Just because brothers of different races didn’t fight alongside each other doesn’t mean that players in the year 2017 shouldn’t inhabit and absorb all their experiences. A lot of different people are going to play Call of Duty : WWII. Playability is the special obligation of interactive entertainment in telling a story, an obligation that movies like The Guns of Navarone or The Longest Day don’t face, even in hindsight 50 years later. It’s not even known if they are playable. That leaves fighters of color, fighters who are women, in supporting roles. Playability is the special obligation of interactive entertainment. And judging by the attention Sledgehammer is paying to period firearms and the sounds they make, Call of Duty: WWII is all about preserving historical authenticity. It’s important to note that segregation was still very much enforced during the time period, including within the American military. Sledgehammer staffers’ repeated references to “brotherhood” also speak clearly to the fact this game will be told from a very traditional perspective.įrom what we saw and heard about this game today, that tradition doesn’t genuinely include brothers of other races, or brothers who don’t identify as male. It reads like a marketer’s checklist for suitable diversity, a roster of token characters that doesn’t acknowledge their experiences more than it pats the publisher on the back. We’ve got a private multiplayer beta we’ve got zombies we’ve got black people, we’ve got women, we’ve got a Jew. 3.įor now, the tone-deaf manner in which this all-white production checked all the diversity boxes - “women, an African-American unit and even a child” - reduced everyone else to a bullet point on the back of a box, yet another feature. Call of Duty : WWII isn’t going to change this, but it sure wants credit for trying.Īctivision and Sledgehammer Games pulled the wrapper off their glamour franchise today, and despite the exclusively white and male makeup of those doing so on stage, they want you to think this is a more inclusive tale of World War II. From Sands of Iwo Jima to The Great Escape, The Thin Red Line to Saving Private Ryan, that’s the perspective you get. Since American pop culture took control of World War II as a narrative, it’s always been presented as a white man’s war.
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