Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's success is a fascinating junction of the franchise, its medium, and media.
The truth lies, or tries.
Regrettably, it has become a commercial novelty to digitise the most controversial military incursions of recent history. Before Call of Duty modernised mainstream virtual warfare, the primary text of shooters concerned a time before mass media and weapons of mass destruction, or a fictitious fracas in the near future.
Beginning in 1990, Operation Desert Storm codified the Gulf War, a critical juncture in the rancid regard of America’s military hegemony. Though Vietnam emerged as the first televised war, this conflict was delivered on a comprehensive scale, delivered via satellite transmission from the frontlines of the fight. Ferocious viscera invaded the living rooms of the American people and their uneasy allies; the ultimate cost of conflict was packaged and processed in prosaic terms. Though gaming had begun to invade these spaces in turn, the medium was regarded as a crude means of entertainment: childish larks concerning tales of street fighters and anthropomorphic hedgehogs.
Today, with due respect to social media services, we are ensnared in cycles of violence - from territorial violations abroad to domestic disintegration. Thus, in a time of weightless warfare, wherein statistics are stripped of context, it is a reflection of our collective nihilism that the most successful game of the year is an aestheticised depiction of the Gulf War, drizzled with speculative pulp and imbued with conspiratorial crises. Granted, these qualities are integral to Black Ops’ constitution: a clash between the clandestine machinations of the CIA, agents of chaos, and yourself - a malleable mind twisted by psy-ops and an implacable sense of duty.
Pantheon, the rogue paramilitary organisation behind Black Ops 6’s setpieces, are characterised a splinter of the CIA’s bioweapons programme; they were disbanded as the Cold War settled into an ostensibly manageable thaw. The game’s marketing campaign featured prominent players of the era in Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, George H.W. Bush, and Saddam Hussein, drawing upon their likenesses to deliver a particularly unpleasant “I Hate the 90s” compilation record. Their message? War never ends, it quietens.
Yes, we know: our news cycle spins yarns of concurrent conflicts within Ukraine and Palestine. The former must weather the irrational will of a mad despot, the latter a coalition of extremists who qualify their virtue through self-defence. Coincidentally, the 1990s is an apt decade to decipher Russia and Israel’s fatal ambition through: the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of rapacious oligarchs, whose industrialists profit greatly from continued conflict, while Benjamin Netanyahu began his first tenure as Prime Minister following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin at a rally for peace in Tel Aviv. Thus, our escapist entertainment cannot elude the trappings of true text: Call of Duty’s playbook is in alignment with the past, present, or future, never in parallel.
Against Modern Warfare III 2’s tepid reception, perhaps owing to its truncated development time of sixteen months. Though this period was nine times longer than Liz Truss’ tenure as Prime Minister, it is below par for a Triple A production - even for Call of Duty’s annualised carousel of content. Modern Warfare III’s developer in Sledgehammer Games had two years to work on their last title in Vanguard, which emerged following friction between themselves and Raven Software on a collaboration set for 2020: Sledgehammer would begin working on Vanguard in August 2019, whereas Raven would stay onboard for Black Ops: Cold War. If any member of the Call of Duty family are after a compelling corporate conspiracy, the last days of Activision-Blizzard would make for an effective narrative.
That the series pivoted from a Rebuild of Evangelion-esque take on its own canon to a chopped-and-screwed potboiler capturing the erstwhile end of history does not indicate a desire to retreat from our heated times. The Call of Duty HQ platform serves as a unified hub for Warzone, Modern Warfare II, III, and Black Ops 6 - blurring the boundaries of sovereignty in a manner consistent with their respective narratives. Therefore, each of these titles are in conversation with one another, sharing both an engine and a battle royale. Furthermore, conversation surrounding Black Ops 6 has centred upon its introduction of omnidirectional movement, rather than its milieu. When multiplayer servers are populated with Palpatines, there is seldom an opportunity to reflect on whether H.W. Bush’s administration sought to reduce regional aggression or secure America’s oil supply. These notions can both hold true, though these early Iraqi campaigns made for a cleaner narrative than unpacking his son’s misguided assertions.
An eye for an eye makes for a solid K/D of 1.0.
The series itself is not shy to toy with amoral moments: the infamous “No Russian” sequence was a point of universal consternation, inviting inquisitions upon the ethics of interactive storytelling. Though the mission remains abrasive to this day, the ultimate extent of its impact is up to the player: they decide whether to engage or not. Whether the player skips the level, walks through passively, or shoots all possible targets, the conclusion is the same: the false flag was planted. Does this atrocity only hold narrative weight because we bear witness to it? I believe predicating a mission on this concept to be tantamount to building fictional scaffolding around real events: Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait, CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, and a dubious echo of “Cultural Marxism”. If our contemporary political narratives are founded upon fictions and revisions, these titles take us through the looking glass to a post-structural battlefield where Frank the Rabbit, Nicki Minaj, and Judge Dredd fight for the same principles.