Playfully Anachronistic and Historically Inauthentic? Understanding Player Resistance to Diverse Representation in Call of Duty: Vanguard

Andy Wilson

School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon

Abstract

This paper examines community discourse surrounding the representation of marginalized identities in Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), a first-person shooter (FPS) featuring a fictional Allied special operations team during the waning days of World War II (WWII). Notably, the cast of playable story characters is quite diverse, and players cannot select Axis-aligned characters in the game’s multiplayer modes. Through inductive thematic analysis of history-focused threads on the Reddit forum r/CODVanguard, I investigate how some players critique the game’s protagonists - and diverse representation more broadly - by raising concerns about historical accuracy, anachronisms, and period (in)authenticity.

By examining how these arguments become entangled with resistance to diverse representation, this study illustrates how gaming spaces can become inhospitable for marginalized players when hegemonic interpretations of the past are presented as the only legitimate framing. Rhetorical attempts to link characters’ identities to claims of period (in)authenticity, or those positioning arguments to use these phrases as a dog whistle for an assumed liberal agenda in the games industry, evoke talking points that harken back to the 2014 Gamergate harassment campaign (and earlier).

My analysis identifies four key themes: 1) a discursive fixation on historical (in)accuracy as a codified means of critiquing marginalized identity representation, 2) gendered stereotypes and heteronormative expectations around character portrayals, 3) comparisons to other historical media that mythologize Western cinematic representations of WWII (e.g., Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, or The Pacific), and 4) a fear that “wokeness” is negatively affecting contemporary game development. Ultimately, these findings indicate that perceptions of historical accuracy in Vanguard operate hegemonically, as some players assert that Anglo-American perspectives, along with heteronormative white masculinity, are what make WWII games ‘good.’

This research contributes to the ongoing discussion about identity representation in games and how these conversations intersect with historicity, particularly regarding games’ impact on Western cultural memories of WWII and broader gamer discourses about the past. The findings highlight the need to challenge historicist possessiveness that dismisses marginalized experiences as ‘inaccurate’ and advocate for more inclusive approaches to depicting and discussing histories through games.

Selected References

Andersen, R., & Kurti, M. (2009). From America’s Army to Call of Duty: Doing battle with the

military entertainment complex. Democratic Communiqué, 23(1), 45-45.

Belmonte‐Ávila, J. F. (2023). Playing with cowboys, outlaws, and spacefarers: The remediated

American Frontier in video games. The Journal of American Culture.

Bergstrom, K., & Poor, N. (2021). Reddit gaming communities during times of transition. Social Media+

Society, 7(2), 20563051211010167.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. SAGE Publications.

Condis, M. (2021). Playing at racism. In Nilsen, S. D., & Turner, S. E. (Eds.), White supremacy

and the American media (pp. 246-274). Routledge.

Cote, A. C. (2020). Gaming sexism: Gender and identity in the era of casual video games.

New York: New York University Press.

Gish, H. (2010). Playing the Second World War: Call of Duty and the telling of history.

Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture, 4(2), 167-180.

Kukshinov, E., & Shaw, A. (2022). Playing with privilege: Examining demographics in choosing

player-characters in video games. Psychology of Popular Media, 11(1), 90.

Quiroga, S. A. (2018). Race, Battlefield 1 and the white mythic space of the First World War.

Alicante Journal of English Studies, 31(1), 187-193.

Schwarz, A., & Weber, M. (2023, April). New Perspectives on Old Pasts? Diversity in Popular

Digital Games with Historical Settings. In Arts (Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 69). MDPI.

Keywords

Gaming, Call of Duty: Vanguard, Marginalized Identity Representation, Historical Accuracy, Culture, Reddit, Inductive Thematic Analysis