With a little over a week to go until its November 4 release, this year’s Call of Duty game has got a live action launch trailer. It’s pretty funny. Michael Phelps makes fun of the meme where he flaps his arms and frowns a lot.
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The trailer opens with a nod to the – let’s call it eventful – current affairs landscape of 2016, as gamers of all stripes leave Earth to do battle in Infinite Warfare’s space planes.
Call of Duty veers dangerously close to political satire here, before normal service is joyfully resumed with explosions and gunfire. Welcome to the Jungle, by Guns ‘n’ Roses, thumps in the background. A couple of known gameplay features are shown off once again, including anti-grav grenades, grapples and personal shields.
COD’s star-studded live action trailers have become a tradition, with previous ‘gets’ including actress Emily Ratajkowski (Advanced Warfare) and even Robert Downey, Jr (Black Ops 2). This year’s line-up includes Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who does his famous arm-flapping warm-up, only to discover that actor Danny McBride has already blown up all the bad guys. No sign of the many celebrities who appear in the main game, though.
As with most of the previous live action COD trailers, this year’s is directed by Peter Berg, whose credits include Hancock, Battleship and Deepwater Horizon.
The final shot is of a gamer falling ecstatically through space, firing guns, backlit by an explosion. Take away the soundtrack and add some joyful screams, and it’s like something from Dr Strangelove.