1971 in Video Games

The most popular among these games is "Heroes of 71". Released in 2015, the game has been downloaded more than one million times and has an average rating of 4.4. This is the first significant game developed by Portbliss, a young Bangladeshi game development company. Unfortunately, there is no IOS version of the game.

This is a third-person shooting game where you are the main character. You will be placed in a fictional village in Borishal, defending an outpost previously occupied by Pakistani forces. You can switch between characters as you shoot at waves of enemies, dropped off by lorries. It portrays the serene beauty of rural Bangladesh and offers great sound-work, and consequently, it has made quite a stir among the young gamers.

"Heroes of 71: Mukti camp" is a sequel to the original game and offers a revamped gameplay and graphics with modern day co-op play options available.

Going back to the beginning of our liberation war, "War 71: The First Defence" recreates the night of "Operation Searchlight", the first defence put up by the Bangladesh Police in Rajarbagh Police Lines, to be precise. Developed by DigitalB Ltd., this is the first open-world game in Bangladesh and it also has a VR version called "VR War 71". The game consists of 16 levels. You can use handguns, machine guns, steal cars, tanks and use them to kill enemies, and roam the open-world of the game. Although there is not much to explore and do in the open-world environment of this game, it is fun sneaking up behind enemy troops, stealing their cars and running them over. The game has poor aiming and movement controls and lacks good graphics. However, it has been downloaded from the Google Play Store more than 100,000 times, indicating, if paid more attention, it can be a great game.

A great addition to this list is "Adommo Ekattor", a 2D shooter game with beautiful graphics. The game has two modes; campaign and survival. In the campaign mode, you are to shoot down enemies until you liberate your country and in the survival mode, you will try to stay alive for as long as you can while gunning down enemy forces coming at you from both directions. The game has more than 50,000 downloads and a good 4.5 average rating. There are 6 levels available in the campaign mode now, and many more are already in development.

For PC gamers, there are a few games available on CD at affordable prices. "Massive Juddho 71" developed by Massive Star Studio was made with a plan to narrate the entire story of our liberation war in separate episodes.

The first PC game on the liberation war, however, is "Battle of 71" released in 2016. It has a 3D model of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The websites for these games are unavailable but you might be able to get a hold of a CD for BDT 150-200

Bangladesh is new to the gaming scene, but it is off to a promising start. Our passionate young developers have already proved their abilities with minimum resources. With proper funding and attention, our gaming industry can join the big names in no time.