The line is a declaration of sorts, a renewed mission for the Call of Duty series: to take the stakes of war seriously.
“We’re trying to make things much more realistic, much more visceral this time, so that if you kill a single civilian you feel bad, because you might see a woman go for a gun, but instead she’s going to grab her baby.” Modern Warfare gameplay director Jacob Minkoff told PC GamesN, offering an example of the Call of Duty approach to battlefield moral murk.
But the reveal of new Killstreaks, a multiplayer feature not included in the game since 2010’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, points to a limitation on Modern Warfare’s exploration of wartime morality.
“Own the opposition - reap the rewards,” Call of Duty social media posted. “Killstreaks return in Modern Warfare.”
A Killstreak is a reward for killing a certain number of other players in a row, without dying. First introduced in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Killstreak rewards have included defensive perks, like 30 seconds of tracking your enemies by radar, but are mostly offensive: airstrikes, helicopter attacks, artillery, attack dogs, drone missiles, gunships and tactical nukes.
The new Modern Warfare, out in October, has three Killstreaks announced so far: “Juggernaut” assault gear, an “Infantry Assault Vehicle” and “White Phosphorus,” which is depicted as an airstrike, fired from rocket pods.
“Cover the battlefield with white smoke flare canisters that will disorient the enemy, and burn any that wander too close,” the description reads. The passive language — with phosphorus accidentally burning bumbling bystanders — belies how white phosphorus is deployed on real battlefields (and likely how it will be used by players).
White phosphorus is ostensibly a defensive tool, obscuring troop movements with smoke, but it can also be deployed as an offensive weapon, since it melts skin and burns flesh away to the bone. It has been deployed in the field by Russia, the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, with the last two using U.S.-supplied munitions. Its use against civilian populations is so inflammatory, the accusation of its use has propaganda value, as in 2014, when Russian state media manufactured a montage of false footage to claim Ukraine used WP munitions on a village.
The United States has admitted to using white phosphorus as a method of attack in Iraq, particularly during the first and second Battle of Fallujah in 2004. The documentary Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre found widespread evidence that civilian deaths were a known consequence of the munitions’ deployment in an urban area with 30-50,000 civilians.
The United States has profited off of the ambiguity between white phosphorus’ defensive and offensive deployment, like using a medicine off-label for its known side effects (in this case burning people to death). In 2005, the New York Times documented how the United States cited Saddam Hussein’s use of white phosphorus in its case for invading Iraq, only to turn around and deploy the “ghastly weapon,” tarnishing “America’s credibility on international treaties and the rules of warfare” with “shake and bake” attacks in populated, civilian areas.
With its sports-like structure and essential irreality, Call of Duty multiplayer isn’t a natural venue for exploring the morality of white phosphorus. But will its in-game appearance elide widespread international condemnations of white phosphorus, normalizing it as just another legitimate weapon in the U.S. military playbook?
Newsweek has reached out to Activision for clarification on how white phosphorus will operate within the game, particularly whether it will allow its weaponized deployment against multiplayer competitors or against civilians in the single-player campaign, but did not hear back in time for publication.
Infinity Ward and publisher Activision’s have close ties to the U.S. military, collaborating with military entertainment liaisons, who commonly dictate how the U.S. military is depicted in movies in exchange for access to military personnel, equipment and locations. Military and media research site Spy Culture documents how Activision radically altered their plans for a game, likely 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, after the military “expressed concern that scenario being considered involves future war with China.” Call of Duty: Modern Warfare worked specifically with Navy SEALs, who demonstrated assault tactics at developer Infinity Ward’s offices.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s campaign will address tough, snap decisions made in the field — after completing each mission players are graded with a collateral damage score, from A to F (the punishment for killing three civilians or more). But there’s more than burning your opponents with white phosphorus that suggests Modern Warfare’s “fine line between right and wrong” can just as easily obscure as illuminate. Instead, there is good reason to believe Modern Warfare will continue the series’ tradition of depicting civilian deaths as deliberate from Russian or Middle Eastern enemies, but accidental when its the United States, even with munitions as intentionally death-dealing as white phosphorus.
