Chinese balloon memes: the gaming community's best

War Thunder takes the cake

By now you’ve probably heard of the infamous Chinese balloon that allegedly spied on the US and was downed by a F-22 Raptor fighter jet as soon as it was safe to do so. As with basically everything in the modern world, the incident spawned a bunch of great memes – naturally, the gaming community also couldn’t resist the urge to make some jokes about the whole thing.

On the Subreddit for StarCraft one user photoshopped an Overseer into a news post about the topic, commenting: "Of course [Chinese president] Xi Jinping is a member of the cabal” – that last part is a reference to a very popular meme about the professional StarCraft 2 esports scene being controlled by the shady Zerg Cabal, which supposedly influences balance updates in its favor to win more tournaments.

Overseers are Zerg units specialized in scouting enemy bases and armies / DeacsOut via Reddit

An Overseer, of course, is a very balloon-like Zerg scout unit, which is able to detect even otherwise invisible troops.

Another good one comes from the Subreddit for the Total War series, where one user posted an in-game screenshot showing the explosion of a Cathayan Sky Lantern from Total War: Warhammer 3, titled: “Cathayan spy balloon shot down”. Grand Cathay is a faction inspired by Chinese history, myth, and folklore, and commands a number of flying war machines based on lanterns typically seen during Chinese festivals.

Sky Lanterns act as scouts and light air support units. Well, this one doesn't anymore / Creative Assembly

The crew jumping down from the exploding vehicle is a nice touch, though of course the balloon shot down in real life was unmanned and fortunately no one got hurt during the incident.

Our winner for best Chinese balloon meme is War Thunder's community, though. The game’s official Twitter account got in on the balloon action on February 5, 2023, posting: “Getting ready for a week of ‘pls add balloon’” in anticipation of users asking for a spy balloon to be added to the Chinese tech tree.

One user then responded: “I have some classified PLA documents on the balloon if you want them”, leaning into the fact that the War Thunder community is already infamous for leaking secret military intel on the game’s forums to win arguments about the title’s balance.

I have some classified PLA documents on the balloon if you want them

— Morganized Criminal Enterprise (@APOAPSlS) February 5, 2023

The developers, who’ve made the news involuntarily a number of times due to these incidents, were quick to refuse the enticing offer with a classic Bugs Bunny meme, which another user followed up with the technical drawing of a balloon from 1925 – not classified, fortunately.