With Modern Warfare, Call of Duty 2019 receives a title that aims to impress with its brutal and realistic portrayal of modern warfare in the campaign. However, the developers want to draw a line regarding the impacts of nerve gas.
This is how realistic Modern Warfare is: The developers have come up with special techniques to achieve maximum realism:
- For example, the mechanics of a complete Navy SEAL team are said to have been adopted so that the missions come across as particularly realistic and modern.
- The team has also scanned real locations to transfer them 1:1 into the game.
This is where the line is drawn: In one mission, it involves the use of nerve gas. Here, the developers deliberately do not show the scenes after its use, but let players only sense the suffering. So, a clear line is drawn here.
They look away from nerve gas – But why?
Modern Warfare wants to show how brutal modern warfare is. For this, they show the latest weapon systems and the player is confronted with the suffering that these weapons cause.
This is the scene with the exception: In one mission, rogue Russian soldiers throw canisters of nerve gas at the civilian population. However, the horrific reality of this weapon and its effects on people are not shown.
Instead, the camera turns away. Afterward, you can see through the eyes of children what the nerve gas has caused.
Why is an exception made here? This question was also posed by the US site Polygon to Jacob Minkoff, a designer of the new Call of Duty.
He explains that it was important during development for the player to get as realistic an impression of modern warfare as possible, but a line was deliberately drawn in certain places.
Thus, Minkoff explains that they did not shy away from showing such horrific scenes, but it was important how it all fits with the narrative. He believes that the scenes shown already describe well the suffering that such a weapon can cause. A detailed insight was not deemed necessary.
“There was never a point where we said to ourselves: “We shouldn’t show this.” What we want to ensure, however, is that we show the right amount, […]
Jacob Minkoff to Polygon
The actual effects of nerve gas—the vomiting, breathlessness, loss of control over bladder and bowel, and muscle contractions that can break the back—were apparently something the developers decided to spare the players.
What does this mean for the game? Modern Warfare will continue to show shocking images and the use of nerve gas will be depicted brutally realistically for the players.
The developers only draw a line between what players should see to understand the story and the images that depict the story as too brutal.
What do you think of this decision? Can you understand it?
