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I think we’re all on our own. It’ll be fine. Sergeant Garrick is on edge. An attack is brewing at Piccadilly Circus.
An in-depth analysis of Modern Warfare 2019, exploring its realism, gameplay innovations, and emotional impact on players.
Key Takeaways
- Modern Warfare 2019 prioritizes realism and emotional weight over spectacle.
- The gameplay is slower, more tactical, and demands careful decision-making.
- The campaign’s intensity and moral ambiguity set it apart from typical FPS games.
- The game’s technical improvements greatly enhance immersion and player experience.
- Playing on higher difficulties is recommended to fully appreciate the game’s tension.
What the video covers
- Modern Warfare 2019 returns to the dark, realistic roots of Call of Duty 4, emphasizing tension and moral complexity.
- The game features slower, more tactical gameplay with new mechanics like leaning and stabilizing weapons.
- It de-escalates spectacle, focusing on intimate, intense combat scenarios rather than large-scale destruction.
- The campaign challenges players with high-pressure decisions, emphasizing the gravity of war and the consequences of violence.
- The training ground dynamically recommends difficulty based on player performance, enhancing immersion.
- Modern Warfare 2019’s sound design, animations, and controls are highly polished, contributing to a weighty gameplay feel.
- The reboot contrasts with previous entries by portraying war as disturbing and chilling rather than entertaining.
- Iconic missions like the AC-130 highlight the disconnect and surreal nature of modern warfare.
- The video discusses the evolution of the franchise's narrative and gameplay, including controversial and emotional moments.
- The analysis praises the game’s ability to evoke strong emotions and recommends playing on the highest difficulty for full impact.
Chapters
- 00:00Piccadilly Circus Attack and Realism in Modern Warfare
- 06:49Training Ground and Dynamic Difficulty System
- 13:10Nuclear Threat Escape and Mission Intensity
- 20:39Historical Authenticity and Cinematic Sequences
- 27:26Marketing Strategy and Controversies
- 34:42Betrayal Scene and Story Revelations
- 42:07Environmental Realism and Level Design
- 48:04Multiplayer Details and Gameplay Innovations
- 54:28White Phosphorus Scene and Moral Complexity
- 69:45Gameplay Pathing and Player Guidance
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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Right in the heart of London. When a white vehicle appears, it matches the description.
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His heart rate accelerates. The team intervenes, trying to control the situation. Left, go left.
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The capital's streets are crowded, gridlocked. Suddenly, someone gets out of a car. The truck opens, several men get out.
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In a split second, the situation escalates. Powerless, we watch the truck explode. We take the men down before they have time to hurt us. The 2019 Modern Warfare reboot decides to return to what gave Call of Duty 4 its edge. Its
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darkness, its raw realism, its sense of discomfort. While Call of Duty has gradually become a franchise that makes violence fun, this installment decides to remind us how terrifying it can actually be. As we try to control the situation, there is total chaos.
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Enemies can appear from anywhere. Londoners are running in every direction. Regularly, we come inches away from shooting a civilian. On one hand, you must think before pulling the trigger, but on the other, making a split-second decision is often a matter
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of life or death. Here, there is no room for error. We must act quickly and we must know how to do what is necessary. Every second spent waiting behind cover, every corner not checked, every attacker not taken down fast
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enough means one more victim. Even I, who am used to horror games, wasn't prepared for the pressure this scene would place on my shoulders. Rarely has a video game level put me under this much tension. When we finally find
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Captain Price and he guides us into a department store, upstairs, we have to make one last difficult decision.
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I need you, Sergeant. Help me, I'm not with them. Several hostages are tied around a man wearing a bomb.
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You can help her. There isn't enough time left to disarm it. I can't do it. No more time. Help me, please. No. Modern Warfare 2019 is one of the most disturbing games I know. It is a game that treats war with the
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necessary gravity, and it is probably one of the most fascinating AAA games of the last decade. The teams completely overhauled the game engine to offer a much more modern and polished experience. Modern is beautiful, certainly, but it is also
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and above all a game that has real weight in its controls. The animations are complex and detailed. The sound design is mind-blowing and the gameplay, much slower and much more tactical, offers many new features, notably leaning against a surface to stabilize.
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But it is also and above all a game that has decided to drastically de-escalate its spectacle. Unlike the original episodes which regularly featured explosions of historic buildings and pushed the scale of their conflict as far as possible, this
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reboot aims to be much more grounded. Most of the time, we advance slowly in the dark. We are careful not to be caught by surprise, and yet the emotions are ten times stronger than in a game like Ghost. Modern Warfare 2019
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understood that sometimes smaller, more intimate is more impactful. In a game where every bullet counts, a game with 10 times fewer enemies but 10 times more tension, every gunshot has 100 times more impact. During this scene in total darkness equipped only with a
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flashlight, the experience tends to resemble a horror game. And here, behind a sniper scope in the unbearable wait for an enemy assault that only keeps delaying.
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Don't take your eyes off it, I am glued to my screen. Something scared them. No amount of burning buildings or collapsing towers could make me hold my breath to this extent.
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Alex, we can't see anything here. Wait, I have movement at mid-range. 11 o'clock, where? Negative, it's just the wind. Don't fire.
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Everything happens in our heads for an uncomfortably long time. We need you, Captain, one more word and I'll send you out there. The lights.
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Permission to engage. Engage what? Nothing. It is probably one of the most interesting moments in the entire franchise.
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If some people were disappointed by this campaign, finding it too boring, too contemplative, or would have preferred to see hundreds of tanks crumble over the ruins of I don't know which capital, it is, on the contrary, in my opinion, one of the most intense
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games I have played in my life. It is also the only Infinity Ward episode that I recommend playing on the highest possible difficulty. While usually the visual spectacle is at the center of the experience and the challenge is
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just a barrier preventing us from contemplating it, here the act of gripping our controller, of being terrified at the idea of poking our head around a corner, is an integral part of the experience. Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare starts with one of its
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best ideas: a training ground. Here, we are tasked with taking down a dozen targets as quickly and accurately as possible. Based on our final score, the game will suggest a difficulty mode it thinks is suited to our skills. The
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faster you complete the training course, the more the game assumes you are skilled, and the higher the difficulty it will recommend. The paradox is that this course doesn't really test how well I play, or how capable I would be
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at adapting to a real combat situation. It only tests how well I am able to memorize these steps. Like a stage play, it asks how well I am able to position myself perfectly on my mark and play my role. Yet, I have always
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loved this idea. I find it extremely relevant and much smarter than asking me the tiresome question of easy, normal, or hard before I’ve even had time to test the controls. It is also an excellent introduction to the gameplay of Call of Duty. As I loop
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this race against the clock to beat my best score because I’m a huge try-hard, I can fully appreciate the game's ultra-enjoyable playability.
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Modern Warfare is fast. You could even say it's an arcade game. The weapons are extremely natural to handle. The game feel is absolutely impeccable and will forever mark a turning point for console FPS. Everything is fluid, instinctive, and fun with a controller
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in hand. That is perhaps why the game's first mission is so surprising. Here, we are tasked with participating in a special operation. Hidden by the storm, our team boards a cargo ship discreetly. Equipped with silencers, we have only
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one order: crew is expendable. Thematically, this mission marks a turning point for the Call of Duty franchise. While previous games had us playing soldiers participating in the greatest battles of World War II to liberate Europe, here we play as
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British special forces on a surgical strike. Our first targets are armed, attacked by surprise. The next one is drunk. Finished.
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The ones after are gunned down in their sleep. It is a surgical strike, cold and methodical. We are not fighting these men; we are executing them. We’ve forgotten it over time, but upon its release, Call of Duty 4 was perceived
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as a disturbing, violent, and sometimes even chilling game. And if today the game's entire solo campaign seems classic and conventional to us, it is also because it was Call of Duty 4 that normalized many of these elements. A
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very striking example of its intentions is the famous AC-130 mission. Here, perched in a plane at the controls of high-powered weapons and viewing through thermal vision, we are completely disconnected from the battlefield. Our enemies are nothing more than white dots on a black and
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gray screen. They fall by the dozen. We fly so high that the sound of the explosions can barely reach us. A silence hangs over the battle. Lulled by the hum of the jets, the disembodied, jaded, and sometimes even amused
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voices of our allies point out our targets, and the final result borders on the surreal. Wow.
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Nice shot. There are pieces everywhere down there. From here, it's easy to forget that with a simple press of a button, three men have just lost their lives. In fact, it is in this mission that we encounter two of the only civilians in
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the game in a...
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For the rest, Modern Warfare presents depopulated battlefields. It seems that every fight in the game takes place in a deserted area. Anyone who is not explicitly an ally is an enemy. While the AC130 mission begins with a clear
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order not to destroy the church in the center of the village, all other buildings—water towers, apartment buildings, housing projects—are perfectly acceptable targets. Many critics at the time of the game's release highlighted the almost horrific aspect of this mission. The
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dehumanizing coldness of a drone strike . Clearance to engage enemy personnel. Understood? Target moving.
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In 2007, it was a particularly debated subject in the United States. The country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, and American drone strikes were regularly in the news. Did you know that the U.S. military uses
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Xbox 360 controllers to operate its drones? Sitting in front of your TV, a controller in your hands? This mission is ironically the most realistic in the entire franchise. The disconnection between you and your targets is deliberately meant to shock you. And
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that is an aspect that completely went over my head during my adolescence. To me, this mission was absolutely not shocking at all. On the contrary, it was original, it offered variety, it was fun. That is the entire paradox of
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Modern Warfare. The game's gameplay is ultra-dynamic. Modern Warfare is not a realistic, slow, or methodical franchise. These are games designed to be fast, intense, and raw. If you have never played a Call of Duty or its solo campaign, it is highly likely that this
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is the image you have of the games. An ultra-aggressive multiplayer mode based on speed and reflexes. Call of Duty is mechanically a fun game and could probably be a mindless stress-reliever in a different context. If we were facing aliens or demons, it's a safe
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bet that the Modern Warfare solo campaign would fully exploit its gameplay by indulging in cathartic shootouts. That is, in fact, the gamble Respawn would take, founded by former Infinity Ward staff with the exceptional Titanfall 2 in 2016, applying Call of Duty gameplay to a
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much more fantastical setting and offering a solo campaign that would leave its mark on the few minds that experienced it. But Call of Duty 4 doesn't want to be fun. Call of Duty 4 wants to address modern conflicts and
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politics. Call of Duty 4 wants to be serious. As we arrive by helicopter, setting this anonymous city ablaze in an explosive turret sequence, Modern Warfare is at its most epic. We jump from the chopper, gun down dozens of
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enemies, and take off while the game's soundtrack hits us with a heavy guitar solo as we narrowly escape a nuclear threat. But as we try to leave the area , our characters decide to turn back to save the pilot of a Cobra downed in
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combat. This heroic act will cost the entire team their lives. Hold on tight. Surprisingly, our character survives the explosion. We have time to crawl out of the helicopter wreckage, to stand up just long enough to observe the damage from the blast over a
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playground where faint laughter echoes. A mushroom cloud rises into the sky. It's a nightmarish vision that terrified the America of the 2000s, but which the game, almost out of morbid curiosity, takes care to set in a fictional Middle Eastern country. The
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rest of Modern Warfare consists of preventing the same thing from happening in the United States. For a brief moment between two gameplay phases and immediately after its guitar solo, Modern Warfare shows us just how awful war is. And then, without
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transition, it shows us just how fun war can be when you're the one holding the detonator. It's a strange dilemma that Modern Warfare threw itself into.
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That of an action game, by definition pleasant and exciting, which attempts to tell a dark and anything-but-fun story of contemporary warfare. And that is what makes Call of Duty so fascinating in my eyes. The games show us the horror of war with just enough
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distance for it to be galvanizing. And despite that, or perhaps even because of it, this solo campaign will leave a mark on the world of video games like few games have done before it. It will establish a new genre of big-budget
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gaming. The linear, scripted Hollywood blockbuster and its impact can still be felt today. While some missions may seem a bit more open than others, it is only a facade.
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Here, you can freely explore the area with about a dozen houses to search, eventually finding your target in this barn at the very end. But there is one detail I find very interesting. If you head to this final point too early,
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before attacking the specific houses the game asks you to, in the precise order it imposes, the barn will be completely empty. Our target will be hidden in another building. Modern Warfare manipulates reality and teleports the enemy elsewhere so the
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mission keeps its cinematic pacing. Boss, it's his phone. The game has always been heavily criticized by detractors for a campaign described as a scripted corridor. In this mission, equipped with ghillie suits and sniper rifles, our two characters infiltrate
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Pripyat, a ghost town near Chernobyl. Here, although the areas seem gigantic, they are actually always partitioned, whether physically by bushes or impassable barriers, or virtually by radiation zones; a glance at the map reveals it is just a big open-air
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corridor. Granted, sometimes quite wide , but definitely a straight line. This linearity is not just spatial; it is also deeply anchored in the mission's tempo. To avoid a game over, you must walk where you are told to walk, stop
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when you are told to stop, and crawl where and when you are told to crawl.
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Look at this place. 50,000 people used to live here. Now, it's a ghost town.
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This staged direction, leading us by the nose, has the advantage of being particularly effective at pacing the mission. Moments of doubt, waiting, and long pauses build up the pressure. This is not a criticism on my part, but a
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pure observation. Modern Warfare is incredibly well-directed and very spectacular, as long as we play our part. This mission is all about setting up moments of calm before the storm, and then perfectly choreographed explosions of violence. If you obey the
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game without asking questions, you experience a true roller coaster of thrills. It will not be rare throughout the game to enter a building where all staircases are blocked except one, or to have your path blocked by barbed wire that seems to appear and disappear
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throughout the missions. And this approach to level design truly fascinates me. I know some people find linear games annoying, but I very sincerely love it. Modern Warfare is paced like a movie and is ready to do anything to maintain that rhythm using
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dozens of little tricks. Subtle manipulations put in place to push us into playing our role. Here for example , I have to wait for a helicopter to come and dislodge my opponents so I can progress. The developers made sure that
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I would witness this moment of grand spectacle. If I try to move forward, this car will systematically explode the moment I get close, killing me instantly. I am an actor in this military theater, and Modern Warfare always manages to make sure I know my
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lines and hit my mark perfectly to observe the big explosion it has planned for me. A level of heavy-handed direction that ironically has something very military about it. Surprisingly, the history of Call of Duty begins with Steven Spielberg. In the 90s, after the
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success of his film Saving Private Ryan , Spielberg launched the production of Medal of Honor at his studio, DreamWorks Interactive.
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A game with the ambition of bringing the Second World War to life for a young audience. Initially, the game faced a lot of resistance from military institutions, notably the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, which felt the project turned a grave and serious
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subject into childish entertainment, as well as from the studio's military advisor, who deemed the first demo sensationalist and irresponsible. Today , a war video game seems incredibly mundane, but we must remember that at one time, the subject of war was not
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treated lightly. At the risk of stating the obvious, the Second World War is not just a backdrop for movies and video games. It is also a traumatic memory for many veterans still alive today. Immense efforts were then put in
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place to ensure the historical authenticity of the game, notably by incorporating informative cinematic sequences.
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Human history is marked by conflict, but it was not until the 20th century that human madness managed to set the entire world ablaze for the first time.
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Medal of Honor aimed to be respectful, solemn, and educational. Then, in 2002, several people who had worked on the Medal of Honor franchise changed their tune and founded Infinity Ward. And following a contract signed with Activision, they began working on a "
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Medal of Honor killer" that would become Call of Duty. The first Call of Duty is still impressive today.
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Starting with a slow phase of tension before exploding into an all-out assault, the game already had delusions of grandeur. While many elements were already present back then—its flair for spectacle, solid gameplay, and the cinematic pacing of its missions—
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it’s also important to note that the game, like Medal of Honor, aimed to be respectful of veterans. Historians were contacted, and authentic weapons were carefully studied to faithfully reproduce their sounds and animations.
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And above all, dozens of veterans were interviewed to replicate the experience of war with the greatest possible fidelity. And then, just a few years later, we are gunning down dozens of enemies during a snowmobile chase, ending with a ramp jump over a ravine.
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The shift in tone between Modern Warfare 1 and 2 is quite staggering. The first Modern Warfare aimed to be credible, reimagining the actual 2003 invasion of Iraq with enough seriousness to seem realistic to an uninformed audience. Its scenario was a
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sort of alternate history, imagining what would have happened if Saddam Hussein had indeed possessed weapons of mass destruction. It was absolutely not a historical game, nor was it based on real facts, but someone poorly informed could have believed it. Modern Warfare
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2, for its part, feels much more like an action game than a war game. Here, with an Uzi in each hand, we gun down dozens of enemies during a chase through the favelas, ending in a slow-motion tackle and a multi-meter
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fall onto the roof of a car. Our allies are not anonymous conscripts, far from it. They are cool guys with strong personalities, non-regulation gear, and the intention to complete their mission . Whatever the cost, even if it means
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breaking the rules. When we meet Soap again, who was our silent character in the first game, now portrayed as a stylish hero with a mohawk who saves our life at the last second during an ice-axe climbing sequence, we realize
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that we are much closer to a James Bond or an Uncharted than to Saving Private Ryan. Yet, the title explicitly begins in Afghanistan. Unlike the fictional country that the first game tentatively presented, it starts in a military base
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with impressive detail. Here, we can observe soldiers playing basketball, chatting, eating chocolate, and killing time. We are sent into a new training course, this time with a little subtlety. Civilians are present among the targets. We must avoid shooting
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them at all costs. A few minutes later, we blow up a building in the middle of the city center. Everyone is having a blast; we are watching a show. There are, quite obviously, civilians in the neighborhood.
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The game has a very ambivalent relationship with American imperialism, particularly through the character of General Shepherd, whose doctrine is explicitly that the United States must be the world's police.
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Our military is the most powerful in the history of humanity. Every fight is our fight. Because what happens here matters over there. We cannot stand by as spectators.
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Against all expectations, he is not presented as a "good guy." It is time for heroes, time to make legends. History is written by the victors. On the contrary, he is a traitor and one of the game's main antagonists. He is the one who sends us
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to infiltrate an ultranationalist Russian terrorist group. Remember, no Russian. The game's fourth mission, No Russian, is undoubtedly the most famous mission in the franchise and one of the most controversial in video game history. Here, we play an undercover agent in a terrorist group,
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forced to participate in an attack to protect his cover. Narratively, this mission serves as the inciting incident . It is a setup organized by Makarov, the game's big villain, consisting of an attack at a Russian airport that he
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will frame as an American operation. The Russian government, believing it to be an American attack, will retaliate with an invasion. The controversy obviously stems from the interactive aspect of this mission. The imagery used here is particularly violent, offering many disturbing moments in the
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variety of its staging, and we are asked to pull the trigger. Nothing forces us to do so. We can actually remain a passive observer, but it is completely impossible to intervene.
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While depicting a clash between two soldiers is one thing, presenting a terrorist attack is another. It seems extremely obvious that No Russian aimed to shock, to rattle the player of course, but also public opinion.
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Fundamentally, the mission is not particularly more violent or shocking than what we can see in many horror games or in dozens of open-world games that allow killing NPCs. It is just in very poor taste, recalling events that are not only real but also contemporary
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. The era when Call of Duty attempted to honor the memory of victims with tact seems long gone. In the United States in particular, the mission made headlines. A video game asking us to have fun while playing as a terrorist.
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Of course, you and I know that the mission is not meant to be fun. It is supposed to be uncomfortable, to shock us, to rattle us. The real question is whether Call of Duty is truly the franchise best equipped to handle this
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kind of subject. My conspiracy theory is that this kind of controversy is entirely part of the Modern Warfare marketing strategy. The game made headlines everywhere. Everyone heard about it. Everyone debated it for weeks . Call of Duty, especially back in the
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Modern Warfare 2 era, is a gigantic money machine. Nothing can be left to chance. If there had been the slightest risk that this controversy would cause the game's sales figures to drop, the mission would have been changed. Its
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script would have been rewritten. As Russia attacks the United States, we witness a scene of devastation. Under a fiery sky, we helplessly observe the spectacle of an idyllic American suburb reduced to ashes. The extremely melodramatic music and deeply nostalgic
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imagery are intended to shake up Americans. The bastards destroyed a Burger King. For the first time in the series, we fight in the USA to protect the country. Modern Warfare 2 does not hold back on its script or its strong
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emotions. We are far from the electric guitar accompanying the Iraqi ruins. When it takes place in North America, war is sad and solemn. Ironically, while there were civilians in Afghanistan and Brazil, there isn't a single one present in this mission. We
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protect a parking lot with Predator missiles. Modern Warfare 2 references the AC-130 mission from the first game without any irony. Here, drone strikes are just cool and convenient. If Modern Warfare 2 goes this far off the rails, it's obviously because creating an
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action blockbuster has become the series 'priority. War, by its essence, is not narratively satisfying. You are sent somewhere, you wait weeks or even months for something to happen. Then you eventually experience brief moments of violence where you lose one or more
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comrades. Within 15 days, you are called home and told the war is over following decisions made by politicians and secretaries of state in offices.
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This is a constant in the accounts of former soldiers. In cinema, this approach to military stories is even recurrent. Films like Jarhead, adapted from an autobiography, are less interested in combat than in the psychological state of American soldiers in Iraq. While this complex
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reality can lead to interesting films and morally nuanced stories, it would make very poor ground for an action game. Modern Warfare 2 therefore fictionalizes its conflict to the point of becoming a completely fantasized story of personal confrontation.
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Credible geopolitical stakes are set aside in favor of a clash between a handful of heroes and a handful of villains. All driven by a speculative scenario that consistently prioritizes the spectacular over realism. For some people, this turn toward total action
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was a disappointment, already marking the beginning of the end for Call of Duty. The games started doing anything and everything, looking like military fan fiction, like Michael Bay movies.
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But for the majority, it was only the beginning. While pure military simulation games like Arma 2, released the same year, are a niche genre, Modern Warfare 2, by taking increasingly sharp turns toward the Hollywood blockbuster, is not only an
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entertaining work but also incredibly mainstream. The game sold almost twice as much as its predecessor and broke pre-order records. Here, we truly embody a one-man army. Some scenes are simply impossible. The odds are so stacked against us. We kill hundreds of
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enemies, we survive everything. And in one of the game's most iconic gimmicks, we blow up doors before entering in slow motion with superhuman precision.
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Just out of pure curiosity, here is what these scenes look like in real time. In my adolescence, I was aware that Modern Warfare 2 was epic, but I absolutely lacked the perspective to understand how crazy this game was.
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Here, as we exit a tunnel filled with wounded soldiers, we discover that we are in Washington. The White House has fallen. The game delivers a jaw-dropping spectacle. The work on the sets, the animations, the choreography of the explosions and helicopters. It
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is easy to forget how spectacular the Modern Warfares were at the time. The amount of detail present in this scene is mind-blowing. Call of Duty completely redefines what big budget and grand spectacle mean. In 2009, I was 15 years old. I was not American
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and I had no perspective on what I was seeing. I wasn't particularly interested in history or geopolitics. I just watched the explosions and I was happy. But today, I realize how gigantic these scenes are in what they represent. In order to stop Makarov, we
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are sent to free a prisoner from a gulag, clearly the only man competent enough to end this war. Once there, we discover it is Captain Price, elevated to the rank of icon by the game. We naturally flee the prison attached to a
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helicopter while it explodes. A few scenes later, Price decides to hijack a Russian submarine and fires a nuclear missile toward the United States. A silence and we find ourselves embodying an astronaut on the ISS. Respond here control, ISS wants footage from your
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helmet camera. He catches a glimpse of that devastating shooting star crossing the stratosphere. The explosion is so powerful it knocks him back. By exploding miles above the ground, this missile acts as an EMP, disabling all electronics in Washington
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. On the ground, Russian helicopters are raining down. Z. A few seconds later, the dark streets of the capital are terrifyingly quiet.
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I forgot the damn password. Okay, I'm just a messenger. Don't shoot. The right answer is Texas, soldier. I'm listening.
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Colonel Marshall is assembling an assault team at Whiskey Hotel. You must head north. And you, where are you going? To warn all the others. Get to Whiskey Hotel. Go. The game builds tension in a surprising way.
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I think I see something. It's fire. They're allies. I don't know. Star, cover me. Star, say Texas, just say it.
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Soon, we witness the iconic betrayal scene from Shepherd. He kills Ghost before our eyes and sets our bodies on fire. We learn that his plan was to intentionally provoke this war against Russia from the start, to avenge the
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nuclear explosion from the first game and reclaim his own glory following the loss of thousands of his men. Later, he stabs Soap in the chest, and the game concludes with a hand-to-hand fight between Price and Shepherd. A war
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reduced to a showdown between two men, a conflict verging on the mythological. We pull the blade from our sternum and eliminate Shepherd with the most iconic knife throw in video game history. To say MW2 is an excessive game would be
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an understatement. It was, at the time, one of the most frantic action works of all time. I'm on a landing craft. The soldiers I'm pressed against are seasick. One of them is vomiting.
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Before we even reach the beach, an ally is hit. Everyone crouches down. When the door opens, I'm shoved forward. The second I set foot in the sand, an explosion knocks me down. All around me , chaos. I watch soldiers fall every
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second. As they try to pull me up, I'm still just a spectator for a moment.
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Before finally coming to my senses, I climb the rope. Arriving at the top of the cliff, I throw myself into a trench . The sound of gunfire is constant.
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Deafening, coming from every direction. At one point, under pressure, I'm inches away from firing on allies. To survive, we hide in shell holes. As I step out for a second, I get hit. And right there, I stop for a moment. A
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thought crosses my mind. If this had been the real D-Day, I would be dead here. While playing Call of Duty 2, I don't feel heroic. Most of the time, I just feel extremely confused. François Truffaut once said that there is no
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such thing as an anti-war film. In essence, the experience of going to a movie theater, paying for a ticket, and sitting comfortably to watch a spectacle, no matter how grim, is the complete opposite of the experience of war. A real soldier cannot just leave
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the theater if they don't like what they see. But especially if art is in the eye of the beholder, any film can glorify war regardless of the director's intentions. Infinity Ward made the first two Call of Duty games
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before moving on to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Call of Duty 3 was entrusted to the studio Treyarch, whose flagship series is Black Ops. Although the Infinity Ward and Treyarch games all carry the Call of Duty title, I
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consider them to be parallel series. That is why this video focuses only on the Call of Duty games made by Infinity Ward. You can recognize them by the presence of Captain Price, the studio's mascot, who already made an appearance
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in the British campaign of Call of Duty 1 and 2. Move out! There is a saying that all American art created after September is about 9/11. While that is a huge generalization, Modern Warfare 3 is not exactly subtle about it. When
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the game begins, we continue to protect the United States from a Russian invasion in a scene set in New York.
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The franchise, particularly in this third installment, has a fascination with the destruction of famous landmarks. We can observe at length the streets of Manhattan covered in debris, the iconic New York taxis and NYPD cars on fire, and a devastated jewelry store
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. And a few moments later, we are fighting on Wall Street in a trading floor. We even get to witness an impressive helicopter chase between buildings while armed with a turret, a surreal flooded tunnel, and above all, the emergence of a nuclear submarine in
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the middle of the river, offering a stunning view of a burning Manhattan. It is fascinating to see how the visual obsessions of Modern Warfare are rooted in American trauma and 21 st-century Western fears. While showing Baghdad on fire is not surprising, this imagery is
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much more striking. The games essentially show their audience all of their greatest fears coming true. A war at home, a corruption of the everyday.
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Unlike Treyarch, which at the time was playing with historical reality and indulging in conspiracy theories surrounding the Cold War and the CIA, Infinity Ward had definitively turned toward speculative fiction. The games seem to whisper to us. This is what
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could happen. What could happen to you, there, in front of your TV. A few levels later, it is Paris that the game depicts. And having lived in the capital myself, I must admit to a morbid fascination with this level.
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There is a thrill in seeing Paris on fire. The spectacle feels strangely personal. At times, for a split second, I think I recognize a place where I’ve had a coffee. A stairwell I’ve climbed before. A street where I’ve
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been to the cinema. It’s sort of my own backyard. This apartment doesn't look like a real one I've visited, but at times, a subtle choice of flooring.
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An attic room or the view through a window stirs memories and emotions in me. I won't go so far as to call it a Proustian moment, but in a bullet-riddled bookstore, I’m left speechless for a second. That’s probably how Americans feel when facing
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levels set in the United States. I know these places; I’ve worked there, lived there, and have friends there. I wonder who else recognizes their home while playing Call of Duty. It is, of course, an action-packed and incredibly exciting level. Shootouts through
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Montmartre, a chase in the streets ending in a covered passage and a car crash in front of the Sacré-Cœur, a helicopter crashing between Haussmann-style buildings, and of course, an AC-130 bombardment of a roundabout. The climax of the sequence
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is obviously the collapse of the Iron Lady. The least realistic moment of the whole level is realizing that the Montparnasse Tower is still intact, because let's be honest for a second, it barely stands up in peacetime anyway . In this game, there are so many
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outrageous things per second that it would be hard to list them all. We control a tank in a parking garage and at one point, it crashes through floors while cars rain down around us. In the middle of an infiltration mission, we
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kill soldiers by shooting down a helicopter and dropping an armored vehicle on them, and then we fight pirates in Somalia during a sandstorm.
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The chaos is simply constant. When the game brings up the D-Day landings for a split second, I feel like I've been given whiplash. While the first Call of Duty games presented separate campaigns —a story where you played as the
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British, one as the Americans, and one as the Russians—modern installments tend to interweave their timelines.
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Throughout the game, you’ll tend to jump from one character to another to observe the war from several different points of view. Modern Warfare 3 felt obligated to surpass the second installment, and overall, in terms of visual spectacle, the bet paid off. In
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one level, you control a security agent on the Russian president's plane as it is being hijacked. You fight terrorists in zero gravity as the craft falls, and you watch the fuselage tear apart on the ground. In another, controlling
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British special forces, you try to stop a chemical attack during an infiltration mission that quickly degenerates into a shootout in the subway, concluding with that shocking marketing scene where you control a father, camcorder in hand, filming his daughter as she’s obliterated by an
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explosion. But above all, the heart of the game remains with Captain Price and his team. It concludes with a raid on a hotel in Dubai where, overarmed and overequipped, we advance like the invincible superheroes we are and kill
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Makarov with our own hands before lighting up a big, fat cigar. The Third World War was stopped by a single man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The kind of set-piece that’s difficult to stage in cinema,
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the kind of scene that would cost millions to produce with special effects. Call of Duty tosses out 10 per game. As a purely artificial product, it proves that video games are almost entirely liberated from the constraints of reality. A higher level of fiction
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where nothing seems impossible, sometimes tossing in the wreckage of a plane simply for decoration because it can, or littering the streets with dozens of burning tanks because, why not? The budget for the series is, obviously, stratospheric. The revenue
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is even more so. The spectacle is definitely there, but in terms of the script, it's much more complex. The game absolutely wanted to move the conflict to Europe to provide us with striking scenes and to play with its
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number 3 to invoke World War III. But most of the time, the justifications provided by the script and the dialogue are, at best, weak, and at worst, make no sense at all. And you know what?
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Nobody cares. At this point, the solo mode of Call of Duty is no longer central to the experience at all. Many people buy the games every year and grind the multiplayer mode every night without ever launching the campaign
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once. But do you know who does care? I do. I, for one, do care. I have always loved Call of Duty despite the ups and downs, despite the questionable choices . And Modern Warfare 3 is a game I
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probably played a bit too much when it came out. I clearly finished its solo campaign over 100%and its multiplayer mode 700%, apparently. If the franchise is so gigantic today, it is obviously thanks to its competitive multiplayer.
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At first glance, Call of Duty's multiplayer mode seems quite classic. It offers various deathmatches and objective-based modes such as capture the flag or king of the hill. But of course, this multiplayer is elevated by the sheer production value of Call of
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Duty. The maps are gorgeous and detailed, particularly well-designed to offer many interesting points of conflict and flanking routes. The weapons feel great to handle and the gameplay is impeccable, which already makes it one of the most solid competitive shooters on the market. But
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what makes Modern Warfare so addictive is that it offers an RPG layer on top.
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Here, at the end of each match, you earn experience based on your in-game performance, which allows you to level up and unlock new weapons and gear. The more you play Modern Warfare, the more new toys you have to test, which can
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sometimes push you to grind a little, telling yourself "Come on, just one more game, I'm inches away from unlocking sticky grenades." And so, right after that, well, now that I've unlocked sticky grenades, I'll play one more game just to test them out. And of
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course, in this new match, you get closer to another unlockable item. The point of all these unlocks is, of course, to create a class that lets you start matches with better weapons, better equipment, and thus have an advantage over your opponents. And it
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is important to note that before Modern Warfare, this was not the norm at all.
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In most shooters, everyone had exactly the same character with the same weapons. So we spend hours improving our class. The more you play with a weapon, the more it levels up, unlocking upgrades in turn. You can reduce weapon recoil or increase bullet
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penetration, and then add a grip, a grenade launcher, a scope, and of course, a camo to show off and prove to everyone how long you've been playing.
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The multiplayer mode is filled with these kinds of small details. Medals at the end of matches, daily and weekly challenges. In short, rewards rain down constantly to give us a feeling of steady progress. Even if you lose a
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match, even if you played poorly, you console yourself by thinking that you still earned something. You get a little bit closer to one or more mid-term goals. You unlock a new gadget for your favorite weapon. You are constantly moving forward. These are
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exceptional retention methods. Call of Duty isn't just engaging, it's an addictive game. Its secret weapon is very likely the killstreaks. Here, by killing several enemies in a row without dying, you unlock overpowered bonuses. You are gifted a Predator
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missile or a helicopter that comes to assist you. In short, the better you play, the more dangerous you become.
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Your score climbs exponentially. And having played Call of Duty for hundreds of hours, I can assure you that this is the game's real hook. You kill one enemy, then two, then three, and unfortunately, you die right before the
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Predator missile, so you have to start the streak from the beginning. But that's okay because you respawn immediately and the loop starts all over again. The higher your killstreak goes, the more the tension rises, the more exciting the game is, and you keep
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going again and again and again. The ultimate goal being to unlock a nuclear bomb, automatically winning you the match and showing everyone how you are definitively the best player. It's almost a game within the game. There is a real stake in staying alive as long
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as possible and building up that killstreak. And when you are one kill away from unlocking the C130, for example, I can tell you it is both extremely stressful and exciting. Even if your team is losing, you are winning
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. And then there is, of course, the final killcam that everyone is forced to watch, which shows the last action of the match in slow motion. Which is the perfect moment to show off. It's intoxicating, addictive, exhilarating.
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A scientifically constructed multiplayer mode can be as difficult to put down as possible. Unfortunately, this is also where the problems really begin for the franchise. Now that the Modern Warfare trilogy has concluded, Infinity Ward has to head in a new
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direction. And that new direction is Call of Duty: Ghosts, which was the game of the split for many. In Ghosts, we follow the story of two brothers and their dog in a post-apocalyptic world.
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The series leaves the present for good and indulges in completely futuristic games, which is already a point that displeases part of the audience. But it is above all the game's quality that will create a real rupture. Modern Warfare 3 was already heavily
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criticized for its similarity to the previous episodes and many called it Modern Warfare 2 and a half. The game seemed half-finished. It just recycled many elements from the previous episode without bringing anything truly unique.
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The annual formula is slowly starting to cause audience fatigue. Even with two studios and two years of development per game, it is obvious that each game was rushed with teams forced to release insufficient games.
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The chaotic development of Modern Warfare 3, riddled with internal conflicts during which several big names from the studio left the ship, left Infinity Ward struggling. And it is Ghosts that will pay the price. On one hand, the game has the merit of
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trying new things, a new story, a new setting, and new mechanics, but on the other, it seems to constantly commit huge missteps. The game, visibly short on ideas, decides to look toward the most appreciated episode of the series,
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namely MW2, and copy it. People loved the character of Ghost, so let's make a game revolving around an entire unit of Ghosts. Modern Warfare 2 featured a short sequence in space, so let's make several levels taking place entirely in
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space where we fight in zero gravity and in spacesuits. People liked seeing the United States under attack? Fine, let's destroy the United States and turn it into a gigantic ruin. And the problem is not just that these elements
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are derivative, it is above all that they are excessive. When I say Call of Duty: Ghosts and I show you soldiers with their skull masks, we agree that we have the right to imagine a game based on infiltration with tactical
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missions and surgical strikes? Well, the game is without a doubt the most action-oriented and the least realistic we have had so far. You only need to look at this Ghost entering this room in slow motion with a pistol in each
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hand like he's Max Payne, or that scene where the dog hijacks a helicopter, to be convinced. The dog hijacks a helicopter. I don't know if we can take 2 seconds to think about what's going on. The problem with blockbusters is
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they always want to go bigger than the last one, and eventually, it just becomes too big. There has to be a limit. Once again, the geopolitical story is confusing, revolving around a coalition of South American countries, all seemingly united under one banner
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to attack the USA with orbital weapons hijacked by their space soldiers. But the game is really focused on its superheroes, since once again we have two main characters, two brothers, two beasts and their dogs who are going to
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save the world by trying to take on a single supervillain who is clearly responsible for everything, all while centered on an elite unit, the Ghosts, who are so special and overpowered that their enemies think they have supernatural powers. It's a bit much.
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And to be honest, Ghost is just a mediocre game. If it hadn't carried the Call of Duty title, it would probably be forgotten today. Not many people would have bought it and we would have moved on. Now, not everything is bad in
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Ghost. There are things to like in the game. Personally, I really like its atmosphere and its environments. I like the dog. I find it very well animated, even if the sequences where we control it aren't very interesting. This game
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also adds the option to slide while sprinting, which would become a central element of the series from here on out, as well as the ability to lean when behind a wall instead of stepping out into the open. And above all—and it
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was clearly very important to the marketing at the time—it's a game where the fish have highly developed AI , which is clearly what everyone was waiting for from the new Call of Duty.
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Unfortunately, the studio would continue in this direction with Infinite Warfare, a game that broke records for dislikes as soon as its trailer dropped. At that time, all Call of Duty games were futuristic. Not only is Black Ops 2 futuristic, but on top
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of that, a third studio entered the rotation. Sledgehammer Games also offered a futuristic game with Advanced Warfare. But Infinite Warfare goes even further, and probably even much too far for the series' audience. While everyone was starting to get seriously
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tired of games set in the future and asking for a return to more grounded settings, this is just Star Wars. You have the ability to perform double jumps as well as wall runs. You throw anti-gravity grenades and heat-seeking
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spider robots, and most importantly, you fight in spaceships very, very regularly, and that doesn't please everyone. Infinite Warfare remains an extremely polished game, often offering beautiful visuals and massive set pieces. And as a shooter in a science-fiction universe, it holds up
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reasonably well. But it's just absolutely not what the fans are asking for. The outcry is becoming increasingly audible as the game becomes one of the worst-selling in the series. Infinity Ward continues its existential crisis and we must face the
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facts. It is time to reset the counters to zero. And now, let's get serious. We are at E3 in 2005. Konami and Hideo Kojima are preparing to finally show the next installment of Metal Gear Solid. Expectations are enormous. After
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all, every sequel to the first episode has been a surprise. The second with its hidden protagonist, the third which took us back into the Cold War past with its James Bond feel. And yet, the fourth Solid was initially, at least,
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going toward a rather familiar proposition. It's not an FPS, it's MGS. We are only in 2005, we are at this stage still far from the debauchery of explosions and debris of MW3. And yet, just in its marketing, Snake's new
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adventure already seems to be reacting to something. Positioning itself against a then-nascent trend. The game itself opens with a leitmotif. War has changed. We play as a Snake who, like the franchise he represents, is old and tired. Thrown into a generic conflict
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in the middle of an anonymous Middle East made of grayish ruins, in a shootout between two factions whose names we don't even know. And that doesn't even matter. Only the conflict matters, only the action matters, only the maintenance of this eternal
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violence matters. An extremely lucrative business maintained by PMCs, private military companies that provide weapons and reasons to fight to both sides. These men have no country, no conviction. This war has no reason to exist. It feeds on itself, both
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combustion and fuel, generating more and more money with every passing minute. This is the final state of humanity. This is the final state of video games. Of course, it's all just virtual training. It's so easy for them to get absorbed by these war games. And
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before they know it, they're in the PMCs holding real guns. These kids end up fighting in proxy wars that have nothing to do with their own lives.
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They think it's cool to fight like this . They think that combat is life. They don't need a reason to fight. If it wasn't clear enough by now, MGS4 is not only a rather nihilistic commentary on its own franchise, but also a sharp
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critique of the trend followed by a whole sector of the industry at the time of its release, one year after the first Modern Warfare. This intro is literally a parody of the generic war FPS games of those years, right down to
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its concrete-colored aesthetic. And the game doesn't waste much time stating its intentions directly. My intention, however, is not to analyze in detail whether this reaction is effective or actually works. It is rather to point out that MGS4 paves the way for
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reactionary games against the rising hegemony of the cinematic military shooter. Games that, when faced with such a disembodied and hollow depiction , take a stand without bias. Now, let's get a bit serious. You okay?
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In the early 2010s, we could mention the Medal of Honor reboot. It attempted to paint a conflict as realistically as possible in the heart of Afghanistan. A conflict based on testimonies from soldiers returning from the front to create a quieter, more authentic, and
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let's be honest, rather forgettable FPS . There was This War of Mine from 11 bit studios in 2014. Rather than putting us behind the gun of a super soldier who heals his wounds by breathing slowly, it made us take the
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perspective of civilians in a besieged zone. People who have to make heartbreaking decisions every day just to have enough to eat. Steal the food supplies of an elderly couple or spend another night starving to death. The choice is yours. And then, of course,
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there is Spec Ops. Delta Squad, led by Captain Martin Walker, slowly advances toward a Dubai covered by dunes. In this city now isolated from the rest of the world by the elements, they are tasked with a reconnaissance mission. A
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US Army regiment and its commander, Conrad, are reportedly stuck there. We don't know why or how, but it all smells fishy. Absolutely everything, from the classic third-person shooter gameplay for 2012 to the very yellowish , very drab aesthetic, reminds us of a
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typical Xbox 360-era game. But that only lasts for a moment: as we progress through the game, our squad realizes that they are not welcome here, greeted with hostility by the locals who remain , but also by the rest of the American
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forces. And above all, with the ultimate goal of completing the mission at any cost and finding the regimental commander, Walker and his team commit one increasingly questionable act after another. Foreign targets become American, military targets become civilian. Finally, in the game's most
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famous and eternally discussed scene, Walker, seeing no other option to advance past a gate fortified by the 33rd Regiment, makes use of a very specific weapon: white phosphorus. You pull the trigger, and through the disembodied thermal vision, you watch
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the soldiers being cooked alive in their vehicle. You hear their screams as the chemical compound seeps under their skin, begins to liquefy their muscles, and char their bones. And without even thinking about it, without even realizing it, you drop a
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phosphorus payload on a gathering of civilians. Women, children, people who simply hadn't been able to escape the city in time. This horrific act, Walker cannot even bring himself to consider.
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Faced with such desolation, he doesn't even think for a single second to confront his own fault. He shirks responsibility. The one responsible is the man we are tracking. The one responsible is the man who turned this city into hell on earth. To quote
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various writings on the game, Walker will open the gates of hell itself, purging this ghost town of its last living soul before confronting his own guilt. The rest of the game is a true descent into hell. You will realize
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that Walker has long ceased to be a reliable narrator and that he is trapping himself in delusions that will influence the game's reality. The message of Spec Ops is quite clear. You pulled the trigger. The choice of white
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phosphorus, a weapon whose very use has for decades been considered an atrocious war crime, is not trivial either. Because it is also the weapon that brought attention to a particularly bloody event in the Iraq War. The Battle of Fallujah around 2004
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. Following various convoy attacks, U.S. forces suddenly deployed hundreds of men there, claiming a need for illumination. Those men made use of white phosphorus. The casualties, civilians among them, went from hundreds to thousands in just a few days. Events that the game Six Days in
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Fallujah, initially announced in 2009, promised to depict in, I quote, the most faithful way possible without setting aside the suffering of the local populations. Which, of course, had caused a general uproar, specifically in American conservative circles, and for reasons that you and I
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can easily guess. The controversy led the game to a chaotic development, including various reboots and a change of developer, only for an altered version to finally be released in early access on Steam in 2023. A version that , as it turned out, didn't have much
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left that was faithful. A game that initially prided itself on showing the facts, but ironically chose to do so from the one-sided perspective of the Marines, insisting on the hardship only they were going through. The civilians, the locals, those whose neighborhoods
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are literally invaded by American forces, are just procedurally generated with each new game. In reality, and even if Fallujah is an extreme case, it is a problem presented by most of these games that attempt to raise awareness of the horrors of war. Throughout the
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story, the suffering endured by the character we play can, in its depiction and through simple gameplay, overshadow the suffering we inflict, thus overriding the message the games seem to want to convey. Is Spec Ops about the civilians you killed, or about the
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descent into hell of the American man, Walker? Just look at how a good portion of Spec Ops analysis on YouTube naturally leans to get an idea. It must be said that when video games try to react to disembodied visions of war and
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condemn its violence, they cannot help but miss the mark. Kill for yourself, it's murder. Kill for your government, it's heroic. Kill for entertainment, it's harmless. And for the moment, very few games have managed to break out of this state of affairs. 5 seconds.
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The very first action we take in the 16th episode of Call of Duty is ordering a white phosphorus strike. As we enter the camp, our allies, in a burst of empathy, ask us to finish off our targets. White phosphorus fire has
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the distinct property of burning even under the skin. In 2019, Modern Warfare was therefore rebooted. The 16th episode of the series, simply titled Modern Warfare, decides to return to the basics. Under the cover of pitch black night, British
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special forces approach a house near a railroad. As the teams use several entry points, we place a ladder at the kitchen window. When we meet up with Captain Price, a door opens.
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We barely intercept a woman. We must not make the slightest noise. They will take things from here to the east after .
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In the dining room, we take out two combatants. Oh [ __ ]! We react just in time as a woman lunges for an AK. Other members of the SAS join us. We slowly begin our ascent of the house. The operation is code-named
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"Clean Sweep." Every resident must be neutralized. As I open a bedroom door, I have only half a second to react.
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Immediately, someone I took for a hostage crawls toward a weapon. On the next floor, the tension rises.
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The gunshots have clearly alerted the other residents. The walls are stirring . Every door opening carries the risk of an ambush. Once again, I have to be ready to jump. A half-second of hesitation makes the difference between life and death. When a woman throws
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herself over a crib, I am a hair's breadth from pulling the trigger. She only wanted to protect her baby. You've probably heard of ludonarrative dissonance, but have you ever thought about ludonarrative assonance? Here, in a game about proxy war,
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counterterrorism, and the resulting paranoia that the enemy could hide anywhere, the gameplay mechanics reinforce these themes.
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There is a constant fear of shooting civilians. Through the gameplay, we feel exactly what the story is telling us. If this mission is so intense, so powerful, it is thanks to the game's visual fidelity , but also and above all because of the
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iron grip it keeps on us. Approaching the house, Modern Warfare ensures we follow the exact path Sergeant Garrick is supposed to take. It is impossible to enter the house through the alley blocked by agents or to leave the
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garden. The side gate is also barred by an ally. The only way forward is to place the ladder. Until it is placed, Captain Price will not open the basement door. And immediately, as soon as that door is opened, a soldier steps
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into the opening. The one and only way forward is via the ladder; we are forced to see this shot, perfectly framed and animated for this exact position. It's a constant throughout the level. No matter if I go through
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the dining room or the hallway, soldiers will enter through the front door at the perfect moment for me to see them. And of course, another remains to block the door. I am being waited for on the stairs. The mission
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won't progress until I am in my place. Here, an enemy will enter the room through a door at the exact moment I look at it, ensuring we never miss this unique animation. As long as my camera isn't perfectly positioned to frame
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this scene, it won't trigger. Unlike cinema, where works progress on their own, video games are interactive, lack editing, have little camera control, and cannot control the pace at which I advance. These scripts are the only way to ensure that I witness all the scenes
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intended for me. There, Price is going to check the back door. I find myself behind two soldiers, and the level won't advance until I have taken my place. It is very important that I am in the third position, as this is where
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I am best placed to see the shots through the door. The second one is always hit, and the first one will always pull him toward the back. It will always be up to me to react. The game thus returns to the tactical
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operations and cold violence of Call of Duty 4, but it also explores new horizons that are very surprising for the franchise. Here, in control of Alex , a CIA agent, we come to support resistance fighters in the Urzikstan
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region. This is where we meet Farah Karim, one of the most interesting characters in the game. Farah is the leader of the resistance. Her country, under Russian occupation, is trying to defend itself by any means possible. As the game repeats on numerous occasions,
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whether Farah is a resistance fighter or a terrorist is a matter of perspective. Help us then, before Before what? That they attack Europe or America? Their attacks on our daily lives. The game directly highlights the hypocrisy of the Americans who claim to
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save the world but focus above all on their own interests. If the CIA is helping the resistance, it is for their common goal: the destruction of Al-Qatala, the game's fictional terrorist group. But above all, Modern Warfare takes a look at the people
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fighting against the invader. While the series has until now regularly presented the United States as the world's police, the saviors in every conflict, it had never really paid attention to local forces and their role in conflicts, or at least not to
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this extent. Here, infiltrated, we pose as a civilian. We witness the occupation and its consequences from the front row. In this asymmetric war, we must make do with what we have against an over-equipped enemy. We make silencers using oil filters, but above
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all, we plant bombs on helicopters and on vehicles. As one of the quotes the game offers on its Game Over screens says. Terrorism is the war of the poor.
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War is the terrorism of the rich. On one hand, it's a very bold choice for the game to make, even if it claims to have a neutral stance on many subjects.
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Modern Warfare presents events but never tells us directly what to think about them. It's up to you to draw your own conclusions. That said, we can clearly read here that Farah's resistance, but on the other hand, the game hides heavily behind a veil of
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fiction. You probably noticed, but Urzikstan is not a real country. Once again, Modern Warfare fictionalizes its conflict, inventing convenient situations to tell its story and discard inconvenient realities. But this fictional country is strongly inspired by real events. We can't just
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say it was completely made up from scratch. And the most famous example is the Highway of Death. What I’m about to tell you is a true story. In '91, during the Gulf War, American, Canadian , British, and French planes bombed a
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highway connecting Kuwait to Iraq. An unknown number of civilians were killed in the operation. And this real historical fact is extremely controversial; Modern Warfare 2019 takes it but attributes it to the Russians.
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In the game, the Highway of Death. The Russians bombed it during the invasion, killing all the civilians who were fleeing. For some people, it's a blatant example of American propaganda.
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In the best-case scenario, it's revisionism. And even giving the developers infinite benefit of the doubt, it's cowardice. In a now-famous interview, the game's directors proudly announced that Modern Warfare is not a political game, which is honestly, and in technical terms, absolutely insane.
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You can agree with the game's political opinions or be in total disagreement. You can even say that you couldn't care less about politics and are only here for the spectacle. But claiming that Modern Warfare 2019 has no political
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opinion is really just taking us all for fools. Chief, what the hell are we doing here?
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We're doing some cleaning up with women and children. We didn't have a choice. They were hostages.
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When you take the gloves off, you get blood on your hands. Kyle, that's how it works. So, where is the line, Chief?
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The line is wherever we want it to be, Sergeant. Ultimately, the enemy has to be afraid of something. We get dirty, and the world stays clean. That's the mission. Now, if that bothers you, I can very well handle this on my own. No
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, Chief, it doesn't bother me. Have you ever wondered why some countries in Modern Warfare are real while others are fictional? Why? On one hand, Russia, the United States, and England exist, but on the other, they speak of Urzikstan and Al-Qatala
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instead of using real terms. The most commonly accepted answer is that the franchise is trying to avoid controversies like the one experienced by the game Six Days in Fallujah. Some people think it would shock the Iraqis, for example, but I think, on the
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contrary, it would shock the Americans. Because if, instead of inventing a fictional country like Urzikstan with its Russian invaders, the game had taken place in a real country like Syria or Iraq, then the villains of the game would have been the USA. And so, I
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will let you draw your own conclusions about Farah and her resistance. Modern Warfare 2019 is clearly a game that has a lot to say but doesn't dare to say it , and in a way, one could argue that
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hiding behind fiction was the only way it could say it. We will never know clearly what happened here. Someone probably thought that the Highway of Death would make for a cool setting for a game mission before getting scared of
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the backlash. Yet, the game has no problem offering shocking levels and disturbing scenes. But it does everything it can not to offend a single American because, deep down, its goal is to sell. The most charitable reading one can make of this situation
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is to consider that at least the game humanizes the civilians of Gulf countries and allows us, for the first time in a largely American-centric franchise, to see war through their eyes. Al-Qatala has tarnished my people's reputation and we have paid
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dearly for their crimes. I want the Wolf to be punished. I will make sure you are there when we deliver him to Price.
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And you, where will you go when all this is over? Where I am sent.
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Without argument. No choice. When we find ourselves playing as Farah in her childhood while her native village is attacked by Russian soldiers, the game takes on the appearance of a survival-horror.
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Follow me closely. OK. No, Papa. Quickly, behind me. Here. As a colossal soldier searches the house, we can only run or hide.
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Lying under a bed, we hold our breath. Like a main character in an Amnesia or Outlast game.
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We move from one room to another through air vents. We try to fight using a screwdriver. We feel incredibly fragile. We follow two children here trying to survive a conflict that is far beyond them. What we usually call
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the tragic collateral damage of war, the kind of thing no video game usually dares to depict. We know it exists, but it's not the sort of sordid reality people generally want to face, in particular. In an action game, when
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we're fighting soldiers with a revolver while hiding in the grass. The little girl's hands are trembling.
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The game, much more tonally consistent than its predecessors, decides to show that war is horrific and sticks to it, not looking away from almost any subject. While the original episodes were inspired by Saving Private Ryan, we are much closer here to Zero Dark
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Thirty or early Denis Villeneuve films like Incendies or Sicario. As for whether it's honesty or voyeurism on the studio's part, that will probably depend on each person's own perspective . After all, remember, the game is apolitical and has no opinion. But of
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course, Call of Duty couldn't resist its old habits for too long, since a few years later with Modern Warfare 2, the series returned to big action games . The approach this episode takes is quite interesting, since the Modern
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Warfare reboot isn't a remake of the original games and tells its own story, but still incorporates many iconic elements of Modern Warfare 2 in a kind of parallel timeline. So here, we're going to find characters like Ghost and
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Soap. While Modern Warfare 2022 starts with levels that might recall the slowness of Modern Warfare 2019, tactical operations, infiltration missions, and a chase at the Mexican border, the game doesn't take long to return to big action set pieces. Modern
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Warfare 2022—excuse me for calling it that for clarity's sake—aims to be a bit less depressing and a bit more entertaining than its predecessor by offering, for example, a helicopter chase against an enemy caravan during which we end up hanging upside down
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over the void, struggling while trying to take out enemies before cutting the rope and landing on the roof of a truck that we then hijack. All followed by a long sequence where we have the ability to drive, lean out the window to shoot,
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and even climb onto our damaged vehicle to jump from roof to roof and carjack another. In short, as you can see, the tone is much lighter, since we are literally facing an Uncharted-style level. What sets this episode apart
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most is probably its willingness to experiment. Here, every level seems to offer its own unique gimmick. An idea that isn't always effective but is at the very least interesting, and could stand on its own as a full game. While
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some levels are incredibly scripted and linear as usual, others are particularly open. In this mission, which strongly reminds me of Pripyat, we have to attack an enemy base stealthily, and it is by far the longest level in the entire franchise.
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The spaces are gigantic. The trek can sometimes take several minutes, and it's not rare to go for a very long time without anything happening.
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You take one, I’ll handle the other. I put a bullet in him. Good shot. There , just take a deep breath, appreciate the soundscape, this fresh air you can almost feel in the audio design. It’s quite refreshing, even if
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experimentation clearly means imperfection. Infinity Ward is trying new things, which is great, but sometimes you feel the level designers aren't quite comfortable with the exercise, not entirely sure how to create an interesting or well-paced level when their usual tools are taken
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away. This level feels much less cinematic than the others, much lower budget, and it is clearly less impactful than its inspiration in CoD 4 . After all, remember, All Ghillied Up was an extremely directed level that gave a sense of openness and slowness
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through its staging. Whereas in this one, there is no artifice. The level is just literally open and slow. But what we gain in freedom isn't worth as much as what we lose in emotional impact.
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The title also experiments with what looks like Hitman levels, particularly this one, starting with a multiple-choice interrogation that checks if I was listening to the game's story.
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Your turn, Blanquito. Who attacked us? It wasn't the cartel, it was the Mexican Special Forces. Once that scene is over, we are given a mask and we try to infiltrate a villa belonging to a cartel. So here, just like in a Hitman
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level, there are authorized zones and others that are off-limits. There are guards who will react if we act strangely, and we must find an access card that allows us to reach an upper floor while avoiding drawing attention or behaving suspiciously. And like in
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any good stealth game, we can even throw bottles to create a diversion. And it's, uh, you know, not very good —it’s a hundred times less interesting than a real stealth game level, but it's there to bring variety to the game's campaign, which seems to
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be the watchword for this installment. In the same vein, we also get point-and-click levels where we give orders to Ghost. We can ask him to move to specific points, shoot or knife enemies, create distractions, and switch cameras for a better angle. And
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even if it looks vaguely tactical at first glance, in reality, they are mostly ultra-simple puzzles. Modern Warfare 2019 already offered a scene of this type where we controlled a civilian, except here, it's much longer but not much more interesting. The most
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original level in the game is probably this one, where we play as a wounded Soap in a survival atmosphere. We are unarmed in the streets at night and have to hide so as not to attract the guards 'attention. We have the
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possibility of picking up various resources in the environment like bindings and scraps of metal in order to craft. We can, in particular, craft tools to break locks and gradually recover equipment. And well, the atmosphere of the level is very cool,
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but in my opinion, you know what I'm going to say. The idea itself is very interesting, but the game doesn't take it very far. And that's a general feeling about this MW2. The game aims to be much more playful than the
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previous one. We feel less like we're in a geopolitical thriller and more like we're playing a very unfocused action game. As for the script, it is also much less memorable. Modern Warfare 2022 aims to be much more varied but also much more conventional
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than the previous one, and that paradoxically makes it much less interesting. Especially since when it returns to what the series knows how to do, it offers levels that lack a bit of audacity. We get, for example, an AC-
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130 bombardment and an oil rig raid that smell of nostalgia, but without really going any further. And it is, in the end, the most forgettable solo campaign so far, which I find very unfortunate because Modern Warfare 2019 really had ideas and actually dared to
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do things. Well, on the other hand, I assure you the game is, just like the previous one, perfectly apolitical.
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Here, for example, we play as Alejandro and Rodolfo from the Mexican special forces operating at the U.S. border.
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Indeed, drug traffickers are using migrants as a distraction to help a terrorist get onto American soil. So we find ourselves at the foot of the wall, literally the famous wall, the one from Donald Trump. But unfortunately, the cartel manages to get Hassan, the
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Iranian terrorist, across. And our two special forces agents have no choice but to cross over as well, even if they have no jurisdiction in the United States. So we jump over fences. A guy comes out of his house, naturally angry
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to see unknown men in his yard in the middle of the night. And the game tells us that the best way to calm a civilian down is to point a gun at him. While we chase Hassan, who tries to lose us by
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entering people's homes, we have to calm down several civilians in this way . This one, thinking someone is burgling him, shows up with a bat; we naturally hold him at gunpoint until he surrenders. As you can see here, we are
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absolutely no longer playing as a soldier. We are no longer looking at a war game. In the next house, two guys, visibly unhappy that we're breaking into their home, are ready to defend themselves. One of them tries to grab
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the weapon in his back pocket. The other moves slowly toward the rifle hanging on the wall. We have to take turns ensuring they don't move. We have to calm them down one after the other.
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And then the level concludes in a revisited version of Clean House. Here, any door can open and hide a cartel member. We can observe a hotel dedicated to Our Lady of the Holy Death . A religious icon venerated in parts
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of South America, particularly frowned upon by religious people in North America. Modern Warfare 3 will be released in 2023, and normally you're going to tell me, "Wait Thomas, there's a problem with the dates." And yes, indeed, because until now we had an
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alternation: we had Black Ops one year, Modern Warfare the next year, and then a third game from time to time just to give a little time to Treyarch and Infinity Ward. But here, we had Modern Warfare 2 followed immediately by
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Modern Warfare 3. And excuse me, but I'm going to put Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 in the same basket because, for many people, this 2023 Modern Warfare is just an extension of Modern Warfare 2022. A kind of small
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DLC that you buy at full price. In short, a new season. The game wasn't even developed by Infinity Ward but by Sledgehammer Games, and it is by far considered one of the worst Call of Duty games. But above all, its solo
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campaign is a huge scandal. Actually, the problem with the solo mode of Modern Warfare 2023 is that they aren't designed, scripted, or cinematic missions. These are just pieces of Warzone where you're catapulted in and given three objectives. Take this for
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example, we arrive on an open map that's just a chunk of Warzone and we're told "There are three helicopters , you need to blow them up." So I go to a helicopter, I place some C4 on it, I
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blow it up, great, now onto the second one. And so, from my point of view, this is not a single-player campaign level. In the absolute best-case scenario, I could consider it a bonus mode, special ops, maybe a horde mode,
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I don't know, but it's literally a piece of Warzone where they dumped some random enemies and three objectives.
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It's just complete crap. And my issue isn't even that these levels are open, it's just that they're poorly staged, uninteresting, unimpressive, and not immersive. We have huge objective markers everywhere. We have loot boxes, meaning you can regularly walk up to a
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crate, open it, and oh, you find a super legendary, mega rare purple-colored sniper rifle. I dare hope I don't need to explain why that's lame and uninteresting. Furthermore, just like in Warzone, you can drive vehicles and you have armor plates that
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, roughly speaking, serve to heal you or boost your shield. And the nicest thing I could say about these missions is to compare them to camp assaults in Far Cry. But let's be honest, it's not anywhere near as good as Far Cry. In
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fact, I just can't take this game seriously. To me, it's really an expansion thrown together with zero effort. And as a result, I can't even play it seriously. There are a few classic, linear missions in the campaign, and when I say a few, there
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must be exactly four. And even those linear missions are just heavy recycling. Take this, for example, this attack on a football stadium, it's just the football stadium from Warzone. It's a piece of Warzone. They put 15 enemies in there and two scripts. And they call
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that a level, nothing about it works. Nothing works. It's a scandal. And the worst part is that it's not even an interesting scandal. It's not even a scandal worth talking about. The game actually starts in a fairly convincing
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way, though. Here, an anonymous and unknown group is inside a submarine. These divers clearly have a critical mission that we soon discover.
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Attacking a gulag. They are going to free a prisoner. While in the first few minutes, you inevitably think of the side mission in Modern Warfare 2 where you rescue Price, especially because the gulag’s architecture with its panopticon seems familiar, its
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presentation is slightly different and very impressive. As we rappel down in the dark, the mission is more than exciting, especially because we discover that, surprise, we weren't saving Captain Price but Makarov.
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It is a true honor, Commander Makarov. The introduction of this MWIII therefore had us playing as the villains. A cool twist accompanied by explosive scenes. What more could you ask for? Well, at one point for no understandable reason, Makarov asks us
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a question and we have a dialogue choice. Who holds the power in this gulag? The guards or the prisoners? The guards? Exactly Andre, it's the guards, but not for much longer.
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And I’ve racked my brain, but I have no idea what this scene is for.
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The prisoners. Exactly Andre. That is why the guards need weapons. Especially since no matter what we answer, Makarov, like a true people pleaser, agrees with us.
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Yeah, you’re right. Power belongs to those who seize it. If this installment , which I will henceforth call MWIII, had only been made up of this type of level, it would have certainly been a fairly weak but passable episode of the
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series. When we discover our big villain later sneaking into an airport and boarding a plane, we might even for a moment fear a scene as terrifying as the iconic No Russian. Here we control Samara, a former member of the
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Urzikstan Liberation Front. And while she is quietly sitting on a plane reading her texts, her neighbor starts threatening her. When he draws a 3 D-printed gun, the game almost seems on the verge of saying something. And when Samara defends herself and everyone
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turns to observe a woman from a Gulf country with a gun in hand, she is instantly mistaken for a terrorist.
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Once again, the game almost seems to be saying something. And then when Makarov straps us with a bomb and explains his plan with zero subtlety, what you have accomplished here, makes you a hero, Samara.
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No one will believe you. I am not a terrorist. No, you are a citizen soldier pushed by Farah Karim to attack Russia. You are defending freedom. You are Russian and this plane is filled with Russians. How can you kill your own people?
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No, I'm not the one killing them. Yeah, the scene falls a bit flat. These last few seconds are particularly well-executed, though, as the real terrorists throw the defuser into the middle of the cabin, and we have to threaten passengers playing the hero to
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reach it. Ironically, trying to defuse the bomb makes us even more suspicious, and the first time you play it, the chaos and stress of the sequence are suffocating. What a shame, then, that the next mission boils down to "Oh no,
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the passengers filmed Samara with a bomb and a gun. Quick, let's go to the crash site to wipe their phone memory." That's it, that's all. It's an open mission. You find three or four phones.
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You delete the video evidence. Thank you, goodbye. In the end, the game's plot can be summed up as Makarov escapes from prison. We foil all his plans one after another, and in the end , well, in the end, Soap has to follow
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a hacker. So, for a good solid minute, we interact with the environment to blend in as a tourist. And then, Ghost has to track a target with security cameras. So, for a good solid minute, we switch cameras. And finally, after a
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short shootout in some tunnels, we have to defuse a bomb and answer multiple-choice questions at a kindergarten level.
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I'm waiting, Captain. Tell me, what does the circuit logo look like? The circuit board logo is a bear.
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A bear? Copy that. I'm cutting the wire . Just a reminder that this game is rated M for Mature.
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You should see a serial number. Give me the third digit. The third digit, Captain, give it to me. The third digit is a 9.
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And then, right in the middle of this incredibly complex puzzle, Makarov shows up, kills Soap, and flees.
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Credits; it's barely a joke. No, sorry. Before the credits, we get an emotional scene. Credits. There you go, the final action of the game was to verify if I knew how to count to 3.
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On 3, understand? OK. On 3. 1, 2, 3, cut. Luckily, as in any masterpiece of the 7th art, we get a post-credits scene in which Price kills General Shepherd.
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Oh! I have no intention of getting on my knees, not for you, not for anyone.
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Captain. It wouldn't change anything for you. What is that? Wait, wait, wait , who is that? Where are you? Speak my language, please.
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Don't speak your blocky language. As Modern Warfare 4 begins, we discover a group of young South Korean and American soldiers.
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And rap is for girls. Okay, you need to listen to heavy metal. Pantera, you know them?
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Ah, the energy of volunteer fighters, eh? Sorry Eden, no war here, just training. North Korea has a new leader. They say he...
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The kid is just acting tough, right? We'll see what he's made of. During their conversation, their personalities are revealed. Our protagonists, especially the soldier Park whom we play, are naive and endearing. It is during this very long sequence shot that we discover the
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lively streets of a large Korean city. The shop windows are richly decorated, the music mixes together, and restaurant terraces are bustling. South Korea is particularly colorful. In Korea, military service is mandatory.
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Koreans don't like guys in uniform. Military service is mandatory for us. Nothing special. Our characters are just conscripts. They could be college age. We can't just die like this. In an impressively detailed store, we discover our brothers-in-arms plan to
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haze the new guy. We learn how to pick up items and make dialogue choices. In the background, we hear that North Korea has a new leader.
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Who is that, a K-Pop star? The new supreme commander of North Korea. What? Damn, are you serious? That guy looks younger than me.
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He is. I dated one of his sisters. Alright, ciao, we're leaving. Sergeant, soldier. But when the power is suddenly cut, the atmosphere changes completely. Did you hear those explosions?
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The new guy just died without fanfare, without ceremony. Modern Warfare 4 returns to the big explosions and carnage of the original episodes 2 and 3. In this total war scenario, it is an invasion of South Korea by North Korea
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that is presented to us. The destruction of familiar, everyday places hits particularly hard. Especially since this mission has a dark and heavy tone.
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Soldier Park is not prepared for what is happening to him. We clearly feel the shock of this sudden and unpredictable attack. That's when we find ourselves playing as Price on the run in his "Splinter Cell: Conviction" phase. The former captain has become a
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fugitive. As he pursues Makarov while providing security for a wealthy oligarch, the game takes on the tones of a spy film. For a few seconds, visiting a nightclub might remind you of Hitman or 007 First Light. But it
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quickly becomes obvious that the reference is John Wick. Here, we fight hand-to-hand. The game includes a whole melee combat system centered on parries and counter-attacks. And then quickly, the confrontation escalates into a shootout that is impressive across many
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colorful environments. The music stays with us throughout the entire mission. The decor of the place creates a striking contrast with the violence happening there.
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When Price catches up to the oligarch and tells him " I don't give a damn about your deal.
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Where is Makarov?" We understand that the character has completely become a renegade. He is ready for anything to get his revenge.
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Nothing else interests him. Maybe it's New York in the snow or the thirst for revenge, but the game briefly evokes the atmosphere of a Max Payne. Before heading off into a frantic rooftop chase, Mirror's Edge style, where we
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climb, slide, jump, and weave between cars. Playing this MW4, you can almost see the game team's mood board, and it’s composed of Daniel Craig’s James Bond and Jack Bauer. And then just like that, after a brutal confrontation, Makarov is dead. Price
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is taken to see Valeria. She is the key . In a single mission, the game has swept away the MW3 storyline, gotten rid of its characters, and moved on to something else.
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You’ve messed up my affairs. I have 3 days to deliver this briefcase and you are going to make sure everything goes as planned.
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You think I’m going to help you? Oh, I know you will. Why is that?
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Because of its recipient. In order to reach a new enemy, The Archer, Price joins the other side. The character has definitely crossed to the other side of the mirror.
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I have to do this alone, K, do you understand? I will call you if needed.
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That is when we find ourselves in a third timeline, this time in North Korea in search of a deserter. Here, we will have to search a village, interrogate civilians, threaten them, apply pressure, confiscate. While this mission offers us a few, quote-unquote,
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moral choices, they have very little impact. We can oppose the public hanging of the deserter, which will simply earn us a summary execution. Our commander will end up burning the village to the ground no matter what.
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We will soon learn that The Archer, played by Matt Michelson, is a Russian minister attempting to manipulate the new supreme leader of North Korea.
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Before your father's passing, we were coordinating our efforts to reunify the peninsula. Reunify by what means?
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A preemptive strike. The rivalry between this new leader and his sister is at the heart of the game's political conflict.
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The Russian wants war, and my sister is listening to him. You were with her at the village. Were those actions justified? You made the optimal decision. We follow without question. I just want what's best for our people.
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What do they need? Hope, that is a very dangerous word. The plot of Modern Warfare 4 is that the leader of North Korea is wise, kind, and benevolent, but it's his sister who is evil and wants war. All the characters are set
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in place. Modern Warfare 4 is much more cinematic than its predecessors. On a train heading for Paris, we find the ex-captain Price. Even if he has gone over to the dark side, he still has a moral compass. Price refuses to hurt
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civilians. The game will therefore alternate between these timelines throughout its campaign. On one side, the adventures of Price playing secret agent around the world with levels in train stations full of moving platforms and helicopters that we shoot down with
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grenade launchers; and on the other, much more violent and grounded clashes in Korea, making heavy use of deep night lit by the fire of explosions.
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The 4th episode, well, 7th episode, 23rd episode I mean, seems to combine the violent and terrifying aspect of war on one hand with the fun and entertaining aspect of action games on the other by totally juxtaposing them, the Resident Evil Requiem method. So
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when we find ourselves protecting a café, the game triggers flashbacks of the Burger Town directly cited in the level. Moreover, a few moments later, we experience a chase scene that is uninteresting from a mechanical standpoint, yet beautifully choreographed with Price in the streets
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of Paris. Every millisecond seems perfectly paced. Cars are rolling over. It feels like an action movie from the 2000s, like Taxi or The Transporter.
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This is my chance to take a small step aside and ask you a big philosophical question. And I would sincerely like you to find your own answer because one day, I had this very embarrassing conversation with my grandfather. He
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was stopping by the house, probably for a birthday, saw us playing Call of Duty with my brothers, and asked us why we were playing war. My default answer has always been to say that war was just a backdrop, a pretext. What we enjoy are
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the game mechanics. Move, aim, have good reflexes. In the end, the details don't really matter. But this answer has always seemed incomplete to me. On one hand, Call of Duty is a protean franchise. Some episodes take place during the Cold War, others in the
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future, others still during the Cold War and in the future at the same time.
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And then, as the last hour and 50 minutes of this video test, in a parallel universe where the United States is always justified in its military actions. When the development of a new Call of Duty begins, the teams
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must decide on a more or less fictional war that will serve as the setting. And one might naively believe that this setting matters little, that as long as you hold a gun and shoot at someone, it's a Call of Duty. You press the left
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trigger to aim, you press the right trigger to shoot, and the clothes our target is wearing are only there to dress up a game mechanic that always remains the same. Yet, there seem to be limits to the context the series can
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offer. For example, there has never been a Call of Duty set during the First World War. In the same way, there hasn't been a single episode in which you don't play, at least in part, with the Americans. And after all, it makes
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sense; the studios are American. But I still have tons of questions. When games are set in the future or in space , for example, the public seems unhappy . It would seem that to appreciate a Call of Duty, players require a certain
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context, a certain amount of realism. It would seem that we want, at least in part, to know that what we are doing with a controller in hand, we could have experienced. Someone, somewhere, has lived through a similar situation.
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We—and I am using a general "we" here —we as humanity, have an obsession with violence. It fascinates us. Very often, our obsession with history goes hand in hand with this violence. You probably know history buffs who are interested in Vikings, knights, and the
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Second World War, but certainly far fewer who are passionate about 13 th-century Chinese maritime trade. And yet, there is so much to say about 13 th-century Chinese maritime trade. And I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here . I am simply raising a fact, and I am
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in the same boat. These armed conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries fascinate us. They have an important place in our collective unconscious.
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The question every studio must ask itself when starting production on a Call of Duty is: how do we make war fun ? And I think that's partly why so many games took place during World War II before the public got tired of it. In
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our collective imagination, World War II is probably the easiest war to explain. It is a war in which there are very clear villains and unambiguous heroes. It is undoubtedly the least controversial American intervention of all, and the same cannot be said for
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the others. The Vietnam War is famously controversial in the land of Uncle Sam, as is the Iraq War, which interests us in the Modern Warfares and has influenced two decades of Call of Duty.
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At the peak of its popularity in 2001, it struggled to exceed 55%public approval and only fell further in the following years. The modern battlefields that inform the tone of our war games are considered morally grey, even in the United States. It's
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no wonder, then, that games choose to alter details, slightly blur the lines, play with reality, and avoid talking for real about what troops are doing on the ground. So, why do we play war? Why , when I was 15 and had 60 euros in my
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pocket, did I go buy Modern Warfare 2 instead of Halo 3, ODST, Borderlands, or Left 4 Dead 2? Modern Warfare 4 seems at least partially to free itself from this question. If I’ve been citing so many action movies, it’s to
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highlight that a military context is not mandatory to offer an entertaining action game. These segments where you play as ex-Captain Price are some of the most entertaining in the franchise, and that’s probably partly because they break free from their realistic
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military context. However, it is also difficult to deny the thrill that the levels in Korea provoke. In a way, I think war games function partly like horror movies. What we see on screen has something terrifying about it; that
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is also what makes them exciting. From my point of view, playing a Call of Duty always involves a small amount of morbid curiosity. At its core, Modern Warfare 4 is a strange game. It is big entertainment with emotional moments
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and perfectly choreographed action scenes. And it is also a game where you at one point embody the supreme leader of North Korea trying to exfiltrate his palace. I'll give you just a few seconds to think about what I just said
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, but in a way, I admire the dedication Infinity Ward shows when it comes to making us play things that no one else would dare put in a video game. I think that in any other context, if this kind
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of scene happened in an obscure indie game or perhaps a political thriller by Hideo Kojima, it wouldn't surprise me.
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But within one of the biggest video game franchises, a series that claims to be apolitical and mainstream, selling millions of copies every year, I must admit it leaves me speechless.
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It is therefore a bit disappointing that the games fail to say much about all these subjects they stir up. Call of Duty often behaves like a child wielding a loaded firearm without the slightest fear, but also without any
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intention of pulling the trigger. A video game about the war between the Koreas would certainly be fertile ground for telling something powerful, courageous, and ultimately modern. And despite that, the title manages to be perfectly harmless, saying nothing, risking nothing, and venturing nowhere
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with its subject. Maybe that’s what the director of Modern Warfare 2019 meant when he said his game wasn't political. It’s not that Modern Warfare doesn’t deal with political subjects. It’s not that Modern Warfare doesn’t have a political opinion. It’s just that, deep down,
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Modern Warfare really couldn't care less about telling a story. Ultimately, like the teenager I once was, Call of Duty itself considers that all that matters is making an action game.
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Regardless of the window dressing, the sets, and the costumes. This is probably the only chance in my life I’ll have to recommend the film JSA, one of the very first movies by director Park Chan-wook, whom you probably know from Oldboy. JSA is about
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a diplomatic incident at the border between the two Koreas. It’s a film I advise you to go into with your eyes closed, without looking up any information beforehand. All I can tell you is that it is very easily one of my
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favorite works. But above all, it is a piece of cinema that handles political and controversial subjects with fascinating finesse and is not afraid to draw an extremely emotionally powerful story from them. If you have a heart, if you have a soul, if you feel
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ready to hear about subjects that disturb and stir things up, watch JSA. If, on the other hand, you just want to see a cafe explode, Modern Warfare 4 is for you. Well, despite its dark and shocking subject matter, it is a
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perfectly fun action video game. But unfortunately, it is nothing more than
Topics:Modern Warfare 2019Call of DutyFPS gameplayrealism in gamestactical shootergame analysisvideo game narrativegame designwar representationgame difficulty
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