Meet the Call of Duty friends who are playing ’til their hands fall off

On the evening of October 26, popular streamer Jack “CouRage” Dunlop publicly apologized to his girlfriend. in the a tweethe said, “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 starts tomorrow. you won’t see me You won’t hear from me. I’ll play ’til my hands fall off I’m sorry what I’m going to do.”

The tweet addressed his excitement about the next installment in the popular first-person shooter game and served as a cheeky way of telling his girlfriend that he would be absent in the days following launch. It also rallied other self-proclaimed Call of Duty friends who commented on the tweet to support the behavior of Call of Duty friends. In the coming days, TikTok would be filled with girlfriends bemoaning the loss of their friends to the new game. Sharing messages like“Saying goodbye to my friend… he’s not dead, the new COD just came out yesterday.”

Call of Duty is one of the most commercially successful video game franchises. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has surpassed $1 billion in sales within 10 days of its release, Activision announcedbreaking the world record for sales previously held by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Critics have covered the games’ political ideology and the messages about war they convey, but the real people who play these games and the way they shape their lives — or perhaps more accurately, the ways and way – less attention was paid to it takes over your life.

Being a COD friend doesn’t really mean being a literal friend. Anyone can be a COD friend if they choose, regardless of gender identity or relationship status, according to the self-proclaimed “Call of Duty friends” I spoke to. Still, the idea of ​​Call of Duty buddies has taken over social media as couples play — or playfully buck — with the gender stereotypes of “gamer buddies.” But some of these friends balk at the label.

Image: Infinity Ward/Activision

“I can be pretty competitive in games, so I suppose there’s nothing quite as magical to me as lining up with friends and just working together to get some Ws haha,” said Maxine, who describes herself as a COD Friend viewed, via Twitter. They have been playing Call of Duty games since 2009 and had plans to spend money Modern Warfare 2‘s starting day online with friends and even cancel plans with a romantic interest to do so. Call of Duty and video games have long served Maxine as a way to connect with friends.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the best relationships I have aren’t with my immediate family or real friends, but with people I play games with,” they said. “My relationships, especially, are at their best when we’re both really caring about each other, playing games together, and both are too busy to want more of each other.”

However, on TikTok, the “Call of Duty Boyfriend” is often a means for couples to break down gender stereotypes by dating men who play video games or women who can’t play games. A popular video parodies a friend who is clueless while playing, and who picks up the game after her boyfriend hastily hands her a controller; She then follows the instructions of his teammates on voice chat. Another popular video format shows how disruptive late-night gaming sessions may be to parody the moments when the sound of gunshots from the game wakes up a girlfriend. Another trend teaches cuddle positions that allow physical contact with a “player friend”, but only in a way that does not completely impair their ability to continue playing a game.

There are many COD friends who find ways to balance their relationship with playing tons of the game. “I didn’t really play the game to the point where I totally ignored her or avoided her,” Rafay said of his girlfriend. He first played Call of Duty on his Xbox 360 as a teenager and has kept up with the games ever since. “I sometimes sacrificed some sleep to play and also spend time with her.”

He told me that apart from a few arguments here and there, it didn’t really get in the way of their relationship. “She found it violent and doesn’t really understand the attraction, but I understand why she feels that way about it,” he said. According to him, his girlfriend sees it as a “typical guy’s game,” but understands that he’s also into other games outside of what a typical gamer brother might play, like Pokémon.

The violent nature and politics of the games have caused some COD fans to question their love for the series. The ideologies portrayed in Call of Duty, as well as sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits against franchise publisher Activision Blizzard, led Maxine to consider dropping the series altogether. They ended up returning to gaming mostly because of the friends they made there.

“What changed was that enough of my friends and family would get the game that I thought I should too, in order to maintain relationships. As I got older I got a bit of a pessimist I suppose. If I was younger I might not have bought the game on principle, but I work a little bit more and it’s gotten harder to keep in touch with people.”

And then there are the COD friends who have ditched their controllers for good. Collin, who has been playing Call of Duty since high school, shared his experience of drifting away from his friends who played it. In high school, he skipped mid-game during play Call of Duty: World at War – Zombies go to his girlfriend.

“I told my friends I had to go, but I still wanted success!” he said. “So I was just AFK in the game and standing in a corner hoping my friends could carry my dead weight and do the final steps without me. But space was tight, the difficulty was scaled to 4 people, and they eventually failed and everyone died.” The issue caused a row in the friends group, who said it would “put them ahead of them”.

Image: Infinity Ward/Activision

Collins’ predicament in high school is given greater momentum that underpins the COD boyfriend. Underneath it all is this idea that anything else takes time away from Call of Duty and the Boys. But the COD friends I spoke to mostly identified with the label in ways they wanted – from using it to spend more time with friends, to finding opportunities, a life outside of it to lead away from it, to the point of completely turning away from it. Collin said that embracing life with his girlfriend – whom he has since married – opened joy into his life and now he lives with her and shares the joy of gaming with her.

“My wife is amazing and understands that games are important to me and encourages me to make time for her and play with my friends when I can,” Collin said. “She listens to me gush about the game I’m playing or what industry news is coming out that day, not knowing exactly what I’m talking about, but since I’m passionate about it, she cares.”