I had very little in common with my late father, hobby-wise. He was into guns and bodybuilding, and I was someone who would go on to have a blog about retro computer stuff. We both made attempts to understand each other, and one of my most notable was purchasing the 2000 Raven-developed Soldier of Fortune PC game.
I knew Raven from Heretic and Hexen and Soldier of Fortune from my dad’s magazines that were always strewn about the house. Even moreso than the developer’s pedigree or the brand, the game’s selling point was the gore. The way you could dismember enemies with well-placed shots was both shocking and extremely cool to my teenage brain.
My dad showed a moderate amount of interest in the game, enough to watch over my shoulder while I played, but never enough to try it for himself. I guess the game brought us closer together, but not really in any significant way.
I never played the sequels, but I had been thinking about the game a lot following my father’s passing, and decided to pick it up again.
Revisiting the game in 2025, in the midst of two insane wars that the U.S. has inserted itself into while the president is threatening to send troops to “clean up” American cities is wild, to say the least. This is a game that’s problematic in many ways and diametrically opposed to my personal politics, and yet I still have a soft spot for it. Maybe it’s the Quake II-engine visuals. Maybe it’s the fast paced, satisfying shooting. Maybe it’s the gore.
Or maybe it’s the connection, however minimal, that this game created between my dad and I. Blowing off a polygonal terrorist’s leg isn’t necessarily the most sentimental way to remember my father, but it’s authentic.
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