While it sometimes mingles with real-world events outside of its World War 2 entries, Call of Duty primarily deals with fictional conflicts. The Modern Warfare subseries was a big proponent of this fiction-heavy push as they were more like Tom Clancy novels than Ken Burns documentaries. The recent United States Capitol riots have made a few stages in Modern Warfare 2 a little more real as players are revisiting the Call of Duty White House and Capitol warfare levels from the 2009 shooter.
The confusion around the Call of Duty White House level
There are a few levels that take place in Washington D.C., which some players might remember as the game’s campaign was remastered in 2020. “Of Their Own Accord,” “Second Sun,” and “Whiskey Hotel” are three highlights. “On Their Own Accord” sees players run through the ruined National Mall as Private Ramirez. The latter two take place in the D.C. streets and then in the White House, respectively. Bullet holes and debris litter each of the national monuments as Russian extremists violently take over the city.
However, the player never actually visits the Capitol building in Modern Warfare 2. The Capitol, which is the one with a big, multi-story dome, can only be see in the “On Their Own Accord” mission off in the distance. All of these white buildings with pillars in Washington D.C. can be easy to confuse. After all, the White House and Washington Monument are just over two miles from the U.S. Capitol. They’re all relatively close together to be seen from each other, but they are not close enough to all be visited in those levels that take place somewhat in a condensed time period.
But this confusion has not stopped players from bringing up the Capitol riots when searching for these videos. The White House video at the top of the article has over 30 comments just in the past day with most of the commenters making various jokes comparing the video game levels to the Donald Trump supporters that broke into the Capitol building in a dangerous and misguided attempt to overturn the results of a fair election.
This is not the first time the gaming world has overlapped with these recent events. Twitch banned the PogChamps emote after Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez asked for further “civil unrest” on Twitter. A Dishonored tattoo on one of the rioters was also mistaken for an Antifa symbol.
