There’s a whole bunch of customization of the soldier’s gender, race, and weaponry, and finally the game opens in a first-person shooter with a caravan of fifteen other avatars, their usernames listed along the periphery: cuddlybear125, jkillaz, infestation_g02, and my own son, FunkyMan15.

“Hostile forces have taken over the city,” a Sergeant yells as the truck bumps along the streets. “We’ll be entering the outskirts of Ankara. Your job: clean this mess up!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” my son says into his headphones.

“Soldiers, keep yourselves safe. The player with the most kills earns 5K valor points!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” my son yells from the safety of our living room. There’s the squeal of the truck’s brakes and a loud groan as the hatch opens, letting in the white glare of daylight. Then my son rises with the other soldiers and runs toward the staccato of gunfire.

There’s no time to prepare for war. One moment I’m sitting with my son, wondering how long before action begins, and the next, he’s in the midst of a simulated firefight on the streets of Ankara. A jeep carrying four masked insurgents screeches to a halt in front of us. There’s the whiz of bullets and shattering glass, and then our screen is splattered with blood and my son’s heartbeat thumps through the speakers. You’ve been hit, a female voice says. Eli unclips a grenade and tosses it, the explosion knocking him to the ground. When he rises, the jeep is burning and three of the men are on fire. Eli lowers the reticle onto a wounded terrorist’s face and keeps the button pushed until the man’s head blossoms into red spray. The screen splatters with more blood. You’ve been hit, the woman says again.

“Who’s shooting you?” I yell.

“I don’t know!”

You’ve been hit, the woman’s voice repeats.

My son swivels. In the protective archway of a nearby building, a terrorist squeezes off a short burst, and my son’s avatar jerks violently.

“Throw another grenade!”

“I can’t, my arm’s useless!”

Then it’s all over. From the aerial view, we watch as the terrorist blasts my son’s avatar apart, his body shaking from the shots.

A pop-up menu appears. Thank you for your service. Want to fight again?

“Whoa, that’s a hard game,” Eli says. He takes off his headset and extends the controller to me. “Want to try?”

I figure I’ll have time to practice, but when I take the controls, a message pops onto the screen. New convoy launching in 20 seconds. Join?

“Say yes,” Eli says, so I push the Start button but it just brings up the home screen with options to watch Netflix.

“Dad, press X2.”

12 seconds to launch.

“Which one’s X2?”

Nine seconds.

“The purple square on the side.”

Six.

“Which side?”

“Dad! Left side!”

Four.