Section B Exam Notes Pt.1: Historical/Economic Context

Section B Exam Notes Pt. 1

Industry:

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare

Historical/Economic Context

The “Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare” franchise has 6 different versions, divided into 2

trilogy series. In this research, I’ve picked “Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare” from 2019,

which is the start of the 2nd Modern Warfare series. The game was made by Infinity Ward, in collaboration with Raven Software, and was published by Activision.

The idea for “2019 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare'' or “COD: MW'' for short, came from

the desire to revisit and reimagine the huge success of the original “Call Of Duty 4:

Modern Warfare” series, which was released in 2007. Besides that, the fans have been

demanding a game that could keep them engaged with the Call Of Duty series, after the

failure of many games published before, due to their superficial plots, or settings of the

game being “too futuristic”. These games include:

• Call Of Duty: Ghosts (2013)

• Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014)

• Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)

With that being said, the release of Modern Warfare in 2019 is regarded as a huge “reboot” for the franchise, as fans reviewed it positively about it.

2019 Modern Warfare marked a return of a few iconic characters that had been familiar to fans since the original trilogy. The game also introduced a line of new characters, which quickly became fans’ favorites.

• Captain Price (voiced by Barry Sloane)

• Alex (voiced by Chad Michael Collins)

• Farah Karim (voiced by Claudia Doumit)

• Kyle Garrick (voiced by Elliot Knight)

• Nikolai (voiced by Stefan Kapičić)

• Kate Laswell (voiced by Rya Kihlstedt)

However, regardless of the game’s positivity, there were controversies around how

protagonists and antagonists are portrayed in the game based on real-life events. The

biggest controversy was around a mission in the game called “Highway of Death”. In this

mission, the gamer played the character “Alex”, in an attempt to stop Russian APCs

(Armored Personnel Carriers) from going through the highway.

This mission caused controversy due to it portraying a real-life event in 1991, that

happened on Highway 80, which connects Iraq and Kuwait. In a nutshell, the American-led coalition force, including the US; the UK; Canada; and France, was responsible for the attack on the highway and on the Iraqi army.

Nonetheless, 2019 Modern Warfare used the background of the event to portray both sides differently. The Russian Army in this mission was the American-led coalition force

because in the game, the Russian Army bombed the highway to prevent civilians from

escaping.

Not just this mission alone, the entire campaign stereotyped the Russians as the main

antagonist, and which the gamers will have to fight against, besides Al-Qatala, which is the in-game version of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Both of the antagonists, either by accident or intention, were stereotyped, which Stuart Hall would argue.