This Iran war video game was designed to be unbeatable
Plus: This Iran war video game was designed to be unbeatable
Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a pixel-art-style role playing game by an anonymous group of public art activists that turns President Donald Trump’s war in Iran into an unwinnable arcade game that satirizes his presidency.
Physical, playable arcade cabinets loaded with the game went up this week on the National Mall at the DC War Memorial, and it’s by the anonymous group Secret Handshake who’s also behind other recent public protest art installations in Washington, D.C. Their work is aimed at skewering and parodying Trump, but their latest installation isn’t limited to D.C. tourists and locals, as the game is also available to play online.
Trump is the only playable character in Operation Epic Furious, which features three levels and tasks like burning Epstein Files and finding oil in Iran. But good luck beating it because the game’s makers say you can’t win.
“Much like most American conflicts in the Middle East, it is impossible to win,” a representative from Secret Handshake tells me. “But you can lose by trying to hold Melania’s hand,” since asking to hold first lady Melania Trump’s hand in the game triggers game over.
A plaque at the in-person installation says that the Trump administration knows that the best way to sell combat “is by making it a video game.” It’s a reference to social media content put out by Trump’s administration mixing actual war footage with scenes from video games and movies. The game uses Trump’s communications strategy against him.
Like Secret Handshake’s own “A Throne Fit for a King” installation poking fun at Trump’s gaudy D.C. remodeling projects or California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Trump parody schtick before it got old, the best satire for someone like Trump is simply holding up a mirror. Since Trump tries selling his unpopular war like a video game, the medium is a fitting platform for protest.
The group tells me they worked on the game “non stop for three weeks” and it features battle scenes plus cameos from top administration officials like Vice President J.D. Vance, while Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a centaur who asks Trump to go away with him to start a new life. There’s other Easter Eggs embedded throughout that will delight your most MS NOW-watching uncle, including past statues of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein on the White House grounds that Secret Handshake previously put up in D.C.
Designers have turned to video games as a form of playable protest or activism before. Just last month, one designer released Tax Evaders to make a point about the Trump administration cutting funding for priorities like healthcare, education, housing, and food. The intent was there, but the execution — a Space Invaders-style shooter — was stale. We’ve seen this game before.
Operation Epic Furious raises the bar for what a playable political game can look like. Rich, pixilated graphics and nostalgic RPG game play are matched by creative, satirical storytelling that anyone who watches Saturday Night Live can more or less follow.
Trump may treat war like a game, but it’s one the American people don’t want to play. Recent polling has found large, growing majorities of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran war and don’t believe he has clearly explained why we’re in it. By making an actual arcade game out of the experience, the team behind Operation Epic Furious is showing how misguided Trump’s attempts to sell the war really are.
Ralph Lauren designed this year’s flag stamp
The American designer known for turning the U.S. flag into a sweater is now turning that sweater into a stamp, and it’s at the very heart of a first-of-its-kind collection.
The U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that a photo of a 13-star knit flag designed by Ralph Lauren that says “1776 - 2026,” “USA Forever,” and “American Icons” will be 2026’s U.S. Flag mail use stamp. The designer also curated a whole sheet of stamps called American Icons coming out next month that celebrates Americana.
The 13-stamp sheet features photos that Lauren, 86, curated himself from his eponymous label’s archives and images that inspire him. It’s the first time in history the USPS has invited an individual to curate a complete official stamp issuance, according to the Postal Service.
The knit flag stamp in the center of the sheet, and other stamps in the collection show things like a baseball glove used by Jackie Robinson, wild horses, a cheeseburger, and a pickup truck. American flags abound, including one on an RL flag sweater worn by a teddy bear and others that flutter in the foreground of the Empire State Building, where Lauren once sold neckties from out of a single drawer. One stamp shows a pattern from a Diné blanket woven by Naomi Glasses, a Navajo weaver the label first hired to design a collection in 2023.
The designs of the stamps were selected to reflect the fabric of the nation and represent “freedom, independence, equality, opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness,” per USPS.
If any designer should curate a first-of-its-kind issuance about the flag, it’s Lauren. “His remarkable visual archive beautifully captures the aspirational spirit and shared values that have united Americans since before our nation’s founding,” USPS vice president of marketing Sheila Holman said in a statement.
Lauren designed the first flag sweater as an homage to American folk art, samplers, and patchwork quilts, and it debuted in his Fall 1989 collection on model Isabelle Townsend. He famously wore one of the sweaters himself at his label’s Spring/Summer 2002 show just 10 days after the 9/11 attacks, and before that, he donated $10 million through Polo Ralph Lauren to preserve the Star-Spangled Banner, the 1813 flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Francis Scott Key to write that words that would become the lyrics to the National Anthem. This is a man whose brand bleeds red, white, and blue.
“I love America,” Lauren said in a statement.
Lauren’s clothes have been worn by first ladies of both parties, he’s outfitted Team USA Olympians, and in 2025, then-President Joe Biden awarded him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, making him the first fashion designer to receive the honor. His stamp sheet is another first, and by making his famous sweater a stamp, Lauren’s turned a fashion icon into a functional piece of government-issued art.
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