Amidst the polished façades of architectural demos and tourist-targeted city ads showcasing perfection, violence is cast as a disruptive force—a blemish on the ideal. But isn’t violence inherently organic? Cities are built on historical struggles, protests erupt, personal conflicts simmer, and even fireworks evoke the explosive sound of gunpowder.

Singapore, like many urban cities, projects an image of safety and order through sleek architecture and tightly controlled narratives. Private developments promise secure environments, reinforcing the fantasy of a sanitized, utopian existence. Yet beneath this polished veneer lies an undercurrent of concealed violence—historical, structural, and ongoing.

What appears orderly and harmonious is often the result of conflicts carefully managed, marketed, and masked—rendered invisible but never truly absent. Through the lens of video game violence, these suppressed societal tensions surface, exposing the unseen forces shaping our lived reality.