On October 28, the Call of Duty series celebrated its 20th anniversary. But the cornerstone of its overwhelming success has always been the original developer, Infinity Ward, and especially the leaps the studio has made with the Modern Warfare series. It offered an unforgettable and often controversial single-player campaign that reflected modern geopolitics and a best-in-class multiplayer experience that has been followed by the entire series ever since.

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" contained what is still the most controversial level of any game: "No Russian," an early campaign mission in which an attack takes place at a fictional Russian airport (Zakhaev International Airport) and civilians are killed by a terrorist group that includes the player character. The player character is shot and killed by a group of terrorists, including While shooting unarmed civilians is a deeply disturbing experience, and the second half of the mission reverts to typical COD form (the FSB rushes in to return fire), "No Russian" is a more focused look at the genre, the nature of COD-like entertainment, and whether this kind of thing should be allowed in games became the focus of a broader conversation about whether or not such things should be allowed in games.

The initial idea for No Russian came from Steve Fukuda, one of the design leads on MW2. Designer Mohammad Alavi told IGN, "Steve's first suggestion was to have a bunch of guys, all wearing Kevlar and carrying M4s." And he knows that just by saying M4, everyone will realize, 'Okay, we are Americans.'"

The M4 carbine is the standard issue rifle in most American military units, and the central premise of the mission is a false flag attack carried out by Russian terrorist Vladimir Makarov and his forces. The player plays the role of Joseph Allen, a CIA agent embedded with the group, and the mission's title comes from a line that Makarov uttered before the attack began: "Remember, no Russians." Makarov's intention is for this group to be perceived as American, hence the weapons and language are important, and the attack will cause a war between Russia and America.

The setting of the missions changed from the original concept of a shopping mall, but the core of the idea was always to make the players complicit in attacks on civilians. I've been asked the question a lot," says Alavi. "I was often asked, 'Did you try to make something controversial? I was often asked, "Did you try to make something controversial? I was trying to make something memorable.

The narrative importance was to have Makarov, the main antagonist of the Modern Warfare trilogy, played up close, and to make the character "memorable" enough in this short sequence that players would carry that impression with them for the rest of the game and even into the sequels. Aravi recalls.

"So basically, we were trying to come up with the most brutal thing that could happen."

Initially, the team did not do enough to convey the horror. The mission, which begins with terrorists firing from an elevator into the airport lobby, was a relatively short sequence at the outset and quickly reverted to the usual COD as the police swept in. The game's director, Jason West, requested that the length of the sequence in which civilians are killed be reconsidered in order to make the player as uncomfortable as possible.

"[West] said, 'I'm not going to do it like this.' He was like, 'I want the whole airport to be like this.'" Alavi eventually agreed, saying, "I need to breathe in this moment. Then I started coming up with different things. People dragging people to safety, police trying to wade through crowds....... And then I came up with moments, moments, moments to sell this horrible event. "

Infinity Ward tested this mission and found that approximately 50% of players refused to shoot civilians. Many players pretended to participate in the attack, but fired at the ceiling, intentionally missing civilians. In shipped missions, players can do this. However, they cannot kill Makarov or interfere with the attack.

Infinity Ward had doubts after playtesting, and veterans who refused to play altogether left a big impression. 'I'm sure there were people [within the company] who were against it,' says Aravi. 'I thought they were exaggerating, and they were 100 percent right. This is offensive. I don't want to play at this level." These concerns eventually led Director West to insist that this level remain, but that players be given a content warning and the option to skip the mission without penalty

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This led to accusations that the game was compromising or abandoning its principles, but in the end Aravi felt that giving players the option to skip No Russian and enjoy the rest of the campaign was the right decision.

If the mark of success is creating interactive moments that linger long in the memory, "No Russian" is it. I remember playing it at the time and being a bit puzzled by some of the reactions, mainly because so much of Modern Warfare's narrative power sits comfortably alongside real-world events: the staging of the AC-130 gunship mission was praised as visionary, and the game's use of the AC-130 gunship to protect SAS troops by taking fire on a village, and in the process, creating a "no Russian" experience. mission, taking fire on the village and flattening countless houses in the process, it seemed hypocritical then and now that a fictional terrorist attack similar to a real-world tragedy would be considered a bridge too far for entertainment. [However, as Alavi's recollections make clear, different people have different opinions of "No Russian". Some see it as unforgivably crude, while others seem to misunderstand it as a glorification of the fictional events depicted. Others consider the horror of dawn and the impact it has on the player so important that it is one of the best narrative moments COD has yet to achieve. I distinctly remember the first time I played this game, after hesitating, unsure of what was happening and what to do, I decided to shoot.

"I thought, 'I don't want to pull the trigger,'" says Alavi. 'I want you to hesitate for a minute, not pull the trigger. I don't care if I pull the trigger later. But if you stop for a second and think, 'What am I doing? I feel like I've accomplished something.'"