If you ask the developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, they’ll tell you that it isn’t, actually, about war. “I think our game is about characters in mortal and terminal conflicts,” says Brian Bloom, the head writer on Modern Warfare II. “We use warfare in certain cases, we use violence in certain cases, and we do use plenty of other things to resolve conflict.” Developer Infinity Ward’s narrative director, Jeff Negus, chimes in. “Aside from the fact that this is a fictional story, and this is meant for entertainment purposes, the idea of warfare versus war — and what these characters do to be on the right side, to avoid all-out war… what separates them from us is at the heart of this story.”
We're at an MW II press preview event in Amsterdam, a week before the hotly anticipated sequel to Modern Warfare — a reboot of the late-2000s trilogy that took the Xbox 360 generation by storm — will rocket to the top of the games charts. The Call of Duty games always make bank, with opening weekends comparable to the biggest Marvel releases and total franchise revenue in excess of $30 billion to date. When Microsoft acquired Activision for $68.7 billion earlier this year, CoD was no doubt key to the calculus. This one is no different: it will come to be the biggest launch ever on the PlayStation Store for a CoD, as well as the top seller on Valve's flagship PC platform Steam across its opening weekend. But now, here in the Dutch capital, the lion's share of salivating CoD fans are yet to see the goods.
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The morning begins with a two-hour presentation on the game's narrative and technical advances, with 15 minutes alone dedicated to MW II's new water effects. Given the vast majority of players will continue to split their energy between slagging off campers and racking up killstreaks, we're happy enough to indulge the team. Not tuned back into CoD since its Xbox 360 glory days? Things have moved on since the campaign in 2009's Modern Warfare 2, which centred around a deeply contrived global war between Russia and the United States, the former invading the latter Red Dawn-style. Truly, it was a sillier time to be alive.
So much of MW II — from the groundedness of its campaign's narrative, the photorealistic graphics and the weighty way in which your operator moves — is engineered in service of doubling down on gritty realism. Whereas the older Call of Duty titles were the gold standard in arcade-y twitch shooters, newer instalments have taken a cue from Battlefield, emphasising the look and feel of real-world combat zones. The inciting incident of 2022's Modern Warfare II, on the other hand, is the missile strike assassination of an Iranian general with a name strikingly similar to Qasem Soleimani, leading to a clandestine hunt for missing American missiles.
“Pretty much as soon as we shipped the last game, we just started writing,” Negus says. The first Modern Warfare saw the CIA, SAS and U.S. Special Forces on a globetrotting mission against Russian separatists and a fictional terrorist organisation, Al-Qatala, taking cues from real-world events. A mission centring a terrorist attack in London evoked memories of 7/7, whereas the Russian occupation of Urzikstan, the fictional Middle Eastern nation where much of the action was based, drew comparisons to the United States' own recent involvement in the region.
Indeed, earlier in the Q&A, the Infinity Ward team were clear to note that MW II is inspired by the “military events that shape our real world" — so what does this instalment draw from, specifically? “There were plenty of different people that we talked to, to research different characters, different locations, and different pieces of the real world,” Negus says. “But part of making it for a modern audience is making it nuanced, in that it isn't so explicitly direct."
Bloom jumps in. “When we say we're ‘inspired by real events,’ it's less inspired by particular battles, combat or conflicts, so much as present themes, or the humanity of the soldiers, and what enemies are capable of,” he says. “Every villain is a hero in his own story, and I think we've become more aware of this in the world, in terms of how the enemy — the other side of the conflict — sees itself.”
Even so, do they try to reflect — and predict — conflicts in the real world in service of a credible story? “We take out a very dirty crystal ball,” says Bloom. “But we're not geopolitical experts. It isn't a game designed to step, intentionally or unintentionally, into anybody's real war," he continues. “Which is why it's so important, at least from our perspective, that we really dig into the drama and the characters," adds Negus. “We reference real life — but it isn't real life. In that way, it can resonate with people in a way that feels real and grounded.”
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is now available for purchase on Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC.
