Behind the scenes of Call of Duty Modern Warfare II: the stories of the protagonists

We arrived at that time of year when call of Duty pop up on shelves and in virtual stores for the usual annual ritual, a bit like Fifa.

Except that this year the war saga of Activision, aware of the many souls that move within an offer that includes single player, online game, battle royale and everything in between, has organized the debut of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II in a particular way. Therefore, the single player part has been available for a few days in early access for those who have bought the more expensive version of the game, while the others will wait until October 28, when the servers open for everyone. As for Warzone (the Battle Royale part), that remains and will remain free.

The multiplayer part will obviously be analyzed calmly, being the most changeable and in which strengths and weaknesses they are discovered only after hours and hours of play, while as regards the single player we can already pronounce ourselves, with the participation of Barry Sloane and Neil Ellicewhich gave the face and voice to two legends of the franchise, that is Captain Price and John Soap MacTavish: “Going back to playing Price for me is a special occasion, also because I love working in motion capture – explained Sloane – For an actor, these rehearsals are important tests for their abilities, because there are no sets around. and fantastic costumes, but only iron pipes, some toy weapons and people in gray overalls. All the magic and identification must take place in your mind, it is pure theater ”.

After the reboot of the previous chapter, which had changed some elements of the original game to tell a larger and more diverse story that also showed the point of view of new characters like Farah, this new adventure continues in that rut, taking us for a walk through very varied war scenarios in an attempt to thwart yet another attack on the West by Hassan Zayn and the Al-Qatala association, which they mix clashes with the Russians (which without too much embarrassment can again be used as antagonists) and even a Colombian drug cartel.

We will therefore find ourselves intervening in sunny deserts, in the center of Amsterdam and in South American villages using all sorts of technological gadgets to experience the classic action adventure in which a handful of brave, the Task Force 141she must face hordes and hordes of enemy soldiers and emerge victorious no matter the price.

Compared to other chapters the campaign of Modern Warfare II it is definitely very classic. There are no investigative trials or time jumps of Black Ops and even the more political parts in the previous chapter or in other iterations are a long way off. This time Infinity Ward preferred to play it safe, which may not be a bad thing, also because the current international situation perhaps invites calm and evasion, because there is already enough talk of real war. However, it is clear that such a video game be political even when political does not want to be, especially if players are asked to calm down a group of unarmed people by aiming an assault rifle at them. And even more so if you remember that all reproduced weapons are licensed by the producers, a bit like team jerseys in a football game.

Going back to the work behind the scenes, Ellice told us that “one of the most interesting things about this mixture of cinema and theater is that everything is shot at the same time. In cinema, usually you make a scene, a dialogue, then you do the listening plans, you film it from multiple angles and so on. When working with motion capture, however, the virtual camera will be positioned later, you simply have to move in space and know how to do it, remembering that at the center of everything there is someone who at that moment you cannot see and with whom you cannot compare, player. He is the real star and his point of view is; so, you have to do a lot of things that may not even be noticed by some players, because they will be looking elsewhere, but you have to do them anyway for those who decide to look at you instead. You always have to be on top, because otherwise you will spend a lot of time re-doing a lot of scenes ”.

In its roughly 10 hours of fighting, the single player campaign by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II does exactly what you’d expect: it offers a thrilling and spectacular cinematic experience where we are constantly stimulated by waves of enemies, which thankfully also offer a good level of challenge and don’t just look like cardboard cutouts ready to be shot, and from exciting, absurd situations that often vary from just moving and shooting. The whole is obviously embellished with a graphics that does justice to the current generation of consoles and the same can be said of the sound sector, especially if you are equipped with a pair of nice surround headphones. Perhaps a little more could have been asked of the PS5 version in integrating adaptive triggers to give us the effect of a shotgun when pressed.

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Once this part is complete, you will probably throw yourself into multiplayer and forget about it, like every year, but the past has shown that anyway the single player of call of Duty is still appreciated and which, if done well, offers a completely different taste and a context that enriches the online experience.

Not to mention that action cinema is beautiful, but living it looking through a viewfinder is even more exciting: “Participating in projects like this, for an actor, is a unique experience – it is Sloane’s conclusion – You feel plunged into the future in a way of working that you could not even imagine when you started, but which today offers many possibilities in a strange union of high technology, cinema and theater “.