The saga of Call of Duty does not stop. Despite the huge success of Warzone, which is free and highly played (in April it exceeded 100 million users), Activision continues to publish a more classic chapter every year that offers, in addition to multiplayer modes, also a single-player campaign more focused on storytelling and cinematic sequences .
This year, which is called Vanguard, is set in the Second World War, a very inflated period both in the series itself (with 5 chapters), and in the videogame field in general. Yet Sledgehammer Games, the development studio behind the new episode, seems intent on proving that the topic is anything but saturated.
At the center of the plot are the stories of 4 soldiers inspired by real historical figures, whose deeds have not always obtained the deserved resonance, but which have been handed down from generation to generation. There are also four fronts on which digital battles will be fought, from the Pacific to North Africa, from the western to the eastern front.
The impression is that the team has placed great care in the narrative component, halfway between historical fidelity and fantasy. And it’s hardly surprising Activision’s choice to involve a cast of respectable actors, who lent voices and moves to the key characters. There are celebrities from the small and big screen (like Chiké Okonkwo, the Will of The awakening of a people), videogame stars (Laura Bailey, the Abby’s The Last of Us Part II), up to Hollywood stars. And with the spearhead of the cast, Dominic Monaghan, we had the opportunity to speak via Zoom, asking him what it feels like a real actor to compete with a digital character, but also what his relationship with video games is, surprisingly a lot. more intense and long-lived than expected.
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Dominic Monaghan and the relationship with video games
“I was born and raised in the era of Pong – he told us mimicking the two bars that move vertically – Pac-Man, Galaga, Space Invaders. I played a lot at Sensible Soccer, Grand Theft Auto, Fifa, The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Spider-Man e World of Warcraft“: A very respectable curriculum, almost equal to that of cinema, which saw him interpret, among many others, Merry Brandybuck in The Lord of the Rings and Charlie Pace in the series Lost, two of the most iconic productions of the big and small screen of the 2000s. But Dominic wanted to reiterate that participation in Call of Duty Vanguard is the result of the great passion for video games, even before the benefits that appearing in such a very successful saga brings with it. He didn’t hide that from us among the absolute favorite titles there is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and who for some years has been dedicated to League of Legends, not really a pastime for Sunday players. And he pointed out that in addition to a computer he also owns a PS5 and a Nintendo Switch. In short, he knows his stuff (also) in the videogame field.
However, he did not deny that for a Hollywood actor, even for one of his caliber, a participation in a video game has a considerable specific weight: “One way to make oneself known has always been to get a part in a hit movie or series. Nowadays there are more gamers than spectators, we get to many more people. Even my parents, who don’t play video games, know Call of Duty! “. In his opinion it is a fair exchange: “I think the added value offered to Activision and Sledgehammer on my part is to be a sort of shortcut, because they didn’t need to explain to me in detail what I should do. It was enough for me to know what they wanted for a given scene, I would take care of the rest. I have been doing this job for 26 years. In short, I believe that both sides have obtained benefits: development studies do not have much time available and therefore need actors who are able to play their parts in the shortest possible time; the actors are involved in one of the most important and popular franchises on the planet ”.
The differences between a flesh and blood character and a video game character?
But what’s the difference between playing a flesh and blood character and a digital one? Basically none, for Monaghan, whose first appearance in a video game dates back to 2016 with Quantum Break. A curious experiment developed by Remedy Entertainment exclusively for computers and Xbox One, part of a much larger cross-media project that between one chapter and another of the game included an entire episode of a TV series with real actors : “Beyond the fact of having to wear a helmet and a suit full of sensors (for motion capture, ed), the differences are minimal. My intent remains the same as always: to make the characters I create and play appear human and credible, both in the cinema, on TV or in video games. For me the important thing is that they are realistic, it does not matter whether they are good, bad, or somewhere in between. Even in Lord of the Rings, where I was playing a character who wasn’t even human, my goal was still to make him look like someone you could easily meet on the street. “
An ambitious goal, which he also tried to replicate with Jannick Richter, one of the key figures of Call of Duty Vanguard, of which, however, we do not know much yet. However, he revealed to us exclusively that he is “a German officer who takes part in the conflict in a very delicate moment of the Second World War. He is an insecure and paranoid man, very nervous because of the precarious position of his troops, but above all of his own. He is expert in interrogations, which he carries out by any means possible, and is ready for anything to survive ”. A figure still shrouded in mystery, at least until the game is released (November 5, on new and old generation computers and consoles), but that Monaghan aims to make it alive and credible: “I tried to imagine and replicate every gesture or common element of Richter, from the hair to the tone of his voice, from the way he eats a sandwich to the way he laces his shoes, just to try to make him as human as possible” .
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The protagonists of Call of Duty Vanguard
Few doubts, in short, about the belonging of this character to the ranks of enemies that in the role of the fictional Task Force One we will find ourselves facing in Activision’s digital war. The goal of the protagonists is to foil the plans of the villain on duty, Heinrich Frisinger, inspired by the ruthless Heinrich Müller (who was commander of the Gestapo), and stop him from carrying out the crazy Phoenix Project. At the base of this plan is the goal is to restore strength to the defeated Nazi Party after the Battle of Berlin and to restore it to the glories of the past.
And for such adversaries, only a group of super-soldiers can hope to have any chance:
- there is American pilot Wade Jackson, inspired by Vernon Micheel (who received the Navy Cross, the highest honor of the United States Navy, for his work during the Battle of the Midway);
- Lucas Riggs, Australian, demolition expert, inspired by New Zealander Charles Hazlitt Upham, who earned the Victoria Cross, a Commonwealth honor, for work in Crete and Egypt;
- the English sergeant of Cameroonian origin Arthur Kingsley, based on Sidney Cornell, paratrooper of the 7th Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment;
- finally, perhaps the most interesting figure, or Polina Petrova, videogame declination of the formidable cecchina sovietica Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavli? enko, also known as Lady Death due to the 309 confirmed kills.
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