I cannot believe it has come to this, me defending the Call of Duty franchise…And just for the record before I kick off this article. I am not a COD fan at all. I would like to be, but the settings of the games in the franchise just never grabbed me and honestly, most of the settings looked boring and dull and the same game after game. But I did raise an eyebrow when it was announced that COD would be returning to World War 2 again. My interest is completely tentative at the moment till we actually get to see some gameplay footage and not just pre-rendered cutscenes. And here is hoping this game will cut ties with the other games in the franchise which has become stagnant and boring. And despite having seen so little of the game, we have already seen two controversies hit the internet. One from Polygon and the second from PC Gamer.

So let’s start with PC Gamer, stating that it is impossible for a game about World War 2 to carry an anti-war message. Games have to be fun otherwise who will play it? If the games aren’t fun to play people won’t buy it which means the franchise would die a slow and horrible death. And yes you can still create a fun game that deals with serious subject matters like World War 2. A prime example of this is the Deus Ex franchise, especially Deus Ex: Mankind Divide. Which touched on the very real subject of apartheid which really struck a cord with me, which pushed me to write an entire article about it here. Talk about being hyperbolic Tyler Wilde, if you actually did proper research before shat out this turd of an article you would know that pretty much all of the COD games in the past had a strong anti-war message in them.

Most people who were playing the game back in the day would remember each time you died during the campaign of the older COD games it would give you a quote about war. And plenty of those quotes were deep and insightful quotes about the horrors of war. My first real exposure in a video game to the D-Day events in World War 2 was Call of Duty 2 and is an experience that will stick with me for a ver long time. Granted I did have fun playing these games I definitely got an anti-war vibe from the game, it was not in your face but it was very subtle the way it should be. Every time you died you were reminded how terrible and bad war was via a quote on a fading black screen. Sledgehammer games want to focus on the anti-war narrative in the single player campaign again.

Because they believe, that them showing gamers like myself the terrible things that happened during that time period, that it might prevent people like me from wanting to go to war. So you might ask: “But Sledgehammer Games are a game development studio, they have zero political power in the world” But they are a popular developer working on an extremely popular franchise known worldwide by every single gamer young and old. They have the power to influence people who play their games, especially the younger generation who has had little or no exposure to the horrors of World War 2. Tyler do you really believe that World War 2 was not a noble and justified war? And that stopping Hitler, the holocaust, and Nazism wasn’t a noble cause? Because to me it sure does sound like a noble and justified cause.

Let’s be honest here Tyler, this game will not cater to your moldy old ass. This game is targeted at a much younger generation of gamers. I am certain that this generation of kids do in fact read books, but this is 2017 and video games are where it is at. Video games have an absolutely massive influence in new media and the lives of this generation of kids. Every year the Call of Duty franchise sells tens of millions of copies, so Tyler have you heard of video games? I am pretty sure this game will be the biggest selling game in the franchise’s history. Do you really think Tyler that they will reach more young people by selling a book than a video game? Don’t think too hard now, yes books do have a lasting appeal but to a younger generation, this video game would be their first real introduction to the events of World War 2.

And it is really shocking that this type of thing is being contested by people like yourself. But then again you write garbage like the screen shot above and call it video game journalism, and then you wonder why people take everything you write about with a pinch of salt. So let’s see, you are anti-capitalist, pro-socialist, you want certain words and phrases to be banned from being used because they might offend someone. Why does this sound so familiar all of a sudden? Tyler, could you be a Social Justice Warrior? Because I am most certainly getting that vibe from your articles. And unlike Tyler, I will not be writing off COD: WW2 as just another dumb violent shooter. Even though I am not really a fan of the franchise. But I am pretty sure it will not glorify the events of War World 2 in any way or form.

The second article being from the gutter trash publication calling themselves video game journalists Polygon. Stating that the diversity found in COD: WW2 is nothing but marketing. I wonder what it is like to be either Allegra Frank or Owen S. Good and be so obsessed with race, it is almost like they are racist themselves. I can just picture them sitting in front of their computers waiting for the trailer to be released saying: “I bet you it is going to have a bunch of fucken white men it!” Imagine have a stick jammed so far up your ass that you take issue with the gender and skin color of the developers presenting the game on stage. And that is why they wrote this article, to take a big fat shit over a game that only gets released November 3rd. And then claim the development team is all white when art director Joe Salud is Asian and development director Dennis Adams is black.

Judging from the image above there are are multiple ethnicities within the development team all working as a cohesive team to create an amazing World War II experience for gamers out there. So fuck you Allegra Frank and Owen S. Yet again you have shown readers why nobody should pay you any credence with your trash can journalism. Having said that neither I, other gamers or even the developers are disputing the fact that people of all races fought in World War 2. But facts are facts, the military casualties incurred by both Germany and Russia alone make up two-thirds of all World War 2 casualties makes it clear that it was predominantly fought by white men. China, Japan, and Korea which was under Japanese rule at the time of the war had the second highest number casualties.

While minorities like the Arabs and Africans did in fact fight for the Allies it was because they were under colonial rule and forced to do so under threat of being severely punished for not taking part or being executed for desertion. During the conflict that was World War 2, there was not a tremendous amount of diversity/inclusion in the fighting forces. There was segregation, there was persecution, there were horrible atrocities committed by both side. What the writers at Polygon and the easily offended individuals need to come to grips with and understand, there is no need to alter history into some kind of fantasy land bullshit. World War 2 is what it was and it was what it is. And to capitulate to these cry babies and so-called journalists would be a disservice to all those who lost their lives in World War 2.

Diversity and representation means nothing unless you put in the effort to make your diverse representatives meaningful as I have discussed before. Activision and all developers under the Call of Duty umbrella of games are constantly getting endless shit for years on end because the series strayed too far away from what made it great. Now Sledgehammer games have seemingly gone back to that era and now people are finding something brand new to complain about. This is exactly why developers cannot win anymore when it comes to creating a story in a game. Fucked if they do and fucked if they don’t. This kind of bullshit editorial is why people don’t take people complaining about a lack of diversity seriously and does way more damage than good by making people wanting more diverse media look like overly reactionary sensational asshats.

[Editorial Note:] What is “all of this anti-white bullshit”? Why does it seem like a crime to be a white male gamer these days?