Will Call Of Duty Black Ops 6's Rumoured 9/11 Mission Work?

Highlights

One fan found what could be a 9/11 reference in a Black Ops 6 screenshot
But is Call of Duty mature enough for the tragedy?
More to the point, are its audience?

Xbox's companion showcase at Summer Game Fest has finally been revealed as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and players have been scouting for clues in the meagre key art and marketing teasers we've gotten so far. However, they seem to have found something major: the numbers 9 11 2001, AKA the date of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. On the one hand, this is the sort of event a game concerned with 'black ops' might cover. On the other, I'm not sure I trust Call of Duty with it.

There are a lot of complexities when it comes to a Call of Duty game. Aside from those set in the future, most of them (as with many other military games) depict real wars in which real people were really killed. There's always a sensitivity issue with how morally right or wrong it is to gamify these wars. But with 9/11, there are quite a few other mitigating circumstances.

Why Call Of Duty Covering 9/11 Is A Bad Idea

RAM-7 With Big Scope Attachment In Call Of Duty Warzone

Firstly, 9/11 is significantly more recent than World War 2 or even the Vietnam War. Survivors and families of victims, plus the millions of us who witnessed it on the news, think of 9/11 less as history and more as a part of our actual lives. While Call of Duty has told modern stories before, they've taken place in fictional countries. True, this was a Middle Eastern nation that was clearly an analogue for Iraq, but it wasn't actually Iraq - Modern Warfare’s Urzikstan is the most infamous example of this.

Then there's the fact the victims of 9/11 were civilians. These were not nations at war and it was not a military target. Again, throughout Call of Duty, there have been civilian casualties, through urban warfare and the controversial No Russian mission, but this is the double header of it being a real event that happened and the victims being entirely innocent. It's hard to imagine a way to make that into a video game.

Third, and this shouldn't matter (but definitely does), the victims were American. Call of Duty is an American video game that has been near-unblinking in its view of America as the global good guys. It's already cartoonishly patriotic in its view of warfare, even once reversing the true history of a battle to show Russia, not America, as the aggressors. With ‘9/11 Never Forget’ an ideal burned into the psyche of modern day Pax Americana, it's hard to imagine Call of Duty showing any restraint in depicting the tragedy.

This sort of issue was present in Modern Warfare 2 when players aimed guns at civilians to 'de-escalate', causing the game to be accused of manufacturing consent for US military tactics .

Why Call Of Duty Covering 9/11 Makes Sense

Striker 9 Play Inside A House In Rebirh Island In Call Of Duty Warzone

In the interests of balance - an ideal not always chief in Call of Duty's thinking - there is some justification, if 9/11 does indeed feature in Black Ops 6. It's true that many of us lived through it, but it happened almost 23 years ago. Large swathes of the Call of Duty player base did not, and thus regard it as history in the same way I think of the Cold War (a popular CoD topic) that my parents lived through. There are children's books on 9/11 and it is a subject that fascinates the generation that came after it.

It's also a crucial event in the shaping of world politics. While Call of Duty has never depicted 9/11 before, the fact it has frequently dealt with US soldiers fighting in the Middle East throughout the '00s suggests it did happen in the game's reality too. Whether shown on screen or not, it has been a major motivator in the events of Call of Duty thus far. Some of the shock around it (potentially) featuring in the game may be motivated by the second and third points, the real American civilian victims - rather than its recency.

Six Days in Fallujah was highly controversial for depicting a real conflict in the Iraq War, and was eventually cancelled until being revived decades later, where it still languishes in early access thanks to the continued controversy. While Six Days in Fallujah is not a Call of Duty game, it feels like Call of Duty has spent six years in Fallujah, cosplaying the Gulf War and the atrocities committed in the city streets with little disregard for the lack of sensitivity shown there. Of course, any previous failings to depict tragedy with tact do not give Call of Duty carte blanche to continue to do so, and the cruelty of the internet transforming 9/11 into a meme does not change the fact it is a very painful scar on peoples' lives, and in their view of their national identity.

It remains to be seen how much 9/11 will actually feature in the game, if at all. The whole thing could take place in the wake of the attack with none of it shown on screen. It's unlikely to take us particularly close to the attacks - even Call of Duty must be aware that having us in the plane or the towers would be a terrible idea. First responders, maybe. But I think more likely it will be a catalyst to bring the real Iraq war into the series instead of the facsimile it has used so far. And that brings with it a whole new heap of worries...