Perhaps my memory is clouded, as it has been a long time since I had played a Call of Duty game, but I believe there was a time when most of it felt anti-war, in that you would die frequently and often, then be shown a quote that was about how there are no winners in war, providing a sharp contrast between the actions you were taking and the grin reality of what was occuring. After I believe Modern Warfare 2, the CEOs of Infinity War stepped down, and since then the quotes stopped being more anti-war, and much more pro-war, highlighting heroism and such in the quotes. I always viewed it as a studio change and just stopped playing after that, feeling the games were just missing the mark and farming more and more of that sweet multiplayer money.

Activision receives preferential access and funding from the DOD. Much like with films and sports presentations, Call of Duty is a PR arm of the military industrial complex.

The upside is I don't see how its improved recruitment numbers.

It’s always been like that https://www.eurogamer.net/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-accused-of-rewriting-history-to-blame-russia-for-controversial-us-attacks

Also there is literally a former CIA exec in the exec suite of Activision.

https://www.activisionblizzard.com/leadership/brian-bulatao

And the Homeland Security Advisor to Dubya was also an exec at Activision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend

How many other game companies have executives with close ties to the military?

I think they were/are getting funding from some US military defense sector, the same one that was funding a lot of pro-american propaganda films. So even without taking the actual campaign/story of COD games into consideration, it's definitely in their interest to make a propaganda game.

I mean, yeah. CoD has always glorified it. Even more so in recent years as they push for multiplayer and the massive payday that came with that. The earlier games often had a "war can be bad too" bits. The Russian bit in CoD1. The nuke. "No Russian". But otherwise it's a Michael Bay movie in game form.

Spec Ops The Line was the only game I can think of that bucked that. Even the publishers had no idea what it was, despite the antagonist literally being called Konrad.

Hello. I am a game developer of 10 years. For about 1.5 years I worked on Squad, from early 2016 to late 2017. I quit for this exact reason.

I thought it would be a game about honoring the act of war not glorifying it. Especially since we had veterans at the studio on the design. Instead, it was a game about making it feel as realistic as possible while still being fun. 51% gameplay, 49% realism was the motto.

Squad doesn't do anything narratively. It just sets two factions on a map and says fight. The mechanics feel great, the sound design is the best it can be, and the vehicles give this strong feeling of weight. It's a great game... that they then took my work, split into another company into a defense contractor, and made a real-life military simulation. Not like Arma but an actual military training tool.

Squad does the same thing, makes you feel okay with fighting and making fun of an opposing force that is just trying to preserve it's own way of life. It's not there narratively but in the community which Squad specifically as a team did nothing at the time to stop the racists and created a pro-war community. In fact, in a lot of ways they cultivated it.

So I have a lot of opinions about this subject, pretty scattered but I will leave you with my greatest accomplishment on Squad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RMnYm_6rNE

The most stark example against this is the original MW2 - in addition to the anti-war quotes everyone loves to talk about every time you die, the main antagonist is literally a US Army General (admittedly he is distanced from the actual Army by the end, using a PMC instead).

The black ops games have some twist that often provoke the the thought of whether the ends justify the means. ::: In Cold War, the main character, Bell, is actually a captured Russian soldier that they have brainwashed to fight for the US as part of an experimental program. When this is revealed, you have the option to betray your "team" and lead them into a Russian trap :::

That being said, I haven't played all of the cod campaigns, especially some of the more "historical" entries. It's more fun to play this type of game when it makes you feel like what you're doing is justified. It's important to remember it's all fiction, but hey, it's not going to be for everyone. If you feel like the game you're playing goes against your morals, no shame in switching it off for something else.

As Reggie from Nintendo once said, "If it isn't fun, why bother."

Would you define this as your "Are we the baddies?" moment?

Certainly we already had this conversation like ten years ago right? Call of duty has never been anything but that, you really can’t make a war game that is both fun and anything but pro war

Yeah. I never played any other CoD games than the WWII ones. CoD 1, 2, the Pacific one (world at war?) and the latest WWII.

When I saw them release the modern warfare one after the invasion of Iraq, I thought it was so distasteful I never bothered to pay any other CoD game because I knew it would be uncomfortable.

Don't they recieve funding from the us armed forces? No shit its pro army propaganda

I installed all 100+ gb on my PS5, played 2 or 3 matches with a friend online, laughed a lot at how gruff-guy, teenage edge-lord it all was, then promptly deleted it in order to see if Destiny 2 was any better. (We're still playing Destiny 2, but have all but given up on ever understanding what the hell we're supposed to do in that game or how to even go about doing it.)

You didn’t play long enough, eventually there are miscellaneous Cuban enemies too.

If you aren’t going to finish the game, I’d recommend at least watching the ending. The “good” ending modifies the typical narrative and the “bad” ending ends up being much more fun.

Did anyone not realize this?

@knokelmaat As someone who used to play call of duty I don't think anyone plays the campaign and thinks its anything more than fantasy.

Duty Calls is the best game in the series

Every movie and game depicting american guns needs clearance from the DOD and is therefore war propaganda. Often that is very obvious. It's the reason I had to stop watching marvel movies. Too much pro military shit

I think at this point, the only way they get media attention is if they do something outlandish like this. The adults get huffy and make posts like this, the kids don't care at all and call them boomers, and all press is good for them. It started with "remember, no russian" and it's the only reason I ever hear about COD anymore.