While many controversies over objectionable game content are blown severely out of proportion, recently leaked footage of Activision’s upcoming “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2” indicates that this time, the moral outrage might be justified.

Some background. If, by chance, you were kidnapped by sentient lemurs several years ago and forced to perform slave labor in their isolated underground metropolises, you might not know that the first Modern Warfare was, and is, a rather big deal. It sold something like three berjillion copies, and is easily one of the most technically proficient, intense games of this era.

Modern Warfare 2 looks to fall into the same sort of mold; however, recently leaked gameplay footage revealed a sequence in which the player controls a terrorist gunning down hundreds of civilians in an airport.

Quite frankly, the footage is disturbing. The game is a first person shooter, so the violence is seen and enacted from a first person perspective – the player is the one committing the heinous act. The player and several confederates exit an elevator into a crowded airport and open fire into a crowd of unsuspecting civilians. The player then proceeds to make his way through the airport, gunning down wounded people trying to crawl to safety, and hunting those that managed to escape the initial onslaught.

Needless to say, the footage has caused a bit of a stir on the interwebz. Activision was quick to respond, first trying to get the leaked video taken down, and then releasing a statement.

From the statement:
“The scene establishes the depth of evil and the cold bloodedness of a rogue Russian villain and his unit. By establishing that evil, it adds to the urgency of the player’s mission to stop them.
Players have the option of skipping over the scene. At the beginning of the game, there are two ‘checkpoints’ where the player is advised that some people may find an upcoming segment disturbing. These checkpoints can’t be disabled.
Modern Warfare 2 is a fantasy action game designed for intense, realistic game play that mirrors real life conflicts, much like epic, action movies. It is appropriately rated 18 [M] for violent scenes, which means it is intended for those who are 18 and older.”

The statement goes on to say that the sequence is skippable, doesn’t represent overall gameplay, and is apparently important to the story.  By implication, it would appear that you play someone who infiltrates a group of terrorists, and to maintain your cover you are required to participate in the act of slaughter.

This brings up several issues. First, it seems ludicrous to me that violence of this magnitude is needed to “establish the depth of evil” in a badguy. Honestly, wouldn’t just showing the aftermath of the bloodwork accomplish the same thing? We know that the Nazis are evil even though we didn’t help them slaughter people; Osama bin Laden remains just as evil without having participated in his acts of terrorism. A scene like this isn’t necessary for any story – at best, it’s one option among many; at worst, it’s a crutch to get around actually having to write a narrative that is compelling without ultraviolence against the innocent.

Another problem is a bit more on the practical side: a sequence like this will really set the evolution of games back a bit. People in general don’t know enough about games to put something like this in context. When the media latches onto this story (and it will), there will be an anti-game outcry that might surpass anything that we’ve seen thus far. Ammunition like this is just what gaming’s enemies need in order to promote censorship and get traction with legal action. We’re still reeling from the Mass Effect “sex scandal” – we don’t need this.

Also, there is the implication that the scene is important to the game because it will get an emotional reaction out of the player. This is turn implies several things about the way Activision views its audience, the most prominent of which is that we’re a bunch of amoral clods.

Gamers, look me in the virtual eye here for a second. Are we really so immature, so disconnected from reality and from a moral compass that we need a situation this extreme to get a reaction? Are we really so calloused that it takes the senseless slaughter of hundreds of innocent lives for us to feel uncomfortable? I would really like to think otherwise.

I know that there are of some of you out there who just play games as mindless entertainment. And I know there are some who get their kicks and giggles from fantasizing about hurting people. But I would really, truly like to believe that there is a sizable portion of gamers out there who retain a grip on their humanity strong enough to sense a moral problem smaller than this elephant in the room. It’s as if the developers decided we’re not intelligent enough to feel guilty or uncomfortable just playing as a terrorist, but that instead we need to be clobbered over the head with a ten-ton moral outrage in order to to get a reaction. It’s a little insulting, to be honest.

I hope and pray that the developers decide to change the direction of this game a bit, else they’re headed for what could be the biggest controversy in gaming history. And I suspect they’ll find themselves in that controversy without much support from the core gaming crowd, who wish to be treated like men and women of intelligence and moral judgment.

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.