Culture | Hands up, don’t shoot

Some developers are pushing back against violent video games

Gratuitous bloodshed and the rise of female gamers have contributed to a backlash

A still from the video game Venba shows a young son watching his mother cook.
Brandish your weapon—I mean, spoonImage: YoutTube/PlayStation

A Tamil mother, recently immigrated to Canada, stirs biryani. Her young son looks on, sniffing the delectable aromas. This is a scene in Venba, a recently released video game attracting attention. Through a series of cooking puzzles—in which players learn to prepare ingredients in the correct order or work out the various items missing from recipes—it offers an emotionally intense family saga, serving up topics like immigration and identity, alongside Tamil food.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Hands up, don’t shoot”

From the September 2nd 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Culture

Jellycat Fish & Chips Experience at Selfridges, London

Millennials and Gen Z are falling hard for stuffed animals

Plushies are cute, cuddly and costly

The front page of the new issue of satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo entitled "C'est Reparti" ("Here we go again"), is displayed at a kiosk in Nice February 25, 2015.

Ten years after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, satire is under siege

Public support is waning for the right to offend


Pandemonium. Found in the collection of Louvre, Paris.

Why do rebels and revolutionaries love “Paradise Lost”?

John Milton’s epic poem has galvanised rabble-rousers for centuries


The Colombian powerhouse behind some of streaming’s biggest hits

If you enjoyed “Narcos” or “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, you have Dynamo to thank

What Haruki Murakami’s fans get wrong about him

He is not so much a surrealist as a dogged observer of solitude

The British take their crisps more seriously than any other nation

No other snack bridges the class divide in the same way