The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, launched a little more than a year ago —on March 27, 2022— a "war" against gangs, questioned by human rights organizations and international governments for their cruelty.
This government decision inspired a video game, which was officially presented on Friday night during the broadcast of the government's Noticiero El Salvador.
"Territorial Control Plan: Extraction" already had more than 10,000 downloads in its first week of life.
"Be part of history, the war against the evil gangs has begun!" says the game, which invites the participant to "join" the fight against criminal groups.
Juventud Nuevas Ideas, a youth group that supports Bukele, presented the video of the game on its Twitter account accompanied by the message: "This video game makes you the hero of El Salvador! In the Play Store, we can find 'PCT: Extraction', an action game in which you kill criminals and save the population. It's available for Android."
The video game, which can be installed for free on cell phones and was developed by Restless Games Studio, consists of allowing the user to put himself "in the shoes of a seasoned specialist soldier, an elite police (effective) element" and even in the "the very general commander of the armed forces", that is, in Bukele himself.
At the beginning of the game you can see animations of Bukele together with soldiers and military, with assault weapons, and he is facing blows and shots with the gang members.
"The truth is that it does not seem very appropriate to me. What should be done right now is to overcome violence, not encourage it, and the video game in my view encourages it," Néstor Molina, an employee of a network maintenance company and a regular at online games in Spain, told the AFP news agency.
For his part, Ricardo Acevedo, another video game fan, told the same outlet that, although it is a test version, the game "has potential" because it is "entertaining."
So far, neither Bukele nor another member of the Executive have commented on the video game.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has been conducting a serious operation against the gang members in the country, which also drew criticism worldwide.
