Unmanned is a browser-based game about a man who is a part of war. He isn’t a hero. He doesn’t get to choose his weapons. He doesn’t get to kill hundreds of men who are obviously enemies. Instead, he flies a Predator drone from a location in Nevada, conducting surveillance on suspected Taliban fighters half a world away.

This is not a game about war, at least not in the sense that Call of Duty or Battlefield are about war.  The protagonist is not deployed overseas, nor is he ever in any real danger.  From a narrative standpoint, this means that there is little tension and nothing to worry about.  From a gameplay standpoint, this means there is little action and even mundane activities such as shaving or taking a smoke break are treated as their own brief minigames.  Tracking the enemy in the short-lived Predator sequences is largely boring and tedious.  When given the order to fire, one of the dialogue options questions the positive identification of the target and the target gets away.

Taking on an enemy from over 7,000 miles away gives us little reason to care about the protagonist orthe war he is engaged in.