the war on drugs
(spoilers ahead, for Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, and the 90’s, too)
Growing up in the 90’s there are some things that just seep out of pop culture and leave a pot-leaf-shaped stain on the back of your brain stem. You’re impressionable, you’re curious, and you’re dumb. Most 11 year olds, probably think cocaine has a ‘y’ in it, but they see this scene and they’ve got nothing to say but “oh that makes sense”, because drugs.
Or you were brave enough to hide halfway behind a door while your teenage sister and her friends watch Trainspotting, and you pretend to understand whatever the hell this was supposed to mean.
Drug scenes are fun because they excuse you from reality. They dance the line between scary and surreal while they put the world on hold and show you the cracks of the universe that few people ever get to see.
Video games play with this idea too. Though you usually find that Ubisoft is most eager to show you a hallucinogenic world, when you’re doused with Fear Toxin in Arkham Asylum, Batman completely loses his apex-predator status to take on a stories-tall Scarecrow who can literally kill you with a look.
Nintendo’s Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island is probably one of the more famous examples when they let you touch fuzzy and get dizzy. Originally just a flex for Nintendo’s Mode 7 Graphics chip, it nevertheless asked an important question: If the game is on drugs, aren't you on drugs too?
I was reminded of it most recently when playing through 2020’s Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War campaign. Spoilers ahead, for the spoiler-queasy.
Black Ops: Cold War Crimes
Set in 1980, you’re CIA Operative Bell, former war vet who’s been chasing a Russian wildcard named Perseus, an agent who’s been a thorn in the United States’ side since the Vietnam War. Turns out ol’ Persy stole a nuke of American origin and found a way to daisy-chain every nuke in Europe. You’re constantly jumping between current efforts to stymie the Russian spy effort in the west and missions from the past that give you clues about who Perseus is and how to stop them.
However, about 3/4 through the game, it’s revealed that you’re not an American with a longstanding service record at all, but actually a recovered Russian agent who’s been brainwashed and conditioned to believe they’re American. Is it dumb? Yes. But it admittedly still got me to loosen my jaw a smidge when it’s revealed that “We got a job to do”, a phrase that Adler’s been repeating throughout the game is 2020’s “Would you Kindly”, and despite the better execution this idea had in Bioshock, it’s still fun when all the pieces come together.
I’m going to be blunt so I can avoid being anything less than perfectly clear: the Interrogation mission in Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is one of my favorite video game levels of the past few years. It mixes unreliable narration with an almost rogue-like level design that lets you explore every corner as you decide to follow Adler’s suggestions or defy him down to the smallest, pettiest details.
Adler is running you through “your” debrief of a skirmish in Vietnam and expects you to follow his every command. To the point that when he says you jumped out of the helicopter and grab an M-16, there’s an exasperated “Or maybe it was something else” when you grab an MP-5. It’s a subtle but important distinction that immediately informs you that while he’s telling the story, you’re the one in control of it.
Adler
chain-smokes like
he’s made out of
gasoline and jazz
The basic premise of this lie-palace Adler’s constructing around is that you were on a mission where you found Russian involvement in Vietnam. He’s trying to get you to remember more details. So this incredibly small level you’re in has four possible paths to go down. Whether you listen to him or not, you generally get to see all of it - no matter which path you choose, eventually you find a Red Door. All he cares about is that damn door and what’s on the other side of it.
Did you die? Nuh-uh. That’s not how the story went. Try again. Try to remember things more clearly. It’s day and and there are 40 hostiles. Don’t go left, go right. Go into the cave by the waterfall. No, that’s not right. You’re pulled out and brought back to your crashed helo. Maybe this time it’s night and you have a bow. Now it’s still day and you actually had a grenade launcher.
It doesn’t matter. None of this is what Adler wants. Find the Red Door.
My favorite Motion City Soundtrack song - That door with the Red Door
The War. On Drugs.
Whether you follow his instructions or not, you run through the same level’s winding paths. Eventually, the local fighters change to small versions of Adler, turtleneck and all. This isn’t Adler losing his cool, this is you losing yours. You’ve gone from a memory you can’t remember, to a reality you can’t comprehend. This is the drugs and they’re finally working the exact way you don’t want them to. There are metaphors everywhere but none of them make any sense. This is when the level takes it up a notch. This is why I can’t stop thinking about it a month later.
This is when reality breaks and it is beautiful.
You can’t remember how many times you’ve been through the level. The only person more frustrated than Adler barking orders at you through your drug-induced haze is you because nothing makes sense. You discover a hatch like you’re in the first season of Lost. You go down it. Holy crap are those zombies? You laugh in defiance. Adler demands you stop lying.
Every path ends with a Red Door. You always go through it. Sometimes you’re in a lab, sometimes you’re not. Maybe the building is decrepit, maybe it’s brand new. You find an ominous chair and you sit in it. Maybe there’s a cadre of high-ranking Russian officials obscured by cigar smoke and you’re excused for being late. Give me a second, I need to watch the moon landing.
Adler for the love of God can I please bum a smoke?
It doesn’t matter. We’ve Got a Job to Do™. After clearing out the enemy village, you go forward. The path splits right before some empty ruins. There’s a Red Door in the ruins. You walk through it and you’re back in the helicopter. you get back to the fork in the road. You go left, and a hundred yards later, maybe you go left again. You hold off fire from an outpost until some F-4 Phantoms bomb them. In the rubble you find the Red Door. There’s always a Red Door.
You ignore what Adler tells you to do, or maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ve exhausted every command he’s given you and at wit’s end there’s a single, solitary Red Door in front of you and there’s literally nothing for you to do but go through it. Maybe you do your best to fight his demands - Red Doors literally start raining from the sky. You had every choice before - left, right, village, outpost, waterfall, hatch—but those are all moot now. All that exists anymore is a Red Door and good god I hope this is this the right one. Go find another Red Door for the first time again. Time is a flat circle, after all.
You’re back in a familiar hallway. It stopped being a Call of Duty game eight doors ago and you realize you’re in a horror game. You turn the corner of the hallway. There’s another red door. It moves further from you. It disappears. You turn another corner and there it is. You’re going too slow so you’re injected with more drugs. The world turns sepia and you have no idea what you did wrong. Doors on either side of you are open but slam as soon as you approach. Gunfire starts hailing out of them. Adler stands at the end of the hallway. Is he Perseus? is this a metaphor or a revelation? The door slams and you’re reminded how little you matter.
You keep going. The Red Door led to a hallway you’ve never been to before but you’ve seen a dozen times. You almost think you’re playing the P.T. Demo instead of what used to be the gaming world’s most linear story. You go forward. You never reach the Red Door. Reality broke ten minutes ago and you didn’t even notice because you were trying to hard to save the world after disobeying Adler and trying to break the game.
The walls literally start caving in. You swear they’re about to disappear and Adler will show up to tell you your real-life social security number and how much you weighed the day you were born. Adler is god and you’re his Sisyphus trying for an eternity to open a door he promises will end this. You crouch through the shrinking hallway and finally, the door opens. You get what Adler wants, which means you get what you want.
You get out.
With that, Cold War gave Call of Duty its most memorable level since the original Black Ops more than ten years ago. Halfway through being last year’s best Michael Bay movie, Cold War dared to be last year’s second best Christopher Nolan movie.
this is your drug level on brains
AAA gaming’s safest bet turned in its biggest gamble in over a decade. Holding a gun is tradition in a Call of Duty game, it’s ritual, it’s expected. What makes Interrogation so iconic is the risks taken when you weren’t holding a gun. The inherent danger in a drug-riddled game sequence is the new reality you create on top of the artificial reality you’ve already constructed. It’s like building a sandcastle on top of a house of cards. Either the drug sequence is more interesting than where you’re already spending a majority of your time, or it’s immediately less compelling than where you used to be and you can’t wait to get back.
Cold War threads the needle by changing gears so completely and turning the world’s most prominent shooter into a horror walking sim. The most vital thing is comprehending the world around you instead of blasting it to pieces. The jump from popcorn blockbuster to psychological thriller is equal parts immediate and complete, forcing you into a situation where headshots don’t matter. It takes your expectations and squashes them like a grape between the toes of an old Italian woman. Which is more or less how my brain felt after finishing the level and expecting a pew-pew game.
When the world stopped shocking us it became source material. Breaking reality is the only path left for Call of Duty to remain interesting, to explore the how come instead of the how loud. Much like the game, it doesn’t matter if you agree with that or not, we’re going to end up there eventually.
The red door is the only choice left.
