Opinion: As A True Gamer, I Don’t Want The Next Call Of Duty Unless It Gives Me Crippling PTSD And Leaves Me A Broken Shell Of A Man
As a true gamer, I’m always hungry to get the most authentic experience possible – free of manipulation by interfering games journalists, meddling feminists or out-of-touch parents. I want developers to be always pushing the boundaries of realism, using the latest advances in gaming technology to make me feel like I’m right there in the thick of the visceral action that defines all the best games..
That’s why I won’t be touching the next Call of Duty game, unless the developers can promise me that I will have my mind and body permanently ruined by the shrieking, unending horror and brutality of war, leaving me a terrified wreck of a man, huddled under the kitchen table, crying and shitting myself whenever I hear so much as a screeching tyre outside.
If you can’t deliver on that, then you can forget about a pre-order from me!
I’ve been following the development of this rebooted Modern Warfare closely, and I’m very worried about comments from Infinity Ward that they might remove or alter scenes which feedback has indicated are “too confronting”. Too confronting? It’s like these people don’t know what a real gamer like me must endure to experience any sort of thrill anymore.
Successfully completing a no-death run of Bloodborne has prepared me for anything, and that includes watching my best friend chunked into fleshy shreds before my eyes, screaming as his blood drenches me from head to toe and his hot entrails litter the muddy ground that has already claimed one of my boots.. If Infinity Ward doesn’t include this kind of scene, or other scenes which will leave me deeply scarred and unable to form meaningful relationships for the rest of my life, then they clearly just don’t understand what I, and true gamers like me, need.
Yes, obviously I want the latest and greatest graphics. Yes, obviously I want killer audio with realistic sound effects. I didn’t invest in an epic rig to experience anything other than face-searing realism! But most importantly, I want the developers to use these capabilities in such a way that I after I am finished with the single-player campaign, I start waking up in the dead of night, feeling the hot sting and then the numb cold as it spreads through my gut, screaming and screaming alone in the dark, knowing that help will never come and I will die here alone, like the others, forgotten by god and country, unable to connect with the people around me or sleep on a comfortable mattress anymore.
And no fucking loot boxes either!
If developers like Infinity Ward say they’re going to really show me “what it’s like to be there” and “make me weigh the consequences of my choices”, then they need to stop listening to these censorious journalists, and instead start listening to me: the guy who wants to gun down an innocent child in the heat of combat, become burdened by an unbearable shame over his actions, get discharged due to total psychological collapse, push his family away, and commit suicide in his empty living room. How epic does that sound?
Unlike the fragile snowflakes who are “triggered” by the idea of “the inconceivable psychological toll of human warfare”, real gamers want to experience as much intense and deeply scarring trauma as possible – whether it’s watching your childhood friend step on a landmine, or being forced to play with the default weapon skins. We love perfectly-rendered trauma, and I believe that developers love to inflict it on us, and the only reason they would choose not to do so is out of fear of upsetting a feminist or something.
Well, no more! I won’t stand for that kind of interference. It’s time that gamers everywhere stood up in support of developers like Infinity Ward and their vision of unending tragedy and despair. Let our message ring out loud and clear: we want to be absolutely brutalised by the horrors of war and left unable to function as human beings, and anyone who suggests otherwise is simply trying to force a political agenda on us.
Share YOUR support for a realistic Call of Duty by leaving a comment below explaining why the sound of helicopter blades gives you an anxiety attack in the car park of your local shopping centre, wishing you could call your wife to come and pick you up but knowing that she changed her number after she left you three years ago and took the kids because you’ve taken up drinking and become violently abusive!
