Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the latest game in the multi-billion-dollar Call of Duty franchise, and is possibly one of the most financially successful pieces of pop culture to focus on war. I’ve heard people dismiss Call of Duty as propaganda, but having played through the story, it isn’t and that might be the problem.
There are three modes, two multiplayer modes where warfare is more a theme than an actual topic, and a single player narrative. The story the game tells attempts to both explore modern anxieties around war, while also being an exciting action experience that can be sold to millions of people. One would expect these two aims to lead to a dissonant experience, a realistic contemplation of modern day conflict, and a funtime shooty bang-bang, are not really concordant, but that’s not exactly the case. The story’s aims do not clash with each other so much as compromise each other, leading to a story that’s not serious enough to be contemplative, but not over-the-top enough to be guilty pleasure jingoism simulator. It stabs in both those directions, but by its nature cannot commit. Paradoxically it feels both safe and frustrating.
So, what does Call of Duty: Modern Warfare say about war? Its main point seems to be that war is morally grey, and that ideology is less important than personal conduct. The game focuses on a fictional country called Urzikistan, which despite the name implying it should be Pashto speaking, is apparently Arab, though I noticed at least one minor characters with a Persian name. Essentially, it’s generically Middle-Eastern, though whether that was an intentional decision on the developers to make it seem like an amalgamation, or just a lack of interest in basic anthrological information, I am unsure. Urzikistan is in a three way war between Al-Qatal, a group of terrorists that split the difference between (the pop culture depictions of) Al-Qaeda and ISIS, a liberation force allied with the US, and a Russian general who is a big fan of war crimes and giving sinister monologues. It’s a close parallel to the conflict in Syria, if instead of a local dictator the controlling power was a foreign occupier. The player switches between Alex, a CIA agent imbedded with local good resistance, and Kyle a British special forces officer going after the bad terrorists.
The game tries to raise points about ambiguity in warfare, and it makes a legitimate attempt at creating parallel character arcs for it’s protagonists. Alex starts the game emotionally detached, just doing the job his handler gives him so he can move on to the next job, and ultimately becomes more loyal to the people he is embedded with than to his actual government. Conversely Kyle is portrayed as someone who wants to be able to do whatever he has to keep people safe from terrorism and he ultimately accepts that means doing morally questionable things. Pragmatism and idealism must strike a balance, meeting each other in the middle. That’s a pretty decent through-line for a war story, but the game is too busy running through gunfights to really explore that dynamic. The two characters briefly interact on screen a few times, and seem to have strong mutual respect, but they never have an actual conversation.
 Call of Duty’s commitment to non-commitment becomes frustrating with regards to it’s view on imperialism. The root cause of its conflict is imperialist occupation, but it’s all at the hands of one Russian general, and when the good guys assassinate him, the only danger is that another evil Russian will replace him. The CIA cuts ties with the good resistance, but there’s no actual consequences. When player character Alex defects to fight with his new friends, his handler scolds him like an angry school teacher, rather point out he’ll probably be killed in a drone strike for committing a literal act of treason. Nobody asks about the Kurds or the Palestinians as they fight alongside the CIA for the independence of the their people. Ultimately the game is selling the aesthetics of modern conflict, divorced from the actual politics and difficult questions at the core. It’s disappointing that so much work goes into saying as little as possible.
While playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare I thought of a movie called Operation Red Sea. It’s essentially a Chinese military propaganda film, that follows a similar concept. Chinese special forces go into an unnamed Middle Eastern nation, to eliminate a terrorist threat. It’s a morally detestable, pornographically violent, celebration of China’s military power. It’s also so overt and honest it it’s aims of being agitprop that I honestly preferred to Call of Duty’s sidestepping neutrality. Granted there is something unique in watching agitprop designed for other nationalities, there’s an immediate layer of distance that allows my enjoyment to be quasi ironic, but at least there’s a core ethos to enjoy ironically. Call of Duty let’s people play war, without looking directly at what they’re playing at. That might be scarier than actual propaganda. Propaganda assumes it must make war palatable, whether it’s through sanitization or glorification. Call of Duty knows it doesn’t have to do either, the audience is there. It doesn’t trying to get players to think a certain way, it’s trying to avoid having them too much at all.