Developed by the studio that started it all, Infinity Ward delivers an epic reimagining of the iconic Modern Warfare series from the ground up. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare engulfs fans in an incredibly raw, gritty, provocative narrative that brings unrivaled intensity and shines a light on the changing nature of modern war. That the mighty war machine does, on occasion, make mistakes and that Middle Eastern lives are lost as a result.The stakes have never been higher as players take on the role of lethal Tier One operators in a heart-racing saga that will affect the global balance of power. However, it's also Call of Duty explicitly admitting that maybe, just maybe, US military intervention in the Middle East doesn't always make things better.
The elite troops on the ground are furious at this, so it's easy to read it as mere "soldiers are wise, bureaucrats get in the way" libertarianism. Towards the end, despite decades of working as "US assets" in the Middle East, US Military Brass declares the insurgents a terrorist organisation, abandoning them to their fate. Led by Farah, the girl from the home-raid flashback sequence now grown into a fearsome freedom fighter, they're the force the game wants us to cheer. More telling is the treatment of the Urzikstan insurgents, a clear analogue for the real-life Kurds. General Barkov, the big baddie, is a "stain on my country", Nikolai explains. Eventually a "good" Russian, Nikolai, emerges to help balance the ledger (he doesn't, but at least they tried). "Realism" only extends so far.īut to counter all the "oorahs!" there's also a creeping sense of self-awareness. Similarly, during a cutscene between missions, a real-life American war crime known as "The Highway of Death" is casually passed off as a Russian one. To hammer the point further, it's contrasted with an SAS raid on a terrorist home in which a British hero, Captain Price, pointedly tells a soldier to look after a child found inside. It's a monstrous depiction, creepier than anything to emerge from the Cold War the scene plays out like Alien or Resident Evil. During a flashback you control a young girl as a barbaric Russian commando raids your family home, stalking you room to room. The Russians are unquestionably the baddies sadistic villains committing countless atrocities during their occupation of Urzikstan. Politically, Modern Warfare is extremely convenient to our epoch. The takeaway being that good guys do bad things, but bad guys do worse things.īut this doesn't quite cover it either. This is still a world where guns solve every problem and the good guys need to "get their hands dirty" a line uttered right after information is extracted from a captive terrorist by threatening to shoot his family.
Is it still jingoistic militarism? Yes, and no. This is a game that depicts, from a first-person perspective: suicide bombings, lifeless bodies buried beneath the rubble of a collapsed building, dead children, and torture.īut why? What's the underlying point of depicting the horror not just the sanitised heroism? Well, Modern Warfare seems conflicted. Gone are the bombastic setpieces - the motorbike chases and the exploding space stations - replaced by the jade hue of night-vision raids on terrorist compounds and interactive being-waterboarded minigames.Įvery time you start up the campaign it asks you to accept a mature content warning. Modern Warfare is still US-centric and jingoistic, but it isn't uncritical. In a scene set in Piccadilly Circus a mother grasps a child to her waist as a terrorist walks towards her and detonates his explosive vest in another, a child weeps over the body of a woman you've just shot in self-defence. They're everywhere, standing in the way and innocently dirtying-up clean shots, or ratcheting the tension as potential threats on the dusty streets of fictional Urzikstan a place where "the bad guys look like the good guys," as a soldier casually remarks. I've never had less "fun" with a CoD campaign.Īn about-face on a decade of neglecting the human cost of conflict (or doing it so ham-fistedly it spawns memes like "Press 'F' to pay respects"), Modern Warfare is extremely enthusiastic about shoving civilians down your scopes. It's ugly, gruesome, occasionally horrific, and quite often unpleasant to play.
The recently released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare features a story mode that is uncomfortable. This time around, though, there's a new element to the "realism" claim.