Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will include a Tamagotchi-like wristwatch for players to equip in multiplayer. The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Tamagotchi, called the “TamaGUNchi,” will feed on kills, living and growing as players defeat enemies in multiplayer.
Infinity Ward Art Director Joel Emslie revealed the Tamagotchi’s existence in an interview with the Daily Star. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s wristwatches caught players’ attention when it was revealed on Reddit that they display the real-world time determined by players’ consoles, but apparently that’s not the only neat feature they can have. Emslie said the “TamaGUNchi” was one of the “weird places” the team has decided to take wristwatch functionality.
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“If you get kills, you can keep it alive,” Emslie told the Daily Star. “And it’ll ultimately sit on your Gunsmith workbench and you can see how it’s doing. So you can check in on it […] from time to time and think ‘oh shit, I gotta feed the TomaGUNchi [laughs].”
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Tamagotchi might seem out of place in a game that’s aiming for the same kind of intense, real-world narrative events seen in games like Spec Ops: The Line, but it’s not the first deviation from reality seen in Modern Warfare’s multiplayer mode. Activision announced last week that killstreaks are returning to multiplayer, giving players vehicles and bonuses for earning kills. One of these killstreak rewards, “White Phosphorus,” is based on the real-world chemical that creates obscuring smoke and burns those who come in contact with it.
The announcement of the weapon’s inclusion caused some controversy among the gaming community, as the real-world use of white phosphorus is also controversial. In an interview with VG24/7, Multiplayer Design Director Geoff Smith said the weapon’s inclusion is not meant to make a statement about its use (as it was in the infamous white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops: The Line’s campaign). Smith said that Modern Warfare’s multiplayer is separate from the game’s more realistic campaign, providing a place for players to enjoy the game’s mechanics rather than grapple with the morality of war.
“Our [multiplayer] game is more about two sides, that there is no good guy or bad guy, you play on either one,” Smith said. “We’re just creating this playground to play on.”
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Tamagotchi, then, seems to be another part of that multiplayer “playground,” meant to be consumed separately from the seriousness of the campaign.
