Few video game missions loom like No Russian from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Most notable about this is probably how much the entire game was picked up for that one, in a fairly short level, in a five-hour campaign designed to lighten up as players master Call of Duty mechanics and prepare for the real battlefield. of online games.
Why was it so unforgettable? The fourth mission of the game in 2009, No Russian puts you in the shoes of a CIA agent, trying to gain the trust of Russian terrorists... possibly helping them kill crowds of fleeing civilians at a Moscow airport.
Asking or allowing players to mow down civilians at the same time as the "bad guys" was, to put it mildly, a source of division. Although the game certainly sold well, this success tasted sour to many, and the mission was removed from the game entirely for its Russian release.
It was quite a significant change in tone from the previous Modern Warfare game just two years ago, which had, with a slower, more thoughtful approach to combat, a bit more restraint than the Hollywood blockbusters it was intended for. MW2. Mimic MW2 was a game with bigger action sets, higher dramatic stakes, much more unlikely situations, and an end-level speedboat chase that looked like it was lifted straight out of a James Bond movie. Not forgetting No Russian, a mission that spends eight minutes killing civilians you can't intervene in, ostensibly for your entertainment.
It was still a game focused on the modern realities of military conflict, but one that took "realities" like precise facsimiles of weapons and camouflage designs in lieu of believable gameplay. something that is still quite characteristic of the Call of Duty franchise, and ended up awkwardly caught between its two missions of realism and entertainment.
It was over ten years ago, of course, and a lot has already been said about the difficult reception of No Russian. However, when news of a Modern Warfare 2 campaign remaster began to leak, the question we were asked was: won't Russia be included?
The answer was a definite yes. No Russian is yet playable in the remastered game, which costs $19.99 / £19.99 / AU$35.95, and is now only available on PS4, with PC and Xbox One launching in just a few weeks. You can check out the official trailer below (although no footage from the Non-Russian mission is shown).
Unsurprisingly, the remaster will not be released in Russia at all, but relaunching the game with no Russian anywhere, especially after the media industry and soul searching that the controversial mission has sparked, is a deserving choice. be questioned.
The case of non-Russians
While no Russians were controversial in 2009, it could be argued that there's no point in sweeping this part of Call of Duty history away. We can learn a lot by looking at the past from a modern perspective, and the remastered No-Russian enters a different gameplay landscape than the original. The mission also comes with the same activation warnings and guarantees as in the original game. Players are warned of "disturbing content that may offend certain players", with the option to skip the mission entirely. The achievements are also unrelated to the mission, which means that those who want all the Xbox One game trophies will not be prevented from reaching their 100% goal to challenge the level.
![]()
(Image credit: Activision) Our Home Tech editor Gerald Lynch notes that you don't have to fire a single bullet in the mission, which seems important: "Whether you're the arbiter of your involvement or not is up to you. : is a flop is that you don't get a chance to intervene in any way (unless you plan on beating the game and taking down the final villain in some form of revenge fix)." You also have to consider the argument of entertainment. Modern Warfare 2 is a video game, and the story is over the top enough (you even go into space). The Russians aren't the only bad guys either, with the military general (spoilers ahead) who guides most of your missions becoming the big bad before the end of the game. How seriously should you take something in Modern Warfare 2?
The case against No Russian
Obviously, Modern Warfare 2 is entertainment, but because of that, it's in a place to move, surprise, or horrify us. And their creators must be ready to take responsibility for all these emotional responses. The campaign is short, about five hours of playtime, but it's not like cutting that eight-minute mission, maybe replacing it with 10 seconds of voiceover to explain what happened, greatly reduced this amount. Why not just remove it and avoid additional development work?
![Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered (2020)]()
Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered (2020) (Image credit: Activision) Vic Hood, Game Editor at TechRadar, said: “You always seem to be there to surprise. The game could have run without... And the fact that you can ignore it proves it. "It's also impossible not to consider No Russian in the context of the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot, which featured a mission involving (and named after) the infamous Highway of Death, a stretch of road between Kuwait and Iraq, where vehicles Refugees carrying civilian and retired Iraqi refugees were fired indiscriminately by US-led forces.In the Call of Duty rewrite, however, Russian-led forces led the attack.There is an uneasy alliance between Call of Duty production and the US military, the franchise's editorial team that works with Pentagon advisers to write their stories.While you obviously can't call Infinity Ward complicit in a real war, his lax demeanor when portraying real-life atrocities is... disturbing, to say the least. Gerald Lynch argues that "war crimes are very real and shocking, and that in a game that strives for some form of realism, by depicting one (fictional or otherwise ) that too often we are allowed to avoid and avoid. being protected is actually a brave inclusion. "However, it is unfortunate that this listing has not been dealt with more responsibly."
![Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)]()
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) (Image credit: Infinity Ward)
To go
When we reached out to Activision for feedback, they assured us that the guarantees for the original 2009 game were upheld, which was a start. However, the publisher would not be drawn to internal conversations about including the task, or if it was never included in the table. Our conclusion here is that the Call of Duty team should know more. They should have known better in 2009, and uncritically remastering any Russian for 2020 doesn't show a developer having learned their lessons. Last year's (2019) Modern Warfare is certainly more to blame for its mishandling of military history, but Modern Warfare 2's record isn't clean either, and revising or restoring history requires a lot more reflection than a splatter of paint for consoles. modern.