Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign review: a work of empty genius

I feel like it’s in the spirit of Modern Warfare 2: Call of DutyLet me start by stating that this campaign has 17 missions. I’m trying to be dispassionate as well as schematic. Sixteen are very good. Five of them are what we might conversationally describe as “OK.” Three of them are bad. These three other are among the worst Call of Duty games ever made, regardless of whether they were Treyarch, Infinity Ward or Sledgehammer Game creators.

By this forensic appraisal, Modern Warfare 2’s campaign is generally, verifiably OK, in the sense of being neutral. If this were a set of Bluetooth headphones or an 18-button mouse, and I were advising you how to invest in a new and broadly competent electronic device, Modern Warfare 2 would be a “buy” recommendation. I could hereby confirm the product you receive from Activision is worth the exchange of your $70 — or $23, if you approximately slice Modern Warfare into thirds, and take the campaign solely as its own product.

Image: Infinity Ward/Activision

Writing in the spirit Modern Warfare II — as in, schematically, dispassionately, edgelessly — means also writing about it in a way that, throughout many of its aforementioned 17 missions (at a rate of around $4.11 per mission, again excluding multiplayer) is to be hoodwinked or fooled; to play ball with developer Infinity Ward, which repeatedly tries to convince you its game is anodyne and convictionless and not trying to do anything provocative. It swears.

They use this technique to encourage, praise, and congratulate each other as playable characters, protagonists, and in-game friends.

“How do we get him back?”

“By breaking in.”

“And that’s why I love the Ghost.”

Or you can watch the cutscene again, about 60 seconds later.

“While Rudy finds Al, I’ll use the cams to help Ghost plant charges in key areas.”

“Diversions and sabotage. Nice, Johnny.”

“I learned from the best, L.T.”

“Alejandro is the toughest dude in the regiment,” says Rudy during the rescue mission. Price shows up and destroys a helicopter, so Rudy and Alejandro can flee. “Who’s that?” Alejandro asks. “A friend,” replies Ghost. “I like him already,” says Alejandro. Combined with that tagline from all the teaser trailers — “The ultimate weapon is team” — it’s like all the characters in Modern Warfare II belong to some kind of modern man’s emotional support group, where they vow at the beginning of each meeting to always reinforce one another’s confidence and offer positive affirmations. It seems silly and facile and just like bad writing, but I think it’s actually a really shrewd technique on behalf of Infinity Ward: The shining light of the protagonists’ teamwork and comradeship becomes this kind of beard or smoke grenade to hide, or at least mitigate and make acceptable and innocent-seeming, anything the game does that might be considered controversial or distasteful.

Image: Infinity Ward/Activision

See, Modern Warfare II will do all this sportive, kindly teamwork stuff, but then it’ll go the other way, and seem to, as it were, stamp on these pedals labeled Meaning and Theme and Imagery, and suddenly you’re crossing the Trump wall over the U.S.-Mexico border, or playing as the actual missile that kills Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. But then there’s a reversal or a refraction, where everything you think you just experienced that may have been meaningful or thematic or pertaining to any kind of real-world image gets transfigured and undermined. It’s kind of genius.

The general, though he’s Iranian and has white hair, a white beard, and a death by missile strike, is not Soleimani but “Ghorbrani.” The mission where you just bombed a Mexican town, which each of the characters remark was full of civilians, is followed by a mission where if you accidentally shoot a civilian, you’re disciplined by the game and forced to restart. The greatest example of this kind of narrative sleight of hand, this fantastic trick of making you think you have seen something and then insisting that you haven’t, somehow without actually removing the thing you thought had seen, comes in that aforementioned border mission. As Mexican special forces, you cross into a U.S. in which people shout at you to get out of their yard, and you’re eventually apprehended by the American police, who then realize who you are and let you go, saying, “It’s hard to tell you boys apart from the cartel.” And for a moment, it’s as if Modern Warfare II is saying something — it would take a long time to articulate, but something — about race and prejudice. But then you go into another house, and there are people shouting and screaming at you to get out of their yard, and they’re Hispanic.

Do you see genius? Is that how you perceive it? Modern Warfare IISays something and then says it again. But in a way that you may not notice, this gives the developers and writers of Call of Duty an escape from any accusation of intent or subjective belief. It seems that there is no answer, truth, or something you can trust in a postmodern universe of alternate facts, the end of metanarrative. Modern Warfare IIIt is a type of masterpiece. And now I imagine them using that quote, “Modern Warfare 2 is a kind of masterpiece,” on a poster or something later on, and everything around it won’t matter.

Modern Warfare 2: Call of Duty The game was launched on October 28th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. Review of the game on PS4. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions on products sold via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.