‘Call Of Duty’ Really Doesn’t Understand ‘80s Action Movies

In a somewhat ironic bid to stay relevant, the Call of Duty franchise has just launched a Nostalgia Month. From May 20th on, online players of Warzone and Black Ops Cold War will be able to shell out for the ’80s Action Heroes pack that will put them in the shoes/bloody bare feet of movie legends John Rambo and John McClane. So don your reddest bandana and take Nakatomi Plaza by storm while reliving the golden age of action flicks when, as the half-assed retro trailer growls, “some heroes die hard, others draw first blood.”

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… part II. That tagline ought to read: “some heroes die hard, others draw first blood part II.” Even though Activision, realizing most of its players have dropped more racial slurs than they’ve dropped testicles, is marketing the event as a “formal introduction to one of the action movie genre’s icons,” they’re specifically introducing their kill-streak obsessed gamers to the Rambo of the sequel — the one who has managed to unlock the God mode cheat code …

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And not the Rambo from the first First Blood, the one who’s crying about watching his best friend get his legs blown off in ‘Nam by a suicide bombing shoeshine kid …

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And leave it to the game developers behind “Press F to pay respects” to pick two of the most nuanced, complicated action heroes in the history of film to spray-and-pray their way through their shiny loot-box infested playgrounds. Imagine the surprise of some CoD tween torrenting Rambo to find out that, instead of this barrel-chested badass mowing down bogeys, they’ve actually gotten into the skin of a PTSD-suffering, homeless, anti-war cautionary tale who in the first movie only kills a single enemy — by accident.

Activision

Not that they would have recognized them from these skins.