New Call of Duty game paints Russian Army as war criminals

Activision Blizzard’s newest Call of Duty Modern Warfare video game, inspired by contemporary events in war theaters across the world [according to its creators], has gone a step further from its usual portrayal of modern Russian soldiers as the bad guys. In this new iteration of Modern Warfare, the Russian soldiers depicted in the single player campaign are carrying out war crimes, killing prisoners and civilians in cold blood as per the orders of the higher-ups. Youtuber and video game reviewer Angry Joe commented [from 5:40] on this aspect and also poked fun at Activision Blizzard, saying they’d never depict Chinese soldiers as the bad guys, because that would mean tremendous money losses for the company on the [huge] Chinese market [for its PC, console, and mobile games]. On the metacritic website, the game’s user rating currently sits at the abysmal level of 3.2. COD Modern Warfare has been banned in Russia. Personally, I’m a flat out supporter of free speech. And it’s the right of consumers to turn down any product they don’t like. That being said, this game engages in blatant propaganda, distorts the history and nature of events from which it is inspired, and – echoing the Russophobia campaign in the West – further promotes it alongside hawkish US foreign policy. Basically, it’s free advertising for the Military Industrial Complex and for the Unipolar system. Yet, in order to have free speech, we also have to tolerate propaganda of all sorts, while criticizing it in consequence.