Latest Call of Duty game asks players to consider war's cost

Early in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the player character’s best friend is killed in combat. Immediately afterward, Jack Mitchell reflects, “when you lose over 6,000 men in four hours, its easy for one death to become just another number. But all I knew was that my best friend was gone.” As Mitchell speaks, the screen shows an aircraft carrier being loaded with countless caskets of fallen soldiers. The camera then turns to the body of Will Irons, Mitchell’s deceased best friend, being cleaned by a mortician. Will’s lifeless body is pale, his face deeply scarred, and his wedding ring lies in a puddle of blood on a tray beside the mortician. When the cutscene ends and I am given control of Mitchell to begin the game, I find myself at Will’s funeral, standing before his casket, being asked to pay my respects.

“Press square to pay respects” the game instructs. I hold down the square button and Mitchell places his hand upon Will’s casket until I let go of the button. “Objective completed,” the game informs me. Critics say this scene trivializes grief, but given the specious nature of most military video games, I found it refreshing to be asked to press a button to do something humane.

This sequence reminded me of William Tecumseh Sherman’s letter to the mayor of Atlanta prior to the siege of the city: “War is cruelty … you cannot refine it.” Don’t get me wrong, Advanced Warfare is at least as bombastic as its predecessors and this moment quickly gives way to gunning down countless terrorists with high-powered guns and machinery. Nonetheless, Advanced Warfare stands out from its predecessors in that it asks players to acknowledge the human cost of war.

On its surface, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare looks like a typical male power fantasy. The game is set in the 2050s, when most soldiers are armed with robotic “exoskeletons” that allow them to jump higher, run faster, hit harder, shoot ziplines across levels, and survive falls from great heights. This makes for combat that feels much more frantic and fast-paced that previous Call of Duty games, which tend to funnel players from cover to cover while throwing swarms of enemies at them. While the exoskeleton would seem to represent everything that is wrong with violent war games, it serves to illustrate the important contrast between the player character and other characters in Advanced Warfare that are all too often neglected in war games: civilians.

Advanced Warfare’s battles tend to erupt in unexpected places. In one level, players are forced to chase a wanted terrorist and his mercenaries through a bustling Greek city. Other battles take place at research facilities, public bridges, and technology summits. In my playthrough, I was surprised by the number of times I found myself accidentally shooting civilians who were merely trying to escape the carnage I was complicit in. Each time, I was forced to restart from the last checkpoint the same as if my character had died in battle. The game informed me I had abused my power. This is a stark contrast to Modern Warfare 2, which only features civilians in an optional level that allows players to gun down unarmed civilians in a Russian airport. The presence of civilians in Advanced Warfare not only asks players to consider the consequences of war but forces them to use the game’s rather insane tools and weapons with restraint.

It should be noted that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is rated Mature for blood, gore, intense violence, and some language. And despite its attempts to get the player thinking about the consequences of war, the primary objective is the same as it has always been: shoot and kill piles of enemies. If you are looking for a thoughtful interactive treatment of war, games like Spec Ops: The Line and the forthcoming This War of Mine are more likely to provide compelling experiences. But neither of those will be played by one-tenth the number of people who will play Advanced Warfare. Because of that, I find it encouraging that the game asks more of players than merely pulling a trigger.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was developed by Sledgehammer Games, published by Activision and is available on Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows.