Watch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s most gut-wrenching scenes

You can’t unsee some of the brutal scenes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, this year’s first-person combat game from Infinity Ward and Activision. If you don’t want to see them or even get a mental picture of them, stop right here.

Infinity Ward’s leaders have said they have tried to make a game that makes players both uncomfortable and makes them think. They say the game’s violence isn’t gratuitous. It’s contextual, fitting for the story and the artistic themes of the game about where soldiers have to draw the line in modern warfare.

Parents should pay attention this year to the mature rating on the game (here is our full review). I’ve played the full game and captured the video of that gameplay. Everybody should decide for themselves whether they should play this game or not. But some of the scenes are already quite controversial, and I’ve included them as videos in this post.

I’ve shown videos of three scenes here. I didn’t see a fourth torture scene because I opted out of playing that one. In that case alone, the game gives you the option of not participating in an interrogation of a prisoner. If these scenes have a saving grace, it’s that they don’t have buckets of blood. It’s in keeping with the philosophy behind the game, compared to popular movies: Jaws, not Saw.

These scenes have spoilers for the story.

A child at war

Above: A flashback to children in hand-to-hand combat in Modern Warfare. | Image Credit: GamesBeat/Activision

This scene is a flashback to 20 years ago.

In this scene, you see one horror after another. A young girl awakens in a bombed building. Her mother is dead next to her. White Helmet rescue workers dig her out. She is unscathed, and her father is overjoyed. He begins to carry her home to find her brother, only to find that Russia troops are pulling in and executing people in mass shootings.

The family makes it to their home, just as the Russian soldiers immerse the town with poison gas. Inside the home, they find the brother. But a Russian soldier breaks in. In a tense standoff, the father attacks the soldier and they wrestle. The Russian shoots the father, and then he hunts for the girl. She can get away. As the player, you scramble around to pick up a screwdriver and jam it into the Russian’s leg.

The girl and her brother struggle and finally overcome the Russian soldier. Then they escape into the green gas of the chemical attack. They come across dead children, a dead dog, and other grisly sights.

Waterboarding torture

Above: What you see when you are waterboarded by Russian guards in Modern Warfare. | Image Credit: GamesBeat/Activision

This scene takes place 10 years ago, in a Russian prison. General Markov has decided to torture you, Farah, to find out what you know about the leader of the freedom fighters. He orders the guard to waterboard you, torturing you by pouring water on your face so you can’t breathe.

You can try to breathe, and you can try to conceive of the right answer that will help you get out of this torture.

Shooting an unarmed woman

Above: This scene shows a dilemma for soldiers who either shoot or don’t shoot. | Image Credit: GamesBeat/Activision

This mission is dubbed Clean House, and special operations soldiers have to do that in a house that is identified as harboring a terrorist cell.

The soldiers approach the house quietly. They get inside and begin clearing the room, one by one. Some of the terrorists shoot first and you as the player have to shoot back or take them out preemptively.

In one door, you shoot a man with a gun. Then a woman tries to pick up the gun, and you have to shoot her.

In another, a woman rushes to get her baby, and you cannot shoot her.

In the final room, a woman thanks you for rescuing her but she keeps moving. Captain John Price orders her to stop moving. She keeps moving and he says to take her out. You can choose to shoot the unarmed woman, or you can wait, and Price will do it. At the end, you discover she is going for a bomb detonator.

A lot of people criticized me for being squeamish in May, after I saw a preview. I pointed out the brutality of some of these scenes in this Call of Duty. But now everybody can play the game and see these scenes for themselves.