Riot: Civil Unrest trailer shows pixelated protests

Riot: Civil Unrest was first announced two years ago, and impressed with its uncompromising pixel depictions of protests and civil disobedience. Back then it was simply called Riot, which is why it took some creative searching to dig out this old news post from our archives. Now, a slightly extended name ensures it won't be lost amid references to the famous MOBA developer. More importantly, there's a new trailer to watch.

A real-time strategy, Riot: Civil Unrest lets you play as both the police and the rioters in locations based on real-world countries like Greece, Egypt, Spain and Italy. As the police, you can choose to use various crowd-control tactics—both passive and aggressive. As the rioters, you can incite rage or attempt to calm things down. Given the obvious real-world inspiration, it's a sensitive subject—one that it sounds like Riot is trying to make as open-ended and player-driven as possible.

Riot: Civil Unrest is due out this summer.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.