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You Could Have Fought Zombies and Aliens in Modern Warfare 2

But Russians are slightly more evil, so developers went with them instead

Nov 20, 2009 08:37 GMT  ·  By
Aliens invading the American suburbs would have felt like Fallout 3
   Aliens invading the American suburbs would have felt like Fallout 3

When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was still doing push-ups and washing latrines with its toothbrush back in boot camp, the COs of the game had some very different ideas for the first-class private. While the young soldier was beefing up to become the greatest entertainment release in history, the developers had a completely different adversary to peg the game against. Russians weren't the first choice as the opposing force of MW2, but zombies and aliens.

"In the beginning we talked about having things in Modern Warfare 2 like outbreaks, viruses, chemical warfare, and even outlandish things such as aliens and the living dead," writer Jesse Stern said during an interview with GamePro. "We worked our way through it before we finally ended up with a more grounded version of the real world as it's depicted in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. And as we were kicking around scenarios for conflict, we kept stumbling into things that were happening in real life, which was honestly unintentional."

And it's a good thing the developers did so. One of the big selling points of the game was the plot's controversial nature. The title would have lost a lot of hype and even more in terms of actual interest from the gaming community if, instead of Russian mercenaries, zombies or aliens would have been responsible for the airport massacre.

It would have been a cliche and out of place for a game that deals with war in present day. Stern also added that, "We didn't intend on doing anything ripped straight from real headlines or based directly on current events. We did want to capture that feeling of unimaginable scenarios that are prevalent, but so distant from the psyche on any given day."

Amongst these real-life events that took place during the game's development were Russia's invasion of Georgia and the terrorist attack on Mumbai that felt a "little too close to home," according to Stern. "That's the thing about making Modern Warfare 2: it's mostly fantasy, but you can put people very close to real situations that you normally wouldn't want to be involved in."