The official Pakistani government’s X account posted video game footage alleging to show the shoot-down of an Indian plane.
On Wednesday, Pakistan became the first country in history to shoot down the French-made Rafale fighter jet during a massive dogfight with India. The incident has become a major point of pride for Islamabad, which celebrated its title as the first to shoot down the aircraft in a post from the Government of Pakistan’s X account. It followed earlier boasts with a video montage praising its own military and condemning India.
The video featured a speech from Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, during which he denounced India’s strikes against Pakistan and the wider media narrative around the war. The audio of his speech was imposed over videos showcasing the country’s military prowess, including a pilot gearing up to fly, fighter jets, and other aircraft, before showing a series of news articles about the conflict.
The post said Tarar was praising the “Pakistan Armed Forces for their timely and nerve-wracking response to India’s aggression and cowardly attack and publicly challenged India’s war madness and selfishness.”
What caught users’ eyes, however, was the opening clip in the montage. The clip showed a fighter jet being shot down by anti-aircraft fire, implying that it was footage of the downing of an Indian aircraft.
The issue, quickly picked up by other social media users, was that the footage was in fact from the military simulator video game Arma 3.
The blunder triggered waves of mockery from social media users. One user linked the gaffe to a popular meme bemoaning the delayed release of the Grand Theft Auto VI video game.
“We got the pakistani government sharing Arma 3 video as a proof of its actions against India before GTA VI,” user Casus Beli joked.
The Government of Pakistan admitted fault, but attempted to deflect by saying the narrative surrounding the gaffe was meant to deflect from its very real downing of Indian Rafale jets — a detail confirmed by the U.S.
“The @GovtofPakistan acknowledges that this video was used with audio for reference. However, how can one ignore the reporting by International outlets such as BBC, CNN, Reuters, TRT, Le Monde, as well as Indian media like The Indian Express, The Hindu, and The Wire? The Pakistan Air Force is the first air force to shoot down Rafale fighter jets—and that too, of the Indian Air Force. Period,” a reposted statement from Pakistan’s Ministry of Broadcasting and Information’s Fact Checker read.
Separately, Pakistani and Indian social media users have been duped several times by Arma 3 combat footage, repeatedly passing it off as real over the past few days.
Arma 3’s impressive graphics have caused a deluge of combat footage hoaxes since its release in 2013. In 2023, the Sudanese government posted footage from the video game claiming to show military operations against the rival Rapid Support Forces.
Clips from the video game have been passed off as real footage in conflicts ranging from Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, and especially Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine led to a renaissance of Arma 3 combat footage hoaxes, with the Russian and Ukrainian sides routinely posting footage from the game claiming to show real engagements with the enemy. These were especially prevalent on social media, where clips purporting to show real combat would gain hundreds of thousands of views and likes.
Other video games, such as Digital Combat Simulator: World, have also been used in combat footage hoaxes. Early in the war, footage of video game dogfights was used by social media users to claim the existence of the “Ghost of Kyiv” hoax, a rumored Ukrainian fighter pilot who shot down Russian planes.
Similar footage, possibly identical to the Arma 3 footage posted by Pakistan claiming to show the downing of an Indian jet, was broadcast by Romanian TV in the early days of the war in Ukraine.
While the creators of Arma 3 have expressed flattery in the ability of their game to fool users into believing its genuine war footage, they devote time and effort to debunk such hoaxes and flag their use as misinformation.
“While it’s flattering that Arma 3 simulates modern war conflicts in such a realistic way, we are certainly not pleased that it can be mistaken for real-life combat footage and used as war propaganda,” a representative of Bohemia Interactive, the game’s creator, said in a statement to the South China Morning Post.
“We’ve been trying to fight against such content by flagging these videos to platform providers, but it’s very ineffective. With every video taken down, 10 more are uploaded each day,” they added.
Pakistan’s latest gaffe also isn’t the first time officials from the country have conflated video game footage with actual footage. In July 2019, Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, the secretary general of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek political party, was duped into believing footage from the video game Grand Theft Auto V of an airliner narrowly missing an oil tanker was real.
“Narrow escape of an aircraft which could have ended in a great disaster. Miraculous save by the pilot’s presence of mind,” Gandapur tweeted. He quickly deleted the post after being savaged by users mocking him online.
