It’s that time of year again – the new Call of Duty is imminent. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 arrives in exactly one week, and in chatting to one of the key developers, we learned about the cinematic influences for this installment, which include a certain thriller by the director of the newest Dune movies.
When asked about his touchstones for the tone and feel of Modern Warfare 4, Jeff Negus, the game’s narrative director, immediately points to one film. “Sicario is one that I’m always checking against,” he explains to GamesRadar+.
“I go, one, would Sicario do this? And two, how would they, if they did?” he adds. “That’s because it’s such a present, visceral, grounded experience, one where the morality is gray and where you’re trying to figure out like, man, am I doing the right thing? Let alone, is there the right thing here?”
Sicario definitely lives in a world without any easy answers. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, it’s about an FBI task force’s efforts to take down a brutal leader of the Mexican cartel, and the story covers America’s part in the web of organized crime and trade of illicit substances across both the US and Mexico.
If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend you do. Modern Warfare 4’s story concerns South Korea defending itself against encroaching forces from North Korea. Different context, but there’s plenty of room to explore similar themes of geopolitical agendas, government interference, and simply what the best solution is in a terrible situation.
Negus names Black Hawk Down and Zero Dark Thirty as examples of “more military” type pictures that the team at Infinity Ward are drawing on. “John Wick has some obvious presence in this one too,” he reveals. “The biggest trick wasn’t necessarily to find a reference; it was to try to make those reference references feel cohesive, like they’re all part of the same story.”
You can verify the studio’s efforts yourself come October 23. A good amount of time to watch all the features mentioned.