the Second World War. Efforts to sabotage advanced Axis technologies are a reoccurring theme, from the V-Weapons to heavy water.
The game feels dated, and its clunky flying mechanics mean that aircraft fly like dodgems. Additionally irksome are the pseudo-documentary style cutscenes which blend archival wartime footage with animations, accompanied by a voice-over to cue up the next mission. Although this style of cutscene remains a common element in digital wargames Medal of Honor (EA, 1999-2020) and Call of Duty (Activision, 2003- ) – but here appears dated and cheesy.
Secret Weapons Over Normandy manifests a wider issue in historical gaming that scholars Salvati and Bullinger have called ‘Selective Authenticity’ (2013). Elements such as ‘technological fetishism’ and ‘documentary authority’ generate a superficial sense of historical accuracy that conforms more to audience expectations than to period-accurate scrutiny. This is particularly evident in the reoccurring theme of advanced axis technologies and the blending of wartime newsreel footage with animated sequences in cutscenes. The epic melodrama of the narrative combines to produce a game that is better at giving the sense of being in a fantastical war film than a deeper engagement with SOE history.
3. Medal of Honor: Above & Beyond (EA, 2020)
This adapts and expands the original Medal of Honor title into a virtual reality (VR) game, with VR controls allowing players to manipulate firearms and other tools that add to a more immersive experience beyond normal gaming interfaces.
Despite the advance in technology the style of the game in VR appears more cartoonish than in the 1999 original which had a sense of gravitas lacking here. In addition to the bubbly VR artwork, the script that is full of attempted jokes which generally fall flat. In ‘Operation Norway’, an adaptation of the SOE’s 1943 Operation GUNNERSIDE, Sarge spends most of the mission complaining of the cold, while Manon quips that the detonation of explosives she planted, intending to destroy stocks of heavy water, were ‘a little bigger than I thought’. The resulting explosion triggers an avalanche, after which the player must taboggan to safety to complete the level, which left me feeling unsure if I was playing a wargame or Wii Sports.
2. Call of Duty: Vanguard (Activision, 2021)
This could be the most high-profile SOE game of all, given theprominence of the franchise. SOE is central to the game’s narrative and its attempts to ‘set the table for what we know today as special forces combat’[3]. The game entwines a fictional mission deep behind enemy lines in the last days of the Nazi Reich with the backstories of the operatives that make up the ‘Vanguard’ team.
The game is let down by the excessive use of cutscenes. Common in videogames, these are used to provide context, progress the narrative, and allow the following level to load. However, in Vanguard the cutscenes are both too frequent and too long – combined with vignettes within gameplay, it means that the player spends a lot of time in the campaign watching rather than playing.
Additionally, the narrative feels marked by an overreliance on well-worn tropes. The characters are a range of wartime stereotypes – an American jock, a vengeful Soviet sniper, and a stoic British officer who are shoehorned into an SOE game. The characters demonstrate the designer’s choice to revisit a number of major battles from the Second World War, rather than to represent the SOE.
1.Velvet Assassin (SouthPeak Interactive, 2009)
I have selected Velvet Assassin as the most disappointing SOE game for two reasons.
As a stealth game, it requires patience and problem solving to avoid combat with enemies to a greater degree than a first-person shooter. However, this game is particularly difficult and frustratingly challenging even when compared to other difficult stealth games such as Sniper Elite (Rebellion 2005- ). The mechanics require overly fiddly inputs at specific moments in order to achieve actions – for instance, the player has to sneak up behind an enemy to successfully stealth-kill them. While it is possible to shoot at or attempt to stab an enemy, to appear in front of them will invariably lead to them shooting and killing the player first. Patchy graphics give the feel of a game hastily made on a small budget.
The main problem, however, arises from its portrayal of the protagonist – Violette Summer. The game claims to be inspired by real SOE heroine Violette Szabo, but the only similarity is the name. The overt sexualisation of the character – itself a general manifestation of a well-known wider problem in gaming – and the presentation of a divergent telling of Szabo’s story go beyond respectful representations of SOE personnel.
Szabo was a member of F-Section who helped organise resistance as part of the Salesman/Salesman II circuits. She would be captured following a shootout with German soldiers and was executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. In contrast, Violette Summer is stylised as an assassin for the Secret Intelligence Service, with her sexuality emphasised as her ‘strategic currency’ – She is depicted in impractically tight clothing, with the game’s third person perspective usually conveniently centred around her backside. Narratively, the game bizarrely takes place within flashbacks inside Summer’s mind as she lies sick on a hospital bed in a bloodied slip. A morphine mode mechanic enables players to navigate challenging obstacles, rendering enemies into slow motion while Summer is transformed into her hospital ‘gown’.
Velvet Assassin is a case study of the much wider problem of gender stereotypes apparent within videogames, as studied by Anita Sarkeesian in her YouTube series ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games’[4]. The game does nothing to advance or engage with the actual history of Szabo or of SOE, but instead takes a clichéd approach to a female character involved in covert action. This seems a lost opportunity to explore one of the most remarkable true stories of the Second World War
Now catch up with Russell’s top 5 SOE games
Notes
[1] ‘RAID: World War II, Steam <https://store.steampowered.com/app/414740/RAID_World_War_II/> [accessed 12/09/2025]
[2] ‘RAID: World War II – A Message From Control’, Lion Game Lion, YouTube (2017) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpeB9opFMqI&list=PLrLjJR_ppZFgrf_-l5VYNVtmRnW9jaDyC&index=62> [Accessed 08/09/2025]
[3] ‘Call of Duty: Vanguard’, Call of Duty Store (2021) <https://www.callofduty.com/uk/en/store/games/vanguard> [Accessed 08/09/2025]
[4] Feminist Frequency, ‘ Tropes vs Women in Video Games – Season 1’, YouTube (2013 – 2015) <https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn4ob_5_ttEaA_vc8F3fjzE62esf9yP61&si=5SmxoQnZV4upQZmO> [Accessed 08/10/2025]