How would I go about playing a .swf file in 2021 with C#? "Shockwave flash object" is not available as a choice for me in Visual Studio 2019. Is there any other way?
The short answer is: No, but there is a possible workaround if you are really obsessed with your intent
The Shockwave flash object (Flash*.ocx) is an Activex Component and was part of Adobe Flash Player Plugin, officially removed from Windows in KB4577586 in 2020. It was not part of Visual Studio itself.
Refer to Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page and Microsoft Announcement: Update on Adobe Flash Player End of Support
The only way to use it is finding a way to manually restore it i.e. installing an old version, as suggested by this detailed article. So you could try to reinstall Flash 32.0.0.371 using this archived version in your current Windows environment but honestly I don't know how the OS will behave. Once installed, you would be able to see "Shockwave flash object" back in components list of any Visual Studio version.