2023-10-29 09:00:24
Even hardened military personnel celebrate their birthday: Call of Duty blows out its twenty candles on Sunday October 29. With more than 400 million copies sold since 2003, the game from Activision Blizzard, the American publisher recently bought by Microsoft, has been one of the powerhouses of the video game industry. But if Call of Duty is today acclaimed for its online multiplayer mode, this was not the case at its beginnings: it was above all very cinematic military campaigns (lasting six to ten hours) which shaped the identity and the success of these first-person shooter games.
The first “Call of Duty” was released on PC. INFINITY WARD / ACTIVISION
From the first episode, released in 2003 and which plunges the player into the Second World War, the game is full of references to the seventh art: “ With a careful rhythm, convincing dialogues and a very complete visual presentation, [Call of Duty] is one of those games that are similar to an interactive film »then notes the American specialized site IGN.
Spielberg’s inspiration
At the time, Call of Duty borrows this formula in another way: Medal of Honor (1999). Its creator, who is none other than Hollywood giant Steven Spielberg, asked his studio, DreamWorks Interactive, to recreate the intensity of the battles in his film in a video game. We have to save the soldier Ryan (1998). Inspired by his son Max (now game designer), the American director is convinced that this type of game can be as educational as it is entertaining.
The historical approach imagined by Steven Spielberg goes against the grain of current fashion. Science fiction is featured in most flagship shooter games, like Quake II (1997) or Half Life (1998). Unpredictable, the success of Medal of Honor accompanies a public enthusiasm for blockbusters on the Second World War, which is confirmed with the series Band of Brothers (2001), produced by Steven Spielberg, or the films Stalingrad (2001) et Pearl Harbour (2002).
“Medal of Honor” (1999) has aged less well than “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). DREAMWORKS INTERACTIVE / ELECTRONIC ARTS
Activision is therefore capitalizing on the success of the game published by its rival Electronic Arts by launching Call of Duty, Infinity Ward’s first production. The majority of the studio members are even former developers of Medal of Honor: Allied landing, poached by the company. The team succeeds in beefing up the recipe: original soundtrack, sound design, scriptwriting, research into vintage weapons and vehicles… everything is there to evoke a Hollywood blockbuster.
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More Call of Duty releasing at the rate of one episode per year, Activision quickly found itself running out of ammunition to tell the conflict of 1939-1945. To avoid repetition, Infinity Ward is therefore catapulting the license into the near future with Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare (2007).
The usual ingredients of a Call of Duty are there, except that the action takes place in 2011 and the missions are more spectacular, explains to Monde Michael Wagnières, graduate assistant in the aesthetic history of cinema section at the University of Lausanne: “We travel a lot more throughout the world, we really have a kind of visual dazzle and we are constantly on the verge of death. This takes up the codes of classic action and adventure films, such as Indiana Jones, by transposing them into a modern war context. »
Entering the post-9/11 era
The scenario above all deploys new geopolitical intrigues and the new missions find themselves haunted by the anxieties of contemporary America. « Call of Duty connects and reinforces the imagination of post-9/11 geopolitics conveyed by the tabloids”notes researcher Frédérick Gagnon in 2010, in the article « Call of Duty and the (Re) Writing of Militarism in U.S. Digital Games and Popular Culture » (not translated).
“The series repeats to players that ‘we’ are constantly on the brink of war with other international actors, such as Arab terrorists and Russia, who will not hesitate to invade ‘our country’ and attack ‘us’ with nuclear weapons », analyzes this professor in the political science department of the University of Quebec in Montreal. The three parts of Modern Warfare thus convey a rhetoric which “glorifies the American war machine and minimizes the monstrosities of war”.
The dehumanization of war victims and the disempowerment of the player are usual aspects of the franchise, deplores Michael Wagnières, of the University of Lausanne. INFINITY WARD / ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
This way of drawing inspiration from contemporary international issues to nourish fictional stories is of course not new – all films Mission impossible or those featuring James Bond are an example. Michael Wagnières nevertheless notices a certain gap between the Hollywood industry and Call of Duty in their approach to war: “Many “mainstream” American films have approached conflicts in the Middle East in an ambiguous manner. For example, American Sniper, Minesweepers or the series Homeland. »
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On the contrary, Call of Duty remains faithful to the Manichaeism of its beginnings: “This simplistic point of view is directly inherited from American films on the Second World War, the camps of “good” and that of “evil” are clearly distinguished”says Mr. Wagnières. Call of Duty simply applies this reading grid to all eras, whether for past or present conflicts or those imagined in the future.
Read the decryption: “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare”, a suspicious rewriting of conflicts in the Middle East
The rise of multiplayer
However, in twenty years, the campaigns of Call of Duty have lost their impact. This “interactive film” which was so fascinating in 2003 is no longer the ideal to achieve for a video game. The majority of players are rather passionate about its online multiplayer mode, as noted by British researcher Daniel Bos, after conducting interviews with around thirty of them.
Dans l’article « Answering the Call of Duty : Everyday encounters with the popular geopolitics of military-themed videogames » (2018, untranslated), he cites for example the young Dean, 19 years old: “I bet a lot of people aren’t interested in history. This is the case with my friends, they skip all the cutscenes. While maybe that’s the best part [de la campagne]. »
This lack of curiosity is reflected in most of the testimonies. The players “ say they don’t focus on or get invested in the characters, landscapes, or geopolitical intrigue”concludes this professor from the University of Chester.
The character of Ghost, very popular with players, in “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III”, available on PC, PlayStation (4 and 5) and Xbox (One and Series) from November 8. SLEDGEHAMMER GAMES / ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
Despite this weariness, also observed elsewhereActivision Blizzard only removed single player missions once, in Call of Duty : Black Ops 4 (2018). Because these scripted campaigns have the advantage of distinguishing each annual episode, the formula of which is always quite similar.
For the third remake of Modern Warfareavailable November 8, the teaser also highlights the scenario to appeal to connoisseurs: the creators will replay the story of an iconic antagonist and announce the return ofa very controversial mission called “No Russian”in which the player is required to take part in a mass killing.
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