Activision pressured Infinity Ward for a Call of Duty about Iran invading Israel

One of the co-founders of Infinity Ward and creators of Call of Duty has said Activision put "very awkward pressure" on the studio to make a Call of Duty game about Iran attacking Israel.

After the official X account for the White House included a Call of Duty clip in a promotional video that included footage of real-world military bombings, which included killstreak points similar to those seen in Call of Duty, Chance Glasco, one of the creators of the Call of Duty franchise responded in an X post, saying, "This doesn't surprise me. I remember after Activision took over post-Respawn formation there was a very awkward pressure from Activision for us to make the next CoD about Iran attacking Israel."

"Luckily the vast majority of our devs were disgusted by the idea and it got shot down." In another post Glasco wrote, "A lot of us devs were appalled because it felt like political propaganda being pushed by Activision." Additionally, Glasco explained that his main gripe is the government using video games as a way to sway public opinion, and that throughout his time at Infinity Ward helping design the story choices none of the decisions made were motivated by the desire to create propaganda about real-world conflicts.

When asked about the notoriously provocative Modern Warfare mission "No Russian," in which many innocent civilians are gunned down at an airport by the player, Glasco replied, "With Early CoDs we wanted to often remind people that war is hell and not just a video game. If you play the earlier IW CoDs you'll definitely see that throughout the series. We wanted players to feel disgust and we purposefully sought to make them actually feel bad for war."