When Blizzard suspended professional Hearthstone player, Blitzchung, for expressing his support for Hong Kong on a very public platform – the Hearthstone Grandmasters stream – one thing it probably didn’t account for was the outpouring of support and the furore that followed. Long-time players threatened to boycott Blizzard games. Employees staged walkouts with umbrellas, a key symbol of resistance in the Hong Kong protest. United States senators, Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio, as well as representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mike Gallagher and Tom Malinowski, signed a letter to Blizzard, requesting the ban be fully reversed. And in Hong Kong, an anonymous group of game developers witnessed the far-reaching impact of his actions and was inspired to make a game about being at the frontline of the protests against the barrage of attacks by the riot police. The result was the protest game, Liberate Hong Kong.
“The initial idea [behind] this game is the incident of Blizzard. Blitzchung Ng just said eight words, [and] it created a large influence over the world,” one member of the team, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from the authorities, told Eurogamer. “We want to replicate this effect to promote the protest in Hong Kong.”
And it worked. Liberate Hong Kong was covered extensively in international media, from the BBC to Bloomberg, which helped draw widespread condemnation for the Hong Kong police’s brutality against protesters.
In light of the protests sparked by the unpopular extradition bill in the country, more games like Liberate Hong Kong have emerged. These are often rudimentary and unpolished, due to many being developed and published within a short time-frame – Liberate Hong Kong, for instance, was made in just two weeks – but they are still powerfully evocative. Liberate Hong Kong takes place at the heart of the protest at Argyle Street, replicating the tense standoff between the protesters and police. You play as an anonymous protester, decked in black clothes, yellow construction helmet, gas mask and a make-shift shield in the form of a stop sign. As you navigate through the barriers to collect canisters of tear gas, police officers shoot rubber pallets and rampage towards you when you get too close. This is exacerbated by the blinding strobe lights shone by the police, which makes it harder to navigate the streets, and is one real-life tactic used to disrupt the protest.