Last Updated on February 17, 2022
Video footage featuring infamous KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov giving his legendary monologue in ideological subversion during the arms race was spliced into the teaser trailer for upcoming video game title Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War.
Several heads turned at the trailer, given its outwardly anti-communist message and listed phases for an ideological takeover of a Western country. The monologue played over various unrelated clips pertaining to heightening tensions throughout the Cold War and events the former KGB spy, who defected to Canada in 1970, warned against.
Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is currently being developed by Treyarch and Raven Software. It will be published by Activision, who left fans hanging with the chilling message on Twitter: “know your history, or be doomed to repeat it,” as it is based on real life events.
Know your history, or be doomed to repeat it.
Watch the chilling new teaser for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War. https://t.co/V2oj6DA7hZ pic.twitter.com/Yg6sBLBUki
— IGN (@IGN) August 19, 2020
The gameplay will be centered around a spy by the name of “Perseus” who has “infiltrated Western intelligence” in a ploy to “subvert the U.S. to ensure Soviet dominance in the Arms Race.”
Perseus, in real life, was a spy the CIA believes infiltrated the Manhattan project in World War II.
On YouTube, the trailer was, on the whole, well-received amassing nearly 4 million views and 188,000 likes to 7,700 dislikes. Many commenters agreed with Bezmenov’s message from his legendary 1984 interview with G. Edward Griffin, drawing parallels witnessed within politico-cultural discourse currently manifesting in America.
In recent years, a vast quantity of gamers have been treated to various games with overt political messages within the gameplay. Most recently, The Last of Us II, despite being picked apart for its deliberate sullying of beloved characters in the sequel in favor of political shoehorning, doubled-down on its narrative and even included a sexual self-insert by Naughty Dog’s VP, Neil Druckmann, in a steamy dalliance involving a transgender woman in a post-apocalyptic world.
Druckmann later came out to suggest that he did not want “bigots” playing his game.
Now that a game trailer with a politically incorrect–but historically accurate–slant has emerged, some members of the gaming community have voiced their disapproval for failing to tick the correct boxes.
Many others, however, welcomed the new game.
One person joked about the shoe being on the other foot when they tweeted: ““Hah you stupid gamers, all video games are political and should be” *new [Call of Duty] game is political in a way they don’t like* “Wait no…””
“Hah you stupid gamers, all video games are political and should be”
*new CoD game is political in a way they don’t like*
“Wait no…” https://t.co/ASpCQomKof— Glory To Erusea (@bonnie1020RBLX) August 20, 2020
One Maoist alarmist took to Twitter to voice their concerns about the game, writing: “umm guys, [America’s] most popular video game made an entire trailer promoting a fascist named [Yuri Bezmenov] pushing a far-right conspiracy theory. I don’t know a single [American] male who hasn’t played [Call of Duty] and I can see thousands being piped into the far right as we speak.”
“The whole video is literally just this [Soviet] defector saying that [Americans] are at war with Marxists at every level of society, and that progressive social movements are just Marxist plots to “demoralize” the US. [This] is a guy who literally thinks humans shouldn’t be equal,” they added.
the whole video is literally just this soviet defector saying that americans are at war with marxists at every level of society, and that progressive social movements are just marxist plots to "demoralize" the US. this is a guy who literally thinks humans shouldn't be equal
— wei 许至威 (@zhiweiloumian) August 21, 2020
Various commenters simply linked to the 1984 interview to increase awareness of how the eerie ideological subversion is implemented throughout its various stages.
The release date for the game is still unknown, according to Notebookcheck.net.
