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Call Of Duty: KPOP WARFARE
Surprised they just namedropped North Korea as the main villain in a contemporary COD game. At least making chinese or russians the bad guys in older COD games had the excuse of being set in a recent past.
Here though, plain 0 fucks given I guess.
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Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
I guess the Soviet boogeyman was being stale so they needed to change things up, but they should have done a fictional country.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 22:58Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
Why would a fictional country ever be better? Is it just comfortable because Hollywood has used that cop out for so long?Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:01I guess the Soviet boogeyman was being stale so they needed to change things up, but they should have done a fictional country.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 22:58Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
They still use Nazis. Stale has nothing to do with it.Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:01I guess the Soviet boogeyman was being stale so they needed to change things up, but they should have done a fictional country.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 22:58Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
I have always disliked Russia/China being framed as a generic evil incarnate Mordor or used as the big bad boogeyman to be nuked and gunned down en masse as portrayed in those psychotic army movies like Red Dawn and Crimson Tide. Same reason why I generally do not like Western-made WW2 movies about the Western front which is almost always "Germans = bad, mow them down without a care!". Same with American civil war movies and Revolutionary war movies which make the Confederates or the British into an Other and totally wrong and the Union/founding Fathers to be blameless totally justified heroes American movies in particular are especially bad at reducing stuff down to a didactic black and white, blameless heroes vs evil incarnate affairs.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:08Why would a fictional country ever be better? Is it just comfortable because Hollywood has used that cop out for so long?Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:01I guess the Soviet boogeyman was being stale so they needed to change things up, but they should have done a fictional country.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 22:58Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
The idea of North Korea being this super sucky place to live is also outdated, perpetuated by the media which like to sensationalize a few executions but doesn't want to talk about how North Korea expats are going back from South Korea to North Korea. Asian Boss' youtube channel has interviewed North Koreans about this.
As for videogame shooters, I thought that ARMA was neat. The antagonists are obviously soviets but the game doesn't do moral grandstanding or try to dramatize. You are just given objectives. "You are in charge of this squad. Escort these trucks to this location. Don't get killed by sniper along the way". "You are now POV changing to sabateurs in the forest at night. Cross these woods, sprint onto the airfield and plant explosives on the aircraft, and sprint out before they shoot you". "You are now POV changing to a tank squadron commander. Go here, here, and here". I haven't played a Call of Duty game since Black Ops 1, but IIRC it was moving towards an Uncharted styled moviegame with a story of bad guys and heroes and all that, which I was not a fan of.
I think @DemoGraph also talked about this, about how he didn't like how Snezhnaya the Russian country in Genshin Impact was the big bad. And I agree that after the Ukraine war hysteria, that would have been sad to follow through on. Though with the Snezhnaya expansion finally arriving, it seems that Mihoyo is moving away from the totalitarian communist feel that we shown prior and is pivoting towards more of a romanticized look with castles, and we got our first Snezhnayan party member with Linnea which humanized them. I also quite liked the depiction of not-Germany in Trails with Erebonia which was depicted as a country just like any other rather than evil incarnate.
one thing i can comment on, at least, is that CoD campaigns have definitely Marvel-ized more and more. For a long time people told me how gritty and modern the MW 2019 reboot campaign story was and I put off playing it for years, and then when i finally played it i was like, "this is like a marvel movie wtf is this". It was... fine. And yes, the mission where you put on night vision and clear a house is cool. Sure. But even the old MW1 and MW2 campaigns, even with their hollywood stunts (like snow skii'ing off a mountain), were more realistic. Perhaps that's the wrong word to use, as they obviously weren't realistic at all, but they felt less camp, less tacky. I don't know how to word it, tbh.Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:21I have always disliked Russia/China being framed as a generic evil incarnate Mordor or used as the big bad boogeyman to be nuked and gunned down en masse as portrayed in those psychotic army movies like Red Dawn and Crimson Tide. Same reason why I generally do not like Western-made WW2 movies about the Western front which is almost always "Germans = bad, mow them down without a care!". Same with American civil war movies and Revolutionary war movies which make the Confederates or the British into an Other and totally wrong and the Union/founding Fathers to be blameless totally justified heroes American movies in particular are especially bad at reducing stuff down to a didactic black and white, blameless heroes vs evil incarnate affairs.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:08Why would a fictional country ever be better? Is it just comfortable because Hollywood has used that cop out for so long?Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:01
I guess the Soviet boogeyman was being stale so they needed to change things up, but they should have done a fictional country.
The idea of North Korea being this super sucky place to live is also outdated, perpetuated by the media which like to sensationalize a few executions but doesn't want to talk about how North Korea expats are going back from South Korea to North Korea. Asian Boss' youtube channel has interviewed North Koreans about this.
As for videogame shooters, I thought that ARMA was neat. The antagonists are obviously soviets but the game doesn't do moral grandstanding or try to dramatize. You are just given objectives. "You are in charge of this squad. Escort these trucks to this location. Don't get killed by sniper along the way". "You are now POV changing to sabateurs in the forest at night. Cross these woods, sprint onto the airfield and plant explosives on the aircraft, and sprint out before they shoot you". "You are now POV changing to a tank squadron commander. Go here, here, and here". I haven't played a Call of Duty game since Black Ops 1, but IIRC it was moving towards an Uncharted styled moviegame with a story of bad guys and heroes and all that, which I was not a fan of.
Of the recent "modern" CoDs, i.e. post-2019, I think the Black Ops 5: Cold War campaign was the best, mostly because it's a straight-up retread of the BO1 story, but **** it they did it well enough. Can't really recommend any of the other story campaigns, but i will at least say the 2019 is the "2nd best" after Cold War.
Also the 'reboot' Modern Warfare series royally ****** up 'rebooting' the old MW storyline. There were decent moments, specifically in 2019 and MW2 (from 2022), but nobody will have any attachment whatsoever to the rebooted versions of these characters, certainly not like with the original MW games.
This is why I'm actually glad that MW4 is going in a completely new direction story-wise. The mangled corpse of the Modern Warfare characters has had enough. It needed this.
(I've been playing CoD off and on since CoD 1 and its expansion pack United Offensive, my early LAN Parties were with CoD 1 and 2, and also SWAT 4. Great times...)
Last edited by aweigh on May 29th, 2026, 00:28, edited 1 time in total.
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old CoD games were sincere. Just a bunch of dudes ripping off movies without thinking too much, and be like "let's add this shower scene from The Rock, let's give this soldier a print of a skull to his balaclava". New cod games are trying too hard, even ghost's skull is no longer just a balaclava, but now a full blown skull mask like he's Punisher or some kind of cartel mercenary. Captain Price is no longer just a soldier with sideburns, now he's a globetrotting superspy Jason Bourne? Wut?aweigh wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 00:27one thing i can comment on, at least, is that CoD campaigns have definitely Marvel-ized more and more. For a long time people told me how gritty and modern the MW 2019 reboot campaign story was and I put off playing it for years, and then when i finally played it i was like, "this is like a marvel movie wtf is this". It was... fine. And yes, the mission where you put on night vision and clear a house is cool. Sure. But even the old MW1 and MW2 campaigns, even with their hollywood stunts (like snow skii'ing off a mountain), were more realistic. Perhaps that's the wrong word to use, as they obviously weren't realistic at all, but they felt less camp, less tacky. I don't know how to word it, tbh.
All this looks especially weird when you watch the trailers for their multiplayer updates, and see soldiers dressed as scooby doo and nicki minaj.
I find the notion of anyone discussing a call of duty story or recurring character hilarious. What's the backstory of the monster closets?
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Battlefield 4 was banned in China because game made chinese main villain. EA wasn't happy loosing such big market.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 22:58Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
On the other hand I don't understand why CoD doing this. It is partially funded by us government through the Veterans Fund if I remember correctly, so chinese market should not be a factor, it always used russia as a villain and ultimate evil, so why stop now?
Either @Val the Moofia Boss right and china/russia as a villain became so generic that it doesn't work anymore, or propaganda funds dried out and new CoD need sales in china and russia. Nobody would care if game was banned in North Korea.
"it always used russia as a villain and ultimate evil, so why stop now?" maybe this is too naive but i think Infinity Ward just wanted to do something different from the rebooted Modern Warfare storyline. Treyarch has almost killed the CoD player base by releasing 2 garbage games in a row, and everything is resting on IW to once again 'save' the series as they did previously with MW 2019 reboot. ACTI considers Infinity Ward their "golden goose" so they have complete freedom to do whatever they want. I think some writer at IW got the NK idea and that's all it is, and probably has nothing to do with what the U.S. military wants. Also, keep in mind that Infinity Ward is extremely liberal as well. CoD isn't "based" or "right wing" in the slightest.Faceless_Sentinel wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 06:01Battlefield 4 was banned in China because game made chinese main villain. EA wasn't happy loosing such big market.J1M wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 22:58Why would North Korea be scarier than China or Russia to put in a video game.
On the other hand I don't understand why CoD doing this. It is partially funded by us government through the Veterans Fund if I remember correctly, so chinese market should not be a factor, it always used russia as a villain and ultimate evil, so why stop now?
Either @Val the Moofia Boss right and china/russia as a villain became so generic that it doesn't work anymore, or propaganda funds dried out and new CoD need sales in china and russia. Nobody would care if game was banned in North Korea.
If I had to guess I imagine it has to do with the South Korean president worshipping Trump, maybe? SK soft power alliance, paint them as bad *** soldiers against NK? Who knows. But I doubt the story direction has anything to do with the US military or its wishes.
Last edited by aweigh on May 29th, 2026, 06:05, edited 1 time in total.
the one-two punch of Black Ops 1 + 2 is still amazing. I played them for the first time a couple years ago and they were every bit as good as I had heard. BO1 and 2 stories were so good Treyarch is still parading around the corpses of the protagonists 20 years later. BO7 was a direct sequel to BO2 and my god, it was abysmal. Probably a script produced by AI, tbh.wndrbr wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 02:21old CoD games were sincere. Just a bunch of dudes ripping off movies without thinking too much, and be like "let's add this shower scene from The Rock, let's give this soldier a print of a skull to his balaclava". New cod games are trying too hard, even ghost's skull is no longer just a balaclava, but now a full blown skull mask like he's Punisher or some kind of cartel mercenary. Captain Price is no longer just a soldier with sideburns, now he's a globetrotting superspy Jason Bourne? Wut?aweigh wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 00:27one thing i can comment on, at least, is that CoD campaigns have definitely Marvel-ized more and more. For a long time people told me how gritty and modern the MW 2019 reboot campaign story was and I put off playing it for years, and then when i finally played it i was like, "this is like a marvel movie wtf is this". It was... fine. And yes, the mission where you put on night vision and clear a house is cool. Sure. But even the old MW1 and MW2 campaigns, even with their hollywood stunts (like snow skii'ing off a mountain), were more realistic. Perhaps that's the wrong word to use, as they obviously weren't realistic at all, but they felt less camp, less tacky. I don't know how to word it, tbh.
All this looks especially weird when you watch the trailers for their multiplayer updates, and see soldiers dressed as scooby doo and nicki minaj.
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I recall reading news about Activision's suits wanting to do an Israel vs Iran CoD game, but scrapping these plans after the ordinary devs threw a fit over disliking the idea of portraying IDF as the good guys.aweigh wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 06:04maybe this is too naive but i think Infinity Ward just wanted to do something different from the rebooted Modern Warfare storyline. Treyarch has almost killed the CoD player base by releasing 2 garbage games in a row, and everything is resting on IW to once again 'save' the series as they did previously with MW 2019 reboot. ACTI considers Infinity Ward their "golden goose" so they have complete freedom to do whatever they want. I think some writer at IW got the NK idea and that's all it is, and probably has nothing to do with what the U.S. military wants. Also, keep in mind that Infinity Ward is extremely liberal as well. CoD isn't "based" or "right wing" in the slightest.
If I had to guess I imagine it has to do with the South Korean president worshipping Trump, maybe? SK soft power alliance, paint them as bad *** soldiers against NK? Who knows. But I doubt the story direction has anything to do with the US military or its wishes.
Current CoD 'fans' have a nickname for InfinityWard, they call them Israeli Ward. I don't know any further details about it, whether it's true or not, or if it's just random flailing, or simply because both Infinity and Israel start with the letter 'i'.wndrbr wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 06:46I recall reading news about Activision's suits wanting to do an Israel vs Iran CoD game, but scrapping these plans after the ordinary devs threw a fit over disliking the idea of portraying IDF as the good guys.aweigh wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 06:04maybe this is too naive but i think Infinity Ward just wanted to do something different from the rebooted Modern Warfare storyline. Treyarch has almost killed the CoD player base by releasing 2 garbage games in a row, and everything is resting on IW to once again 'save' the series as they did previously with MW 2019 reboot. ACTI considers Infinity Ward their "golden goose" so they have complete freedom to do whatever they want. I think some writer at IW got the NK idea and that's all it is, and probably has nothing to do with what the U.S. military wants. Also, keep in mind that Infinity Ward is extremely liberal as well. CoD isn't "based" or "right wing" in the slightest.
If I had to guess I imagine it has to do with the South Korean president worshipping Trump, maybe? SK soft power alliance, paint them as bad *** soldiers against NK? Who knows. But I doubt the story direction has anything to do with the US military or its wishes.
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@aweigh libs now use Israel as a derogatory word, kind like a politically-safe version of calling someone a ******. I've seen libs call games they don't like "Israeli-coded", it was pretty funny.
Setting aside the vilification, I find the idea that North Korea is not "scary" to be quite brazen given recent events. For a long time, it was presumed that the mighty and prosperous and advanced South Korea would crush the "poor starving corrupt North Koreans" in the boonies and their outdated artillery. It was also presumed that the mighty Russia would overwhelm and crush the feeble little upstart Ukraine. It has been four years since and Russia has not managed to advance that much relatively compared to the total size of Ukraine, and the war is still going and untold people are dead on both sides. Furthermore, the Ukraine war has proven that old artillery and cheap suicide drones are dominant in this nation vs nation scenario. North Korea has been one of Russia's key suppliers and producers of artillery and ammunition (artillery which is also aimed at Seoul), and they have been studying the use of suicide drones and procuring their own supply lines for that.
maybe controversial (lol) but i think there is legitimacy to the conspiracy theory that North Korea does not exist. It's a gigantic psyop. A pseudo-CIA sound stage. A theater playe.Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 07:24Setting aside the vilification, I find the idea that North Korea is not "scary" to be quite brazen given recent events. For a long time, it was presumed that the mighty and prosperous and advanced South Korea would crush the "poor starving corrupt North Koreans" in the boonies and their outdated artillery. It was also presumed that the mighty Russia would overwhelm and crush the feeble little upstart Ukraine. It has been four years since and Russia has not managed to advance that much relatively compared to the total size of Ukraine, and the war is still going and untold people are dead on both sides. Furthermore, the Ukraine war has proven that old artillery and cheap suicide drones are dominant in this nation vs nation scenario. North Korea has been one of Russia's key suppliers and producers of artillery and ammunition (artillery which is also aimed at Seoul), and they have been studying the use of suicide drones and procuring their own supply lines for that.
It does dovetail nicely with the other theory that nukes are fake, tbh. As in the general concept of magical nuclear missiles that will turn real life into Fallout 3 if just one atom gets loose. Pure fable, scary stories to tell in the dark and keep people inside the cave.
Big bad evil Russians is an old tired cliche. Typical portrayal of Russians in such media makes for pretty one-dimensional characters.Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 28th, 2026, 23:26I think @DemoGraph also talked about this, about how he didn't like how Snezhnaya the Russian country in Genshin Impact was the big bad.
CoD was always a shovelware for soyaks, so it fits.
I was kinda surprised that ****** went that way... well, but considering that they were trying to promote "Three body problem" as a great book, their pop definitely has the same features as the Western one (or Russian, or any one for that matter).
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North Korea is one of the few nations that can be depicted as evil without upsetting anyone.
No, you can't do random ****** Africa country because then ******* and libtards start crying
No, you can't do random ****** Africa country because then ******* and libtards start crying
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I would get upset. They're just reskinned Soviets.
I want big bad Malaysia, France and/or Switzerland. Maybe this will force those lazy ******* into writing something original. Probably not. BUT WHAT IF.
I want big bad Malaysia, France and/or Switzerland. Maybe this will force those lazy ******* into writing something original. Probably not. BUT WHAT IF.
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You can't do a European country for the same reason you can't do Canada. Nobody would believe it.DemoGraph wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 20:06I would get upset. They're just reskinned Soviets.
I want big bad Malaysia, France and/or Switzerland. Maybe this will force those lazy ******* into writing something original. Probably not. BUT WHAT IF.
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for some reason a lot of euro-chuds love NK. i don't really understand why. I also noticed it's mostly euros.rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 19:57North Korea is one of the few nations that can be depicted as evil without upsetting anyone.
No, you can't do random ****** Africa country because then ******* and libtards start crying
Alright, you silver-tongued devil. Let them do big bad US.rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 20:06You can't do a European country for the same reason you can't do Canada. Nobody would believe it.DemoGraph wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 20:06I would get upset. They're just reskinned Soviets.
I want big bad Malaysia, France and/or Switzerland. Maybe this will force those lazy ******* into writing something original. Probably not. BUT WHAT IF.
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That's every game since ~2005DemoGraph wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 20:28Alright, you silver-tongued devil. Let them do big bad US.rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 20:06You can't do a European country for the same reason you can't do Canada. Nobody would believe it.DemoGraph wrote: ↑ May 29th, 2026, 20:06I would get upset. They're just reskinned Soviets.
I want big bad Malaysia, France and/or Switzerland. Maybe this will force those lazy ******* into writing something original. Probably not. BUT WHAT IF.
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