Supporters of the Islamic State have modified another popular video game to depict life as an ISIS fighter in a bid to recruit more people into their ranks.
According to the Daily Mail, the game ARMA III was heavily modified by the extremist group's supporters to allow players to role play as their members. In this modification, players target soldiers from the Syrian government as well as characters that are modelled after the Kurdistan Peshmerga, the Iraqi Army and Westerners.
Vocativ said that pro-ISIS programmers have hijacked an anti-ISIS modification that allowed players to play against bots that are modelled after the Islamic State's combat personnel.
The Islamic State's modifications made significant changes to the game's landscape, the Daily Mail reported. For instance, players can hear Islamist slogans and chants whenever a target is successfully killed or destroyed. The chants can also be heard when another player belonging to the game's Islamic State is killed.
A Youtube video uploaded in September to promote the game showed the Islamic State's black flag featuring prominently in fixtures like lorries and flagpoles. The video also featured pro-Jihadist music prominently in the background for its entire duration.
Egyptian officials told Forbes that the video is to "raise the morale of the Mujahideen, and the training of children and young teenagers to fight the West, and throw terror into the hearts of opponents of the state."
The modification is not an official release from Bohemia Interactive, the developers of ARMA III.
This is ISIS's latest attempt in capitalising on video games to recruit young people. Islamic State programmers have previously modified popular games like Grand Theft Auto 5 in a bid to recruit and "radicalise the vulnerable."
The Islamic State has also produced propaganda videos based on another popular shooter game, the Call of Duty franchise. Using a variety of techniques like high-definition helmet cameras, freeze frame footage and audio editing, ISIS have created videos that imitate footage from the popular game series.
