Burdening Player with Morality: Europa Universalis 4

Many stories contain morals, morality tales are probably old as humanity as itself. Yet, it is dubious that humans, even children, actually learn morals by reading or hearing about them. Most of the time morals are followed because they feel common sense or natural, rather than reaching them through rigorous analysis. I speak this from personal experience by being rather unkind to bugs throughout childhood and now actively avoiding to kill them for the simple reason that I feel their lives need to be respected too. Of course, nor social indoctrination nor the effects of the media we consume cannot be denied, in fact morals often feel natural because of it, but it is probably not controversial to say this happens by observing the patterns of behavior rather than hearing from toddler cartoons or the episode about bullying of a popular family drama .
Why then, so many stories are written, read, praised or criticised for containing messages about what is wrong and right? Do people simply enjoy someone else telling their opinions back at them? Yes. Do people love to see their values getting triumphant in fiction? Also yes. Do people actually hope their work can at least introduce them to their worldview? True again. You can't even really avoid moral messages; all stories, be it an 5000 year old epic or the excuse plot of a platformer video game,  contain a message anyway, actively avoiding having one is a message itself.
However, most stories are not simply about reflection or propaganda, an invaluable function they have is to explore morals in a situation where they would be actually relevant. For example, to kill someone is an action which ideally no one should have to face, but fiction enables us to experience the process and the consequences of upholding attitudes about killing, without any harm to real people. Most people have certain situations where they think the aggression is just, but carrying moral values in abstract and carrying them out are entirely different experiences.
In older stories readers were directly told what conclusions that they need to arrive at, which today continues as turning a character a mouthpiece for the author. Then there came stories that are ideally crafted to prove the author's point. None of them could truly satisfy the need for exploration, because they felt inauthentic. Eventually, it was the time to put an effort to make characters and the worlds they reside feel plausible, so that the morality at play can be witnessed openly. For some writers, this was still not subtle enough so they wrote as if they upheld the opposite of their actual moral values. Nowadays, the word is frequently being thrown around to avoid any responsibility but works of satire had usually the loudest messages.
At last, there came video games, adding one more layer of subtlety, by making players carry the burden of morality. Some video games use some sort of reward/punishment mechanic to direct the player into some actions but others don't even comment on the player decision. A famous example is Shin Megami Tensei series, while the mainline games take a certain kind of ending as canon, the series usually avoid judging the player while they shape the world according to  philosophies they hold correct. However moral neutrality or player responsibility is not same as avoiding responsibility. For instance, a game regularly using rape for establishing female characters, designating people of color as common targets to shoot or having LGBT characters only as punchlines certainly is not presenting morally neutral, at best those games usually just pretend they don't have a stance. No, moral neutral presentation is about making player face the consequences, not avoid them; it just does it without openly spelling it out. However, it is undeniable that there is often a thin line between passively endorsing morally bad actions and being neutral and letting the audience come to conclusions. So, how can this be achieved well? Europa Universalis 4, or most grand strategy games in general can be a good study-case here.

Seems like a fun time for your subjects...

In EU4, the player is an invisible spirit of sorts, leading a country; the main goal is conquering other places, which amounts to re-painting your map and getting more resources... so they can used to conquer more places. It's entirely usual that the player will be responsible for deaths of millions of people, will build a tyranny that crushes any free will, ravage the world with colonialism, eradicate whole cultures.  So, what moral stance the game takes here?

• The game is completely supportive of the player in all of this. The flavor text makes it clear that no matter what you choose or what you do your behaviour is correct, your wars are just, anyone who opposes you is despicable. The game seemingly doesn't have a concrete stance regarding to ideals, the only thing it cares is the abstract idea of a nation and its values, which is open to be shaped up by player's wishes. For example, the player can make their nation the most zealous Muslims ever then make it turn it into Christian. The game is equally celebratory, after all they did nothing but protect the One True Faith!
• On the game mechanics wise, generally being totalitarian as possible is beneficial., All the numbers, modifiers and statistics compels the player to see their population as nothing but resources to get money and soldiers. If the player want to see their nation strong, doing things that actually makes their society happier and fairer is often detrimental.
• The player has to only worry about having money in treasury, having a capable army, being up to date in technology, keeping the population loyal and having a decent diplomatic stance in the world. Other than that the player has little idea what is going on in the country. They can be informed a little in the way of events, but gameplay wise they are only relevant in benefits to player, they are mostly isolated from all conflict and misery of the ordinary person, they suffer no consequences as long as the decisions end up keeping the nation strong. People being forcibly converted? A progress bar. A battle where thousands of people die? Numbers appearing indicating losses. Ongoing siege, people dying, the lands getting ravaged. Once again, numbers, the town will yield fewer resources! People being sick, hungry and getting fed up with your wars? Annoying mobs, a nuisance to the progression, must be stamped out by your arms as soon as possible or else the state will lose its grip on the provinces!

Looking like this, Europa Universalis 4 is a good candidate for the most problematic game ever created, to a degree games like Grand Theft Auto cannot even match. So how can a game like this can considered being even close to morally neutral? The magic is in implications and a little history knowledge. The very flavor text that pats the player in the back itself reveals the problems? The peasants that are unhappy with the rule is "target practice", anyone who doesn't agree with the decisions of the state is evil, all it takes to justifies a war is forging some documents,in times of war you can use a little military force to squeeze more money from population, the game keeps the track of how many soldiers died throughout your wars, the religions just turn into benefits and a tool to conquer more. Nothing stays sacred or innocent, all turns into numbers in the service of the state. Even the state itself cannot escape from this, it too becomes just a collection of numbers, nothing remains besides the abstract idea of the empire, "the invisible hand of the player." All video games are just collections of numbers, just like a book being collection of papers and ink, but EU4 deliberately strips away all humanity from them.
This is why the game's moral stance is so cold and crushing. It is exactly what "empire-building" is to an ordinary person, it is excellent at portraying how detached rulers can be. One shouldn't learn history from video games but even best history books cannot actually depict how meaningless all is and reveal the true nature of oppressive systems that present themselves us as just, glorious and righteous. Here, it shows that nude, clear representation sometimes can be more damning than outright condemnation.

The Quantity Idea group, a.k.a the Hell Idea Group

Is this all fine and good though? These games have a sizable reactionary audience after all, so are the games responsible for enabling reactionary ideas? The danger always exists for all satire works, but here it is more likely that reactionaries are drawn to this game because they already agree with the totalitarianism in the game than the game convincing people who these ideas are amazing. People say satire needs a clarity of purpose but it is kind of unavoidable people will interpret things differently. A reasonable interpretation is more important than method used by author or individual audience reaction when it comes to determining whether something can count as satire. That's why regardless how much authors intended to be or how much some players don't grasp it,  Europe Universalis 4 has a radical stance against state-building and imperialism, one that achieves by making the player carry all the decisions.
If the game is in fact a critique, is there a conflict with the game's aim to make player have fun? There isn't, the critique is not on the player but the detachment in the system itself. People play EU4 because they like low-energy games with a lot of numbers or they like historical roleplaying, some people even see a competitive aspect to it and this is perfectly fine. The difference is like playing chess and seeing real life people as chess pieces in your political ideas.
The fact that the critique can be done so brilliantly is making me desire more though. What if there were more "strategy peace games", where making the world a better place was the main goal, a game where cooperation over competition were actively encouraged? Criticism is definitely important but it is somewhat vain if we ever don't push for alternatives.
his article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson and Spencer Gill.