As I step onto Nicaraguan soil, my gravelly male contact barks into my ear.
"Go and show 'em how the CIA gets things done."
Of course, I know how the CIA gets things done - we all do, don't we? They fund terrorists to set up puppet governments, and stages coups to expand the crumbling US empire. It kills, steals, and lies in the name of preserving good ol' fashioned American values. The CIA "gets things done" through grimy, unethical means that usually involve the deliberate murder and subjugation of people on their home soil.
But don't worry - they're the good guys, the patriots, the liberators. Everything they do, they do to preserve freedom for every single American citizen. Well, unless they're a person of color. Or a citizen of a country America is waging war in. Or queer. Or... you know what? We'll be here all day. Let's move on.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War wants, so desperately, for players to buy into that perspective. It wants us to believe that the CIA is in Nicaragua to bust up the bad guys with big guns and cool gadgets. It wants us to believe that the USSR was committing deeper evils to their people than, y'know, America was. It wants us to believe a version of the world where Tom Clancy-esque military thrillers of the '80s and '90s were gritty and realistic, and not ideologically poisoned propaganda.
The problem with this, though, is the game's writers didn't account for one thing: the fact that it's 2020.
These days, it's tougher to sell conspiracy dramas where the CIA are grizzled antiheroes doing their best to protect America. The organization's list of wrongdoings, along with years upon years of journalistic evidence against them, is publicly known and available to anyone with some curiosity and an internet connection. While the game's writers would like us to buy into their limited, inaccurate view of the world, there's simply too much information out there now to get away with it.
Look at how Black Ops Cold War's marketing has been called out for propping up a conspiracy theorist, or how series writers have been lambasted for attributing American war crimes to Russia. As society becomes more and more aware, and more able to access an open cache of information, these transparent attempts at platforming propaganda begin to fail.
It's not 2008 anymore. If developers want to play in this sandbox now, they shouldn't get pats on the back for being "bold" or "grounded." Instead, if gaming wants to truly be legitimized as art, it should be held to the same standards as other mediums.
"The graphics are good and the gameplay is good and it deals with real world issues n' stuff so it's a good game" is not enough. Instead, more critical eyes must turn to games like Black Ops Cold War. We must question their role in society, and question how complicit they make consumers through their subtle bending of the truth. These historical inaccuracies are not a coincidence, nor are these attempts at legitimizing fringe beliefs that condone US wrongdoings.
Playing Call of Duty isn't bad or wrong, of course, and I'd say it's unfair to cast moral aspersions on people for enjoying them. However, enjoying art like this should come with a caveat - a responsibility, if you will. As we play, we should question how each conflict is framed, what locales we're waging war in, what weaponry we're using to kill. We need to ask ourselves if the actions we're taking part in are merely theoretical conflicts, or an act of historical erasure. In cases like Black Ops 4 or Advanced Warfare, it ultimately doesn't matter - it's all far-flung pretend. But tasking players with gunning down contras on drug farms in Nicaragua, or with stopping an ambiguous Russian menace from committing war crimes that could destabilize America? These aren't things that exist in stasis, and need to be contextualized against the current geopolitical backdrop.
It's long overdue for triple A publishers to stop poking and prodding at political controversy, then deflecting and decrying claims of bias. CIA operatives gunning down perceived threats on both home and foreign soil is an inherent act of political violence - even if those threats are named "BigDaddyFatSack" or "[CUCK] FootSimp99." In no other medium would an artist be able to depict that, then say, "I don't want to take a side." To do so would be to invalidate and cheapen their art, which is what publishers are effectively doing.
If players are going to storm virtual battlefields to satiate their bloodlust, it's high time we question how developers may be trying to rewrite history in the process.