Our author Sven has fought through the campaign of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and states in his preview that it offers the best single-player experience of a CoD installment in years. However, one thing bothers him greatly.
How does the story play out in the new Modern Warfare 2019? On October 25, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare celebrated its release. While many dive into the multiplayer part of the game, there are also some players who are looking forward to the single-player campaign of the new Modern Warfare and started there first – including our author Sven.
Here you will find out what he thinks of the campaign and here, how the new Modern Warfare performs in initial tests.
This is how I find the story of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
This is what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare had to measure up to: I am a “Call of Duty” fan from the beginning and loved the story of Modern Warfare 1-3 and really enjoyed it. Sure, it wasn’t very deep, but still exciting due to my involvement in the events, spectacularly implemented, and very entertaining – like a good action movie.
Since then, no other CoD installment has impressed me in terms of story.
I love this about the new campaign
This is what I have been waiting for: Accordingly, my hopes for the story of the new Modern Warfare reboot were high. Now I have almost finished the single-player campaign and must say as a player: This is the best story I’ve played since the last Modern Warfare from 2011 – at least if I completely disregard a certain aspect. But more on that later.
This is why I love the story: The new Modern Warfare finally offers me the single-player experience I’ve been longing for in Call of Duty for years. I finally felt like I was in an exciting action movie.
Without wanting to spoil much, but the story is indeed exciting – after the ending, I absolutely want to know how it continues. The atmosphere is simply breathtaking.
As a player, it feels like you’re in the middle of it when an attack occurs in central London, and you engage in a firefight with terrorists in a crowded pedestrian area amidst all the chaos.
It crackles as an SAS access team infiltrates a house full of terrorists and encounters women and even a baby. And the player is right in the middle of it.
The operations as a CIA agent alongside rebels in the Middle East are also really well done in terms of gameplay.
You can find out more about the story here: Is the campaign of CoD Modern Warfare as intense as announced?
Who should check out the story? In short: Even though most people probably buy Call of Duty for the multiplayer – I can only recommend to everyone to play the new campaign or at least give it a try:
- Anyone who generally enjoys story in Call of Duty surely won’t go wrong.
- And those who are not into stories might discover that the single-player part is definitely worth a detour.
The story of Modern Warfare plays out like an action film from Hollywood, in which you are the hero. If you’re looking for a challenge and a denser atmosphere, you can also play it on realism – with only minimal display aids and limited tolerance for damage.
And if you don’t like the story, it was still not in vain. Because through the campaign, you can also unlock things that you can use in multiplayer.
And that’s why my heart bleeds for the story of Modern Warfare
What specifically bothers me: As cool as I find the story of the new Modern Warfare, a certain aspect bothers me greatly, where the developers show a lack of sensitivity in my opinion. Only if I completely disregard this aspect can I enjoy the game.
I must admit that for the first time I feel attacked by a game as a Russian native.
While playing, I sometimes didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – and that was apparently visible. Because my wife often had to chuckle and said that she had never seen me so emotionally stirred by a game.
Specifically, I am concerned about the demonizing portrayal of Russia, which in my opinion has almost the character of a political smear campaign that bears little resemblance to reality.
This is how Russia is portrayed in Modern Warfare: The story resorts to nearly all the crude clichés and prejudices about Russians that one can imagine. I have never experienced this in any other video game – not even in the original three Modern Warfare installments, where Russia was also portrayed as an adversary.
I don’t want to open a can of worms or start a political discussion, but in my opinion, Modern Warfare has clearly gone overboard here.
Thus, the Russian armed forces embody one of the antagonists against whom one takes up arms in the campaign. The Russians are consistently depicted as murderous, pillaging, drunken, and almost mindless beasts who brutally mistreat civilians in a fictional country in the Middle East – for fun and whenever possible:
- Russians essentially provide terrorists with chemical weapons
- Women are raped
- Children are shot
- The country is bombed senselessly
- The Russian general attempts to exterminate the population through birth control
- Some citizens are simply publicly hanged
- Others are made to work like slaves
- Still, others are just shot for fun
Does reality really look like this? Actually, Modern Warfare aspired to portray the realities of war credibly. There was supposed to be no black or white. Instead, the campaign should show that war consists of shifting shades of gray.
However, in my opinion, you can’t present a clearer black and white. American “missteps” go entirely unmentioned, just like the fact that Russia is also fighting against global terrorism. But we don’t want to talk about that here.
Bashing worse than in the 90s: Everything related to Russia is consistently portrayed as negative, evil, and barbaric. Essentially, Russia is almost exaggeratedly built up as a greater enemy than the actual adversary “The Wolf” and his terrorist organization, which is in view.
Whenever possible, the Russians are attacked. The Russia-bashing sometimes escalates to the point where it makes even really bad 90s action movies or old James Bond films look pale.
Unfortunately, this runs through the entire campaign, unnecessarily giving it a bitter aftertaste (in my opinion) and largely coming across as artificial and ridiculous.
Even my wife had to ask me laughingly, “Which stuck-in-the-past US hawk wrote the script for this?” when she watched me play for a while.
Why this disappoints me: As a native Russian, I feel hurt and disappointed at the same time. It’s pretty uncool when you feel like your favorite game series thinks of you as an asshole.
After some conversations with friends I’m probably not alone in this. Because the image painted here of Russia hardly corresponds to reality, is one-sided, and presents Russians as the greatest evil of the present. I have never experienced such a thing in video games before.
What do you think of the portrayal of Russia in Modern Warfare? Unnecessarily exaggerated and over the top? Or is it acceptable for a video game with a primarily fictional setting?
The biggest problem is that the game has a wide reach and is played by many young people. And this impression could stick with many, which would be really unfortunate.
My Conclusion on the story of Modern Warfare 2019
Is Modern Warfare a bad game because of this? In my opinion, this is the only aspect that significantly diminishes the otherwise largely successful experience within the campaign for me personally at times.
If I disregard this, I get the best single-player experience of Call of Duty since 2011, which could have been even better with a bit more sensitivity – at least for me.
And that you can handle it better and more elegantly with Russia as an opponent was something game developers had already proven with Modern Warfare 1-3.
What do you think of the portrayal of Russia in Modern Warfare? Unnecessarily exaggerated and over the top? Or is it acceptable for a video game with a primarily fictional setting?
