New ‘Call of Duty’ game has you killing civilians at Texas-Mexico border
The launch of the most recent entry into the Call of Duty Modern Warfare reboot series has proved to be successful, at least by PC player standards. But a recent review from gaming news site Kotaku has made light of the video game’s single-player story that has you committing what would be considered war crimes at the Texas-Mexico border.
Early on in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, the story takes you to a fictional Texas border town to track down an Iranian terrorist being sheltered by a cartel after he stole U.S. missiles. The game has you take part in an operation as a U.S.-backed special ops team joined by a colonel with the Mexican Special Forces. In the mission, you are forced to take part in violence that Kotaku says, “… feels uncomfortable even for a game.”
The game forces you to shoot at people climbing over the Texas-Mexico border wall, claiming they are escaping cartel members, and then deescalate an encounter with American border town residents walking out of their homes by pointing your gun at them. The player is eventually put in a situation where they may shoot armed civilians in their own home during a tense encounter after the special ops team barges in.
Later in the same mission, a group of Texas law enforcement agents show up to the scene, one of which is wearing a cowboy hat and says, “… it’s hard to tell you boys apart from the cartel.” A reminder, one of the special forces members is Mexican. The Kotaku piece then points out that if you shoot the police, it will fail the mission with the message, “Friendly fire will not be tolerated.”
Another mission later on in the game has you sneak through a Mexican town while U.S.-backed private military contractors you previously partnered with can be seen and heard executing dozens of civilians for living in a cartel-dominated area.
A Texas Army National Guard member guards an opening in the border wall in September 2021 near Del Rio.
Jordan Vonderhaar, Stringer / Getty Images
The game attempts to paint the actions of the military and the U.S. with some cynicism, according to Kotaku, but it’s veiled by glamorized depictions of warfare. The Texas-Mexico missions also come at a time where Texas GOP candidates are bolstering their campaigns on border security, and migrants are being shot at the border.
Call of Duty also plays on Trumpian rhetoric that terrorists are coming into the U.S. through its southern border. Texas Sheriffs from border towns gathered for a press conference with GOP leaders earlier this year to claim that immigrants crossing the border is an “invasion.”
The Texas Tribune reported in 2016 that apprehensions at the border that were related to any sort of potential terrorism were low. However, Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security overhaul, Operation Lone Star, has asked President Joe Biden to designate cartel members as terrorists. To date, Abbott has spent $4 billion on Operation Lone Star, adding $30 million in July.
