This year’s upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare aims to return to the franchise’s roots, both in terms of gameplay and storytelling. While most recent CoD games have played it pretty safe, the series used to have a reputation for pushing buttons, and word is the new soft reboot will return to that approach with a Middle Eastern setting and a focus on the current realities of war.
Not everybody’s excited to see CoD go the edgy route again, including, it seems, franchise veteran Michael Condrey. The Call of Duty: WWII director, who left Activision last year to launch a new studio for 2K Games, recently offered his frank thoughts on the challenges the new Modern Warfare faces. He also seemed to imply the game's edgy direction may be a headline-grabbing ploy by Activision…
I respect every developer who strives to deliver their work as an extension or reflection of their artistic vision. That said, [Modern Warfare] seems like a tough challenge for any studio, especially if they are being pushed by publishing to be more controversial and ‘darker’ for the sake of headlines.
The creative challenges of realistic ‘modern warfare’ are complex. Western ‘heroes’ killing ‘villains’ in the Middle East simply isn’t good enough. Equally, I hope the game’s stated goal to depict the realism of war was an unfortunate choice of words, rather than the actual intent to depicting the unspeakable atrocities that are the reality of today’s modern conflicts.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developers Infinity Ward have responded to the chatter generated by Condrey’s comments, insisting they’re “making the exact game we want to make.”
To be very clear, we’re making the exact game we want to make, and we can’t wait until October 25th.
— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) June 26, 2019
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare takes the fight to PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on October 25. What do you think? Are you anticipating the game’s edgier story?
