In a flashback to her childhood, we watch through her eyes as her town suffers a chemical-weapons attack, forcing her family to flee. While Karim lives in the fictional country of Urzikstan, she evokes the all–female Kurdish Women’s Protection Units active in northern Syria. In a step forward for the male-dominated world of first-person shooters, one of the story’s protagonists, Farah Karim, is the female leader of a group of fighters seeking to protect their homeland. freedom fighter, the gray area in which modern Special Forces operate and the idea of national sovereignty. 25 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, the story takes center stage, tackling heady themes like the question of terrorist vs. They’re more like action movies: characters inexplicably survive sniper attacks, airplane crashes and even entire buildings falling on top of them.īut in Modern Warfare, out Oct. The games have rarely asked players to think too hard about the ramifications of never-ending global warfare. Call of Duty has been among the world’s best–selling video games since the original title, set in World War II, came out in 2003 it’s now a multibillion-dollar franchise. “They want a war story that represents their experience living in a world that has been at war their entire lives.”Īctivision has plenty riding on whether Minkoff is right. “No one who is 18 these days believes that war is easily won,” says Jacob Minkoff, who led the story design at studio Infinity Ward. Modern Warfare’s creators are betting that adult gamers are ready for a more mature take. Will players who look to video games for escapism want to grapple with the moral and ethical quandaries posed by real conflict? Or will they prefer to stick with cartoonish shooters like Fortnite and Overwatch, which ask only that players sit back and have a good time lobbing digital rockets and grenades at one another? It’s a major departure for the franchise and, for publisher Activision and developer Infinity Ward, a big risk too.
When the game’s millions of fans fire up this version, they’re going to find something very different from past games: a single-player campaign that’s a gripping and emotionally difficult depiction of life on the front lines of the global war on terrorism. This is a scenario in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the latest installment in one of video gaming’s most successful franchises. When you pause for a moment, she lunges for a gun. Upstairs, you open the last door to find a woman who begs you not to shoot. There are children here too, scattering in the crossfire. Your team breaks down the door and moves from room to room, killing anybody who poses a threat. Intelligence reports suggest there’s a cell of assailants inside who carried out an attack against the city.
It’s nighttime in London, and you’re with a group of counter-terrorism agents advancing on a house.