'The latest installment of the Call of Duty franchise ‘Modern Warfare’ hopes to add newfound realism to the game, highlighting the “morally gray” side of modern proxy wars, but so far it seems to be more ‘oorah’ Western propaganda.
According to early media previews, the new first-person shooter will take place in the fictional Middle Eastern country Urzikstan and will be inspired by the Kurdish YPG’s fight against so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in the Syrian civil war. So far, so good? Not quite.
Having previously sided with terrorists to indiscriminately execute civilians in a false flag attack at Moscow airport earlier in the franchise players can now take up arms alongside Western-backed, alleged Al-Qaeda affiliates the White Helmets.
“There’s this whole other side of war today that is real, that’s happening, and to ignore it or not cover it felt like it would be a terrible, terrible omission,” game writer Taylor Kurosaki told the LA Times. “It wouldn’t be doing justice to the unintended victims in these wars and the unsung heroes of these wars.”
In this case unsung heroes are dodgy “aid workers” with a chequered past, shadowy backers and extremist friends.
The designers reportedly name-checked both the ‘Last Men in Aleppo’ and the Academy Award-winning ‘White Helmets’ documentaries at a preview of the game at Infinity Ward’s Los Angeles headquarters recently.
The White Helmets feature twice in the game’s trailer: firstly, when they come under attack from presumably Russian aircraft while they are among civilians in a town square and secondly, when they are helping an injured civilian on a stretcher.'
Read more: White Helmets and ‘Russian’ nerve gas: New Call of Duty trailer is modern propaganda at its finest
