WW2 #33: Call of Duty: Ghosts
Infinity Ward showed it’s just a ghost of its former self
This review was originally posted to Twitter on February 28, 2020.
Initial release: November 5, 2013
Platform: PC/PlayStation 3/PlayStation 4/XBox 360/XBox One/Wii U
Developer: Infinity Ward
With multiple perspectives and a theme of international cooperation, it can be a bit of a stretch to call Call of Duty 1 and 2 of being jingoistic, in spite of their clearly movie-inspired design and general focus on action over story. So how did it come to this where a decade later the franchise turned, almost irrevocably, into fascist propaganda? I suppose it was inevitable considering how Call of Duty had long been a recruiting tool for the United States military to begin with. The original Modern Warfare trilogy edged at it while pretending to be satire, but Call of Duty: Ghosts just gives full in to the traditional fascist narrative of weak vs strong and national rebirth.
And it’s obvious to see how this happened; Treyarch at the time was far more cynical, focusing on historical American adventurism in the Cold War period, whereas Infinity Ward seemed to have lost a piece of its soul when half of its staff — including two of its founders — walked out during Modern Warfare 3’s development. It’s never been the same since, especially since this was around when the franchise really began to become embedded in our imperialist culture. The game’s release coincided with that of an album by everyone’s favorite rapping white misogynist, Eminem, and indeed included a track in the credits, which seemed to further cement the link between Call of Duty and popped-collar-wearing bros with questionable opinions on race and gender — exactly the kind of shithead the Pentagon wants. Drawing a line from Call of Duty 4 in 2007 to Modern Warfare 2019, you can see how the company’s outlook has changed dramatically.
It’s obvious to me that Ghosts is where things began to change — and boy, did they ever. With screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (Syriana, Traffic) at the helm, Infinity Ward have churned out a plot that’s incoherent, sketchy and, in short, appallingly fucking stupid.
It’s the near future. Who cares when, five years from now maybe. The Middle East is little more than a radioactive cinder, its oil flow stopped. In the ensuing economic crisis, oil-rich South America unites to become a continent-wide superpower called the South American Federation.
The Federation and the United States are at odds with each other but have maintained an uneasy truce, until the Federation takes over a US-owned orbital strike satellite network and uses it against the United States, softening it up for an invasion. The whole thing is painted as happening because the Federation — an entire continent’s worth of people, most of whom are varying shades of not-white — are strong, and the US is “weak.” So that’s fascist propaganda talking point #1.
Cue a timeskip of ten years, and the US has built a 100-foot-tall wall from LA to florida to keep the invaders out. Nice. What’s left of the US has been turned into a police state of sorts, and the Los Angeles area is on the front line, with “no man’s land” just outside the wall. This is where the game stops really talking about its broader universe. The villains are painted in broad strokes — we get no sense of their politics or their culture. Other than a flashback sequence, we don’t even see any of their leaders. They’re a faceless “other.” None of the real meaty worldbuilding details are in the game’s campaign, but exist solely within files you can find by collecting laptops (yep, more goddamn collectibles.) By being relegated to collectibles, that info ceases to exist or be relevant. This is Call of Duty, people come here to shoot motherfuckers, not read. So why even talk about it?
The core of this moronic plot, filled with as many holes as the Federation put into the US, is a mawkish drama between the leader of a special ops unit, the “Ghosts” (hence the name), his two sons (one of whom you play) and his former commander, brainwashed and wanting revenge. Oh did I mention that the brainwashing was done using torture techniques perfected by “ancient tribes deep in the Amazon?” It’s the kind of stereotyping that Marvel Comics used to do.
This game sucks.
Like, it was obviously intended to be Infinity Ward’s big spiritual successor to Modern Warfare. And as such it’s got a lot of the Modern Warfare bombast to it; it looks and feels like a Modern Warfare game, it plays like one too, with some twists like space and underwater combat. I mean, that’s a good thing, right? It’s fun. It’s gorgeous. I like the post-apocalyptic scenery that’s all too brief. There’s some great sequences such as using a remote sniper rifle. They even had a tank mission reminiscent of Call of Duty 2’s classic “Crusader tank charge” level. Plus there’s a stealth-oriented sequence in the jungle that calls to mind Metal Gear Solid 3, all too short but quite entertaining, and hinting at what Call of Duty could be, rather than what it typically is.
But while it’s not as iterative as Modern Warfare 3 was, it still manages to not be as big a change in the formula as you might expect. Normally when Call of Duty does this, there’s at least an engaging plot. Ghosts can’t even do that. It’s just incredibly stupid. Worse, it ends on a cliffhanger. If you haven’t kept up on the franchise, there hasn’t been a sequel yet — not even 10 years later. And probably never will be. This entire story arc is dead in the water. Perhaps it’s for the best. I mean, I called this fascist propaganda. Do you really want more of that?
Add to this a copious amount of bugs and technical problems — most of which were resolved early on but a few remain persistent, such as cutscenes having sound issues with v-sync on — and this game was doomed from the start. Infinity Ward really screwed the pooch with this one.
I don’t know. I’ve clung grimly onto this franchise since it was just a couple of World War II games, but revisiting it has had me seriously re-examining my tastes and the formative titles of my twenties. Ghosts is especially dire and makes me feel bad for playing it.
