GameSided
Fansided

Call of Duty: Black Ops III Teaser Explores Human Augmentation

By Daniel George

facebooktwitterreddit

Despite less than 50% of those (who have open privacy) that played Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on PlayStation completed the single player campaign, where Activision’s developers take their single player campaigns is always a point of mystery. Lately, it looks like gameplay will advance the way of dystopian future technology, with enhancements made to make humans more robotic. The latest teaser trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops III confirms this notion, with a fictional timeline that follows our possible future if we continue to modify humans with technological augmentations in the decades to come.

Countless fans rushing to make Call of Duty: Mankind Divided jokes on Twitter aside, this new story teaser for Black Ops III starts with 1993, as an unknown cyclist in a bike race soars ahead of the pack of competitors. The natural progression of steroid usage in athletics transitions to the year 2000, as scientists begin to decode the human chromosome. The big jump goes to 2011, with the motif of humans wearing (and embedding) technology onto their bodies as human disability becomes a possibility fabled “of the past.”

Everything else that takes place in this Black Ops III teaser is a work of fiction, but follows a logical line of human growth through technology, as a precedent barring discrimination based on technological implants is set. From there it all goes downhill, as we see jumps in the fastest human 100m dash at less than 6.2 seconds in 2028, the first brain-to-brain connection in the 2040’s, DNA upgrades and organ replacements become luxury surgeries in early 2050’s and retinal replacements in 2055. It’s only in the 2060’s when the situation gets dire, as strife arises from the fearful and the downtrodden as “scientists play God.”

More from News

This would not be the first Call of Duty title to look at the moral and ethical greys of advancements in human and weapon technology, but such a tease days ahead of the Black Ops III April 26 World Reveal is pretty telling about the game’s focus. The jump from past and future Black Ops play has been established in the last game, but a purely futuristic look into the ethical dilemma of technology growing at a rate past human control is an exciting departure for the developers at Treyarch. Hopefully, the jingoism is dialed a bit down in this title, with a focused look on how such an issue affects all of humanity. A man can dream!

More from GameSided

Looking to write about video games? Join us at GameSided! Contact me to apply or if you have any inquiries/tips: daniel.george@fansided.com.

Home/News