this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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I know you may not mean it literally but I have to defend the beginning of Call of Duty, I may be wrong but I doubt the first two games were made by the US. The first two Call of Duty games weren't perfect but they really impressed me because they let you play as a soldier in the Red Army. I had never seen a game that showed the Soviet perspective first-hand and positively at that. I don't think the US would fund a game doing that, especially since the later games vilify Russians.
That being said, the US definitely started funding Call of Duty games eventually though!
The early CoD games actually helped inoculate me against the soy brained “the Nazis and soviets are the same” bullshit. Sure, there was some enemy at the gate nonsense. That doesn’t mean a game whose strongest narrative arc is on the eastern front and revolves around the degree of dedication and sacrifice that was found there isn’t neutral at worst. You literally start a mission working in a tank factory and the tutorial is you, the soon to be hero of the Soviet Union and former factory worker, being like “oh shit, Nazis here let’s get in the tank I just finished working on”.
The first game is a bit cringe when it comes to ussr but cod 2 and especially world at war are just incredible. Was there anything particularly problematic about the depiction of the ussr in world at war? I just remember reznov being exceptionally cool and storming Berlin and having much fun doing so. Been a really long time since i played any
The intended message of the Soviet campaign for world at war was supposed to show the player the brutality of the Soviet army in its vengeful campaign against the Germans. There is a moral mechanic that isn’t present in the American campaign at all where certain decisions affect the ending of the Soviet campaign. Things like executing surrendering Germans is a bad decision and will give you the evil ending for example.
The obvious problem with this is killing Nazis is cool and good so it kinda flys over your head as the player and the message is kinda lost. It also didn’t help that they made Reznov easily one of the most memorable characters in the entire cod franchise.
They tried to make me feel bad but it wasnt working. Reznov is my Lenin