TEST
This is the story of an indispensable that has become ... dispensable. Call of Duty , one of the most popular franchises in the history of video games (about 300 million sold since 2003), is back in force for the holidays with a new opus: Modern Warfare (available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One). After years of games mostly uninteresting, Call of Duty offers an unexpected renewal by taking an interest, and this is unheard of, the plight of civilians, collateral victims of conflict.
A promising license leaded by laziness
For children of the 90s, Call of Duty is an iconic franchise that sulphurous. Hyperrealistic war games with their first-person view, games that all teenagers were looking to play despite the prohibition to under-18s that hit the license since its debut in 2003. It must be said that there was something troubling to put in the uniform of a soldier preparing to land on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944.
After some very successful first games, Call of Duty has lost its flavor. By dint of getting closer in time, the action of the games ended, at the turn of the 2010s, by moving into a future always more distant. War in space, weapons that send balls of energy, exoskeletons ... These experiments have removed the human aspect of conflict. And the Call of Duty has become mindless games, without history, with soldiers without soul, simple machines to shoot in conflict without stake. But the games continued to sell very well, more for the multiplayer than for his meaningless solo campaigns.
An unexpected renewal
The announcement of the new annual episode, the 16th, did not really raise the crowds. Especially since it was presented as a "reboot" of the series of Modern Warfar e, started in 2007. Our curiosity fueled by the first trailers, we are still launched in the campaign mode of this Call of Duty : Modern Warfare . And what was our surprise to discover a breathtaking story, relatively realistic and above all ... human.
As its name suggests, this Modern Warfare depicts modern war, with a clear inspiration drawn from the side of Syria. For the story, everything starts with an attack that takes place right in the center of London. Attack claimed by a fictitious terrorist organization, Al-Qatala, which happens to be in possession of chemical weapons. Faced with major risk, the CIA and the SAS, the British special forces, mounted a joint operation to flush out the leaders of the organization in Urzikstan, a fictitious country too, occupied in part by Russian troops. Russian troops who kill and oppress locals suspected of collaborating with terrorists and fought by a rebel faction.
A complex scenario, therefore, with much more subtle stakes than those of the previous components. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare rightly depicts the gray zone in which today's conflicts unfold. Everyone is on site but officially, no one is involved in anything. In the game, the Russians do not take gloves but no one dares to attack them diplomatically because they officially target the Al-Qatala terrorists. Opposite, the Americans are using the rebels in exchange for support that does not exceed the status of promise. "The terrorist of one is the freedom fighter of the other", as the formula Taylor Kurosaki, the main scriptwriter of the single-player campaign.
Multiple points of view and varied missions
The story is all the more interesting because it is experienced by the player through the eyes of three very different characters. There is Alex Jones, an experienced CIA agent but less and less comfortable with his country's diplomatic jackets. Joining him is Sergeant SAS Kyle Garrick, who discovers the atrocity of the war once on the ground. Finally, we have repeatedly played a woman, a first in Call of Duty : Farah Karim, commander of the rebels of Urzikstan, whose point of view is without hesitation the most interesting. All three are captioned by Captain Price, veteran rogue and strategist, a recurring character of the franchise Call of Duty .
From the onslaught of a London house serving as a base for terrorists to the tunnels of their landmarks in Urzikstan, to Russian military complexes, the missions of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare campaign are varied enough to compensate for their low duration (7 or 8 hours). In a nutshell, the graphics of the game are very successful, both in terms of the design of the characters and the richness of the sets.
Remains the question of the ultra-realism of Modern Warfare : several sequences such as the bombing in London and some scenes of "muscular" interrogations are so realistic that they can shock, especially young players. They are generally put in perspective by cinematics in which the main characters express their moral questions. And it is impossible to kill civilians or allies, even by mistake, on pain of resuming the mission. But is that enough? The question needs to be asked.
We also regret some scriptural mistakes, for lack of knowing on what foot to dance: mixing real and fictional countries and existing and invented organizations, the game sometimes takes the feet in the carpet, as noted Le Monde . Thus, the mission of the "Death Road" makes explicit reference to the bombing by the United States, Canada, France and the United Kingdom, of Iraqi troops who were retreating during the Gulf War, in February 1991. Except that, in the game, it is the Russians who ordered these bombings. A rude addition that forces the "anti-Russian" aspect of the game.
Civilian victims put forward
This kind of historical largesse could have been prohibitive for this Call of Duty . But the game is overtaken by its excellent intentions in dealing with the war. Call of Duty has often been criticized for portraying too much of the war, with its quota of flawless heroes in uniform and gratuitous violence. A problematic vision when we know that, despite the ban to 18 years, the series is very popular with teenagers.
With Modern Warfare , Call of Duty seems to have finally taken its responsibilities. The scenario thus addresses the issue of war crimes head on and gives a significant and unprecedented place to the plight of civilian populations victims of these wars by proxy. "When the rich make war, it is the poor who die": the quote of Sartre, posted among others when one dies in the game, has never been applied as well as in this Call of Duty : Modern Warfare .
The atrocities of the war are notably evoked through the character of Farah Karim, the rebel commander, an obvious tribute to Kurdish fighting units in Syria. Thanks to flashbacks, we learn that the Russians killed Farah's family in a bombardment, before gassing the city. But, extremely strong idea: it is not told in a cinematic, it is a playable sequence. Exit the soldiers, the time of a memorable sequence, we embody a little girl, first stuck under the debris of her house, then forced to flee the devastated city by avoiding Russian soldiers and gas. In a war game, it's a new and really welcome point of view.
To tell the war from the point of view of civilian casualties, the developers worked with different consultants, in addition to the traditional Marines for the military aspect. In this case, conflict specialists in the Middle East and war correspondents able to tell the daily lives of the people of an occupied country. The war is not a game and Call of Duty finally seems to have understood.
Our opinion :
All is not perfect in this Call of Duty: Modern Warfare but Activision leaves this time with encouragement. The lazy student from the back of the class has gone back to making efforts and the potential glimpsed at the beginning is still there. Very captivating, the single-player campaign of the game excited us as rarely a Call of Duty had managed to do it. If it were not for the few amazing arrangements made with historical reality and a short life span, we would be fully satisfied. But we must really applaud the progress that has been made in reporting the horror of war.
Note that the multiplayer, which we have not mentioned here, remains faithful to the previous components: clashes between players on limited land with varying goals. Nothing very original to emphasize but fans of the genre will find their account.