Effects on Call of Duty Series (and Military Games in General) if no 2000s Middle East Conflicts?
- Thread starter ZodiacBeast
- Start date
To an extent. But see Six Days in Fallujah for what happens when you try to make a game about certain topics certain people find unacceptable.
The games would probably focus on lesser-known conflicts such as in Yugoslavia or the Gulf War.
Folks have suggested that the Balkans and Russia would be much more popular settings, but I am not sure. See, the Yugoslav Wars largely ended by 2001, and Putin did not really register with most Americans as an Evil Dictator until the Russian invasion of Georgia. On the other hand, even without a major terrorist attack on the United States that leads several large-scale American invasions and occupations in the Middle East and Central Asia, those regions will still likely be restive in ways which will garner media attention and perhaps even invite low-level Western involvement.
Even in a world where Saddam's Iraq, the Ayatollah's Iran, and the Taliban's Afghanistan avoid any direct conflict with the United States until 2010 at the earliest, they were still firmly cemented in American minds as antagonistic rogue states, as well as an easy source of stock villains for Hollywood and the video game industry. Even if there not many games that directly depict (from the perspective of folks in that timeline) some near-future invasion of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan, generic Middle Eastern and Central Asian settings will likely be nearly as popular as in our timeline.
Even in a world where Saddam's Iraq, the Ayatollah's Iran, and the Taliban's Afghanistan avoid any direct conflict with the United States until 2010 at the earliest, they were still firmly cemented in American minds as antagonistic rogue states, as well as an easy source of stock villains for Hollywood and the video game industry. Even if there not many games that directly depict (from the perspective of folks in that timeline) some near-future invasion of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan, generic Middle Eastern and Central Asian settings will likely be nearly as popular as in our timeline.
Actually the first War-on-Terror game based in the middle east and central asia was Command and Conquer Generals. If I remember correctly It was suposed to be released in 2001 but was delayed because of 9/11. Weird thing about the game is that the story looked like it was developed after 9/11.
The game was massively retooled after 9/11, if you look at some of the early concept art they were going for very different things...
The first games that responded to the WoT/Iraq were actually the fairly popular "Desert Combat" mod for Battlefield 1942, by a studio that later got bought by DICE, and not long after Battlefield 2 itself.
I don't think WWII was quite played out - Return to Castle Wolfenstein really started the post-"Saving Private Ryan" trend of WWII being fetishized in gaming (not just FPSs). You might still see Battlefield:Vietnam. CoD would probably milk WWII for a while longer before switching to something modern, maybe a European setting and almost certainly vs. China & North Korea. There also might be a larger trend of science-fiction games - Halo was obviously already extremely popular. CoD might have even gone to Future Warfare instead of Modern.
Honestly, probably not, only 6 (7 depending on how you count Azerbaijan) of CoD4's 21 missions were set in the Middle East. It wasn't that big of a selling point.