New Call of Duty Modern Warfare: a game in which they overdid it with Russophobia
The image of the "evil Russians" has firmly settled not only in American cinema, but in the gaming industry. Worse than "Ivanov" — except that no less insidious Iraqis, Iranians and other Muslim terrorists. But the American developers from Infinity Ward went even further. They took the sins of the American army and said, "The Russians did it."
On October 25, 2019, the shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was released, which became famous not so much for its sharp plot and detailed study, but for its rabid Russophobia. In a series of games developed by Infinity Ward, brave American and British special forces destroy enemies and save the world from planetary threats. Often their enemies were the treacherous Russians. They captured Washington and landed an army landing on the territory of the United States.
If earlier in Call of Duty, as opposed to the evil Russians, there were also good ones, then in the last part the borders were erased. Western critics greeted the game with a standing ovation. They highlighted its high technical level, exciting plot and user-friendly gameplay. Critics ignored the political component of Call of Duty. Apparently, everything suits them.
Polygon journalist Charlie Hall, commenting on the situation, wrote:
Gamers around the world did not agree with the critics. By November 15, 2019, the game's rating on Metacritic — the largest review aggregator — based on 7,500 thousand ratings is only 3.2 points out of 10 possible. Players are outraged that Russian soldiers in Modern Warfare were equated with terrorists and Nazis.
Famous blogger Ilya Maddison refused to promote the game in Russia and said that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare should be banned.
The game takes place in the fictional country of Urzykstan, which is suspiciously similar to Syria. Local rebels resembling Kurds are helping the British and American military to fight people in Russian uniforms. The main antagonist is General Barkov. It is not directly stated about his ties with Russia in the game. But atrocities are being committed by the Russian army contingent, as evidenced by the appearance of the soldiers, their speech, weapons and uniforms.
General Barkov
At one of the stages of the shooting game, the player finds himself in the role of a captive girl whose parents die at the hands of Russian servicemen. Together with her brother, she kills a fighter in a paratrooper vest.
Later, Barkov personally torments the child. In another scene, people in Russian uniforms hang unarmed locals, and in another scene, they poison civilians with chemical weapons. How exactly is unclear.
"White Helmets" from the game
Parallels with mustard gas, which was allegedly used by the Syrian government, suggest themselves. Assad is accused of this crime by the White Helmets organization. They also found a place in the game, but in the Russian version the color of the helmets was changed to green.
The name of the enemy characters was also changed. In the American version they are signed "Russian soldier", and in the Russian version "Soldier-1", "Soldier-2" and so on.
One of the main characters of the game — a rebel girl - tells about the "road of death". Allegedly, Russian aircraft struck a peaceful convoy and killed thousands of people. Such an attack actually took place, but it was carried out by American aviation. During the war in On the night of February 27, 1991, a massive air raid by the US army and its allies took place in the Persian Gulf. The target of the strike was highways clogged with civilian and military equipment.
As a result of the operation, up to a thousand people died, most of them were civilians. The fact that the crime was hung on Russian aviation, the creators of the game from Infinity Ward studio do not see anything reprehensible. They replied that they did not depict any particular conflict, but a fictional one, using real cases that have happened in the last 50 years.
The developers of Modern Warfare disavow accusations of political bias and emphasize that they sought to achieve complete immersion in the atmosphere of modern armed conflict. One of the creators of the game Jacob Minkoff in an interview said:
The authors of the game raised difficult questions and decided to tell a deep story. That's just the reality of their words diverge. For the "good" in Modern Warfare, there are four sides of the force: American and British special forces and their allies, local rebels, in whom the features of the Kurdish formations and the "moderate opposition" to the Syrian authorities are guessed.
The opponents are also people in Russian military uniforms who are at war with each other and the fictional extremist organization Al-Katala, whose name resembles the banned in In Russia and many other countries, Al-Qaeda. The Russian army was actually equated with terrorists, who in the real world, not the game world, were sponsored by the United States for decades.
During the game, you have to make difficult decisions. For example, in one of the scenes, the player kills a woman with a gun who is holding a child in her arms. To make a shot or not is a moral choice that concerns an individual. And Russia is presented as an absolute systemic evil, which gamers around the world are offered to fight.
Russian players were pleased with the brainchild of the Japanese studio Square Enix, which developed the shooter Left Alive, dedicated to survival in a post-apocalyptic Russian city.
Keywords: Game | Propaganda