The Worst Military Smells for Sony to Add to its Video Games

Sony Entertainment has a long history of filing patents just to block other companies from using them, which is what some players thought was going on when it patented advertisements where you’d have to yell the brand name in order to end the ad. And sometimes they do super weird patents, seemingly just because they can, like when they patented how to use a banana as a controller.

So most of the world chuckled at Sony’s patent for in-game smells and moved on. But then Sony actually built a big cube and let people play games in it with in-game smell triggers and smells. And Sony really leaned into it, too. They could’ve done a cooking game or something, but no: They did “The Last of Us,” a post-apocalyptic zombie game where inhaling mold spores can turn you into a monster. So, yeah, they created the smell of a world-ending mold and then sprayed it into players’ faces.

But there are some military smells that even Sony might balk at faithfully simulating. Just off the top of my head, I was deployed to southern Kandahar, and there’s a pretty infamous smell from an air base that was there.

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1. The Poo Pond at Kandahar Airfield

Too many soldiers, not enough water and a remote air base abandoned by the Soviets and repurposed by U.S. forces after the post-9/11 invasion led to the creation of a “black water” pool at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan. For troops, one main consequence was a terrible smell that encompassed the entire base. Please, Sony, for the love of the troops, do not take them back there via their noses.

2. The Smell of a Barracks Bay Just Before the Rain

Sure, I was a POG, but even I got the order to work out until it rained. For those who have never had to do this, about 40 trainees start doing exercises until their combined breath and sweat so humidifies the air that it condenses on the ceiling and rains back down upon them. This often takes place after other training, so no one in there is shower-fresh -- and their breath rarely is, either. (Side note while we’re on the topic: Infantry reportedly has to make it rain, using only push-ups. Luckily, I never had to do that.)

3. Diesel and Dookie

This is a scent I luckily never needed to smell. There are plenty of field toilets described in Army field manuals, and one of them calls for basically constructing a porta-potty with a diesel mix. Soldiers then poop right into it, and someone gets assigned to add a little gas to it and then burn and stir the whole mixture. All this is immortalized in “Jarhead.” Just imagine that great smell of poop ash going up your nostrils.

4. Burn Pits

Similarly, no one wants to smell the burning trash of the burn pits. The real ones increased cancer risk and obviously smelled terrible. Just give the player some generic “smoke” smell and call it good.

5. A Field Latrine

The only thing worse than a pile of crap being burned is a pile of crap piled high above the waterline of a porta-potty that isn’t getting burned but vacuumed instead. Honestly, I would pay money to watch civilians experience for the first time the special delight that is “poop truck vacuuming out overloaded porta-potty on a hot summer day.” Really makes you understand why that dude in “Apocalypse Now” liked napalm so much. At least it wasn’t aerosolized human feces.

6. Stench Soup

To be honest, I never smelled this one. Stench soup is literally a chemical weapon from the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, which was previously responsible for the creation of non-lethal weapons. It’s supposedly so pungent that it can break apart rioters. So it would be pretty funny to approximate it in a video-game experience, but it sounds like the kind of thing that might depreciate your PlayStation.

7. Some of My Barracks Roommates

I’m not naming names because I’m not that much of a jerk and because I don’t want to receive a court summons. But like most people in the military, I’ve had some terrible roommates, usually in what was essentially a small studio apartment. My first roommate spent most weekday nights and every weekend drinking at a local strip club until his breath and sweat were flammable. And my last roommate skipped showers for days to make more time for marathon computer sessions.

Please do not put them in your smell arsenal, Sony. And, honestly, can we get some glorification of hygiene in games? It probably would’ve helped me with that last roommate.

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