Today, a bunch of information has come to light about the next instalment in the
Call of Duty franchise,
most notably that it will simply be titled:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
That confusing title came from Kotaku's Jason Schreier - who is considered a reliable source - and so did the following details. After the revelation of the upcoming game's title, a Twitter user asked Schreier (
@jasonschreier) whether
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is considered a franchise reboot. In reply, Schreier said that it's a
"soft reboot."
While it being a soft reboot is just as confusing as its title, it does somewhat explain the latter. In Schreier's following report on
Kotaku, he also revealed that the upcoming game is inspired by the franchise's most controversial moment:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's
"No Russian" mission.
"It’ll be heavy on troubling, realistic emotional moments," Schreier's report read,
"very much inspired by the controversial No Russian campaign in Modern Warfare 2 that allowed the player to gun down civilians."
If you aren't familiar with that mission, it involved the player controlling an undercover CIA agent and taking part in a violent act of terrorism at an airport in Moscow. Alongside Makarov and other terrorists, the player can gun down masses of civilians. While you could skip the mission or do it but avoid killing innocents, it caused quite a stir with the media declaring it unsuitable and an example of the terrible violence in video games.
It therefore is incredibly interesting that Infinity Ward and Activision would want to recall memories of such a controversial mission with the fourth instalment in the
Modern Warfare series. It's almost like they're saying:
"Remember, no Russian."