A former Infinity Ward lead animator has recently claimed that at one point, Activision pressured his team to develop a Call of Duty game about "Iran attacking Israel."
Chance Glasco, an animator who co-founded Infinity Ward with the late Vince Zampella, took to X to reveal this. In a post on March 4, Glasco said that there was "a very awkward pressure from Activision" for the next CoD game to focus on a battle between Iran and Israel. He said this came after Respawn Entertainment's formation, suggesting that the next CoD game, 2011's Modern Warfare 3, would've addressed this conflict.
This revelation was in response to the White House using Call of Duty footage to glorify its joint attack with Israel on Iran. While Glasco said the White House appropriating CoD gameplay to promote its military campaign against Iran "doesn't surprise" him, he clarified that the pressure Activision put on Infinity Ward was shut down because "the vast majority of devs were disgusted by the idea."
Call of Duty games don't tend to use real Middle Eastern countries as a backdrop for a war. Afghanistan has appeared in previous Call of Duty games, such as 2009's Modern Warfare 2 and 2010's Black Ops, but outside of the US, Russia, and the UK, the series mostly uses fictitious countries as stand-ins for the Middle East.
In response to a commenter who brought up the controversial No Russian mission from Modern Warfare 2, in which you massacre civilians in a Moscow airport, Glasco said that this was initially a "a plot point/text on a loading screen in-between levels." He noted the mission ultimately became skippable, and that players could complete it by shooting near civilians in order to fool Russian separatists.
"With Early CoDs, we wanted to often remind people that war is hell and not just a video game," Glasco said. "If you play the earlier [Infinity Ward] CoDs, you'll definitely see that throughout the series. We wanted players to feel disgust, and we purposefully sought to make them actually feel bad for war. We focus tested the level before release, and an extremely high percentage of players just froze when they realized what they thought they were supposed to do. Some of them put the controller down and said they didn't want to play it. This, to me, is a much better reaction than 100% of players just going Leroy Jenkins on the level with no emotion at all."
GameSpot has reached out to Activision for comment and will update this story should we hear back.
This comes as the White House engages in a joint military operation with Israel against Iran. Beginning on February 28, the US and Israel have pummeled Iran with bombs, one of which destroyed a building occupied by schoolgirls and killing thousands of people thus far in the campaign. The conflict has entered its fifth day with no end in sight.
Source
Chance Glasco, an animator who co-founded Infinity Ward with the late Vince Zampella, took to X to reveal this. In a post on March 4, Glasco said that there was "a very awkward pressure from Activision" for the next CoD game to focus on a battle between Iran and Israel. He said this came after Respawn Entertainment's formation, suggesting that the next CoD game, 2011's Modern Warfare 3, would've addressed this conflict.
This revelation was in response to the White House using Call of Duty footage to glorify its joint attack with Israel on Iran. While Glasco said the White House appropriating CoD gameplay to promote its military campaign against Iran "doesn't surprise" him, he clarified that the pressure Activision put on Infinity Ward was shut down because "the vast majority of devs were disgusted by the idea."
Call of Duty games don't tend to use real Middle Eastern countries as a backdrop for a war. Afghanistan has appeared in previous Call of Duty games, such as 2009's Modern Warfare 2 and 2010's Black Ops, but outside of the US, Russia, and the UK, the series mostly uses fictitious countries as stand-ins for the Middle East.
This doesn't surprise me. I remember after Activision took over post-Respawn formation there was a very awkward pressure from Activision for us to make the next CoD about Iran attacking Israel. Luckily the vast majority of our devs were disgusted by the idea and it got shot down. https://t.co/taTIsQUklI
— Chance Glasco (@ChanceGlasco) March 4, 2026
In response to a commenter who brought up the controversial No Russian mission from Modern Warfare 2, in which you massacre civilians in a Moscow airport, Glasco said that this was initially a "a plot point/text on a loading screen in-between levels." He noted the mission ultimately became skippable, and that players could complete it by shooting near civilians in order to fool Russian separatists.
"With Early CoDs, we wanted to often remind people that war is hell and not just a video game," Glasco said. "If you play the earlier [Infinity Ward] CoDs, you'll definitely see that throughout the series. We wanted players to feel disgust, and we purposefully sought to make them actually feel bad for war. We focus tested the level before release, and an extremely high percentage of players just froze when they realized what they thought they were supposed to do. Some of them put the controller down and said they didn't want to play it. This, to me, is a much better reaction than 100% of players just going Leroy Jenkins on the level with no emotion at all."
GameSpot has reached out to Activision for comment and will update this story should we hear back.
This comes as the White House engages in a joint military operation with Israel against Iran. Beginning on February 28, the US and Israel have pummeled Iran with bombs, one of which destroyed a building occupied by schoolgirls and killing thousands of people thus far in the campaign. The conflict has entered its fifth day with no end in sight.
Source