Sure.

Maybe I'm just a chicken, but I would stay away from actual historic events, or at least from actual historic evens within a few generations of living memory. There's just too much potential for doing it wrong or evoking unintended reaction. The same stories can be told in other settings without such risk. After all, the human condition is the human condition regardless of century, religion, or race.

This is the joy of science fiction: you can tell a story about the people of today by telling a story about the people of tomorrow. You have the added advantage of making your story a warning that it has happened before, and it could happen again.

Maybe I'm just a chicken, but I would stay away from actual historic events, or at least from actual historic evens within a few generations of living memory.

Eh, I'm not so opposed to the idea. After all, we have many films tackling these issues in many ways, fictional and non-fictional. But it requires extreme care to treat the material properly and present things in the right way. Even then, those things are not free of controversy and one must be ready for that if this path is to be explored.

Narrative-based story-focused games are in fashion right now, so you're in luck. However, most of these games... well... suck. There are certainly some notable games that stand out for not sucking, but it's a very hard thing to do well. When you set out to make the story the main focus and the gameplay only secondary, your story and characters better be damn good and exceptionally well written. Besides just being poorly written, one mistake this type of game often makes is being too heavy-handed. You can't cram empathy down people's throats. For this reason, your example of Auschwitz makes me cringe. It sounds far too easy to make this too heavy-handed. Tackling current events problems sounds more promising to me, but you better be very, very familiar with the issue from all sides to pull it off, or else you risk just making a propaganda piece.

Also, I agree with Freefly that i would not make this a 1st person game. Maybe make 1st person an option? Everyone has different opinions, but for me making it first person would do the exact opposite of what you want. games in 1st person further remove me from them, make me feel less connection because I can't see my character, it's like I'm a floating observer. Think about it, movies are all about creating a connection between the character and the audience. A movie that fails to do that is a failure no matter what else it does well. Yet how many movies have been made in 1st person view?

Because your games are historical pieces based mainly around story you would have to be very careful to get all the historical details right. Much more so than if your game was more fictional or more focused on game play so people could more easily ignore inaccuracies. So you are open to a lot of criticism there too if you get it wrong.

In conclusion, your idea is not a bad one, and even follows a certain current fad for games that are very light on gameplay and instead story-focused. But there are a lot of things you have to be careful of, and it can be hard to get right. However, if you do get it right, it could be a great experience.

Maybe I'm just a chicken, but I would stay away from actual historic events, or at least from actual historic evens within a few generations of living memory.

Eh, I'm not so opposed to the idea. After all, we have many films tackling these issues in many ways, fictional and non-fictional. But it requires extreme care to treat the material properly and present things in the right way. Even then, those things are not free of controversy and one must be ready for that if this path is to be explored.

The problem is the name of the medium. It's called video gaming. The term 'game' inherently implies that it will automatically not be something meant to be 'serious', but it's just a 'game'. I myself don't believe that, and many people here probably don't agree, but there's a lot of others who've never touched games who would believe that and therefore find the notion of a game based in history inherently 'disrespectful'.

If we call it 'interactive story-telling' or 'interactive story', for example, the perception changes. You're telling a story that is 'interactive' not a 'game'.

Just my 2 cents though.

The idea has merit, but it's really perception of the medium that can bring it down. Something to be careful of, especially with how you market it and present it.