Spoilers for the Modern Warfare 2 Campaign AheadA Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 fan has compiled a list of every confirmable crime committed in the campaign, and it is as long as one might expect. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is part of a franchise known to never abide too closely by legality in its campaigns, and the most recent is no exception.
Modern Warfare 2 is due for a full release in the coming days, but those who pre-ordered have been able to access the campaign early. Boasting a much more reasonable storage requirement than traditional Call of Duty titles, it is already proving to be a hit, with a peak concurrent player count of over 90,000 on Steam, and the game has not yet even been officially released. However, some curious players have undertaken the task of collating everything in the campaign that would constitute a crime, and the total is astronomically high.
Posted on Reddit by u/Hammer_Of_Discipline, they open by explaining that the following list excludes "crimes/war crimes that cannot be wholesale confirmed," listing an example of when Shadow Company detains Mexican Special Forces because that could have been negotiated by relevant entities off-screen. This does not leave Shadow Company as moral arbiters, however, as they accumulated at least 13 unique crimes, many with multiple accounts, including but not limited to terrorism, extortion of the US government, and child kidnappings. Task Force 141 and Mexican Spec-Ops are treated as an umbrella under which to assign crimes, and tally a total of 9 instances of criminality, with chemical warfare perhaps the most notable horror committed by this party.
Two characters, in particular, are also singled out, General Shepard and Hassan, as the crimes committed by each, are significant enough to warrant their own sections. Listed crimes amount to 7 and 9 respectively, with treason, desertion, and extortion attributed to Shepard, and mass murder, smuggling, and theft of military assets the actions of Hassan.
Comments varied from bemoaning people who did not believe these actions to be legitimate war crimes to others joking about how jaywalking should have been included. One user alluded to a quote from 2019's Modern Warfare, where protagonist Alex retorts "I'm pretty sure everything we do is illegal" when intent on disobeying a new directive by superiors. Despite this brief moment of self-awareness, Modern Warfare was accused of rewriting history when a character in the game assigned the Highway of Death attack to Russian forces, even though it was carried out in real life by the American military.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launches on October 28 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.