Play Warzone 2 or Fortnite WITHOUT committing war crimes

War crimes are the order of the day in CoD Warzone 2, Modern Warfare 2 or Fortnite, did you know that?

It might sound surprising at first, but you’ve probably committed tons of war crimes playing many shooters without even knowing it. This is exactly what a Red Cross challenge is now pointing out, asking players to try it without war crimes – which is not that easy.

Yes, you commit war crimes in games all the time, but can you do without?

At first glance this may seem funny, at second it is disturbing: in many multiplayer shooters it is commonplace to commit war crimes. However, very few players are likely to be aware of which rules they are actually breaking when they play a relaxed round of Fortnite, Warzone or PUBG.

The International Red Cross has therefore launched another challenge to draw attention to the fact that it is currently over 1000 real, active conflict areas are in which primarily the civilian population suffers from hostilities.

Most shooters are set in conflict zones, whether real or fictional. In addition to streamers, all other gamers are now called upon to try out whether they can win a round without violating international martial law (via Kotaku).

These are the rules:

• Do not shoot at injured, defenseless opponentswho are down and unresponsive.
• combat operations are allowed not in schools, hospitals or residential buildings take place (if there is no other way, as little as possible should be destroyed).
• uninvolved civilians must not be attacked.
• If you are able to heal others, you must help them – both friend and foe.

Link to YouTube content

This is the challenge:

In most Team-based game modes you can hardly avoid shooting at opponents who are down. Unless you manage to kill all the other members of the squad before they start resuscitation.

In the vast majority of shooters, combat operations also take place in residential buildings. In Fortnite you can actually raze all civil buildings completely to the ground, what Gameplay-wise it makes perfect sense. Even in games like The Last of Us you fight in a hospital.

It becomes almost impossible when you also try to heal your enemies yourself. This is in most games simply not designed as an option. For better or for worse, the only thing left to you is to completely do without first-aid kits, painkillers and the like.

There’s even one for Fortnite own mode including custom map with appropriate rules. All this is part of the so-called Play by the Rules event, which also takes place on the official Red Cross Twitch channel and with various streamers.

Now it’s your turn as a GamePro community! We are curious what you think about it:

Did you know that these are the rules of warfare? What do you think about constantly committing war crimes in games? Have you ever tried to stick to the rules and if so: how well did it work?