Will Noble

The Tube Map On Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Will Give You A Migraine

Video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) visits Piccadilly Circus in a rather terrifying strategic shoot-em-up involving a gang of terrorists. Also terrifying is the accompanying tube map that's in the station:

Let's put to one side the discombobulatingly colour-coded lines for a moment. Actually, let's not. Bloody hell:

It won't have escaped your eagle-eye that there is also a 'Shadwell' line and a 'Winston' line. And although we surmise that the latter is named after the great war leader and gourmand, for us, it just brings back memories of this:

As one person on our Facebook group, Roundel Ramblings, puts it "This is hurting my brain."

Let's move on to the station names then. And to their credit, they're not all totally off-kilter. Victoria is a thing. So's Acton Central and Maida Vale... and quite a lot of these actually. Even 'Sloan Square' and 'Wemby' could be down to a hangover in the graphics department. OK, Harlesden isn't quite central London. And Dollis Hill isn't quite in the south. And Welker isn't quite... hang on, WELKER?

Because then we come to the utterly perplexing names. Fitz Road. Osborn. Dun Junction. Craft. Harrison. Half Park. Neasden. NEASDEN? What kind of a screwed up name is that! What? Oh.

Anyway, prize for best-named London tube station, however, has to go to... London.

As has been suggested in Roundel Ramblings, we expect that the makers of Call of Duty wanted to swerve any potential copyright infringement. In the process, they've come up with something that makes this shower curtain look like the work of a sane person:

But not everything on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will be so alien to the savvy Londoner. Announcements from a thinly-veiled TfL warn of coming tube strikes — and there ain't anything weird about that.

Omnipresent CCTV seems to be a fair reflection too...

...and the actual entrance to Piccadilly Circus station has some pretty accurate-looking signage...

...even if the roundel isn't exactly, well, round.

The thing that baffles us most of all, though, is this line map, to the left of the main one:

It's... totally accurate. Or, hang, on, is it? Isn't Southfields near Wimbledon? Someone pass the aspirin please. We're going for a lie-down.

With thanks to James Smile, who first posted about this in our Roundel Ramblings, and provided images. And to Leigh Sherval for providing extra images.