Ukraine war revealed as elaborate ‘Call of Duty’ ad campaign
SANTA MONICA — The ongoing war in Ukraine has been revealed to be an elaborate marketing campaign for Modern Warfare 2, the next game in the Call of Duty franchise.
“We are excited to bring Call of Duty fans across the globe the next groundbreaking iteration in the Modern Warfare mythos,” said Activision Chief Marketing Officer Alie McElroy during a recent press conference.
“We have spent trillions of dollars manufacturing the war in Ukraine over the last 20 years, and while we are sorry for the death and destruction this war has caused, we hope players will understand once they dive into the game.”
The game allows players to control Army veteran Corey David, who goes to Ukraine to help lead the fight against the Russians. David is revealed to have been a mere military policeman while in the Army, contributing little to the resistance. Eventually, the Ukrainian Army abandons David in the forest after he tries to show them “Super Badass” pictures from his time at Fort Knox. The game ends with David shitting his pants while crying in an abandoned school bus.
According to McElroy, Activision decided in 1992 to hire and train over 300,000 actors to infiltrate Russian society. Activision’s goal was to portray a country on the brink while embarrassing itself at every opportunity. McElroy said the results were “better than we had ever hoped.”
McElroy was joined on stage by Vladimir Putin, real name Paul Birnberg, an Activision employee who has portrayed the Russian despot for 30 years.
“This has been the toughest role I have ever taken on,” said Birnberg, “to portray such a scallywag of character took a lot of training. I based the character on the Emperor from Star Wars. I wanted to do Darth Vader, but I was too short.”
The game was released on October 28 to largely positive reviews for its storyline and inclusion of a PTSD simulator.
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