Gaming company responds to video of the war in Iran going viral; says: Yes, this looks like ...

European gaming company Gaijin Entertainment has responded to a video circulating online that was falsely represented to be from the current conflict between Iran, and the US and Israel.

The footage was widely shared on social media platforms as real combat footage. However, the developer has confirmed that the clip appears to come from its military simulation game War Thunder.“Yes, this looks like ‘War Thunder’ footage,” Konstantin Govorun, the Hungarian company’s head of public relations, said in an email to Agence France-Presse. The video, which has gained millions of views on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and other apps, claims to show a US warship shooting down an Iranian fighter jet.

In the clip, a damaged American ship fires at a nearby aircraft before the jet is hit and crashes near the vessel.However, an investigation by AFP found that the footage appears to originate from the game and depicts the USS Tennessee (BB-43), a battleship built in the early 20th century and later decommissioned, alongside a Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a Komet aircraft used during the Second World War.

Multiple ‘fake’ videos from War Thunder and other games circulated during Middle East conflict

A BBC report claimed that another widely shared video also does not show a real combat encounter but is instead part of War Thunder’s gameplay.

The clip, which has circulated across social media platforms including Instagram, was shared with claims that it shows a US fighter jet evading Iranian missiles during the ongoing conflict. The Instagram post alone has reportedly been viewed nearly 80 million times, with many users treating the footage as real.The publication used a reverse image search to identify the video's source. The reverse image search results indicated a YouTube video featuring gameplay from a military simulation.

This indicates that the video going viral was not from an actual incident but a video game.The report also noted that Gaijin Entertainment has confirmed that the video was from the War Thunder video game. The developer also indicated that other videos that have been going viral, featuring scenes from the US-Israel-Iran conflict, are also from the video game.The company added that it does not support the use of gameplay footage to spread misinformation.

However, the developers noted that they have limited ability to prevent such content from being reused once it is shared online.According to the report, the situation highlights how realistic visuals in modern video games can sometimes be misinterpreted or repurposed, leading to confusion about real-world events.Apart from War Thunder, footage from other video games has also been circulated online and presented as real conflict imagery. Last year, as tensions rose in the Middle East, clips from both Arma 3 and War Thunder were shared as propaganda. In some cases, the Israeli military stepped in to clarify that “the footage is fake.”Arma 3’s realistic graphics have made it a popular victim of this kind of misuse. In fact, the game’s developers at Bohemia Interactive admitted the issue in 2023: “It’s disheartening for us to see the game we all love being used in this way.”