Former Infinity Ward dev recalls "awkward pressure" for Call of Duty to make a game "about Iran attacking Israel"

The official X account of The White House has released a montage of footage from 'Operation Epic Fury', the military offensive it began on February 28 alongside Israel against Iran. Bizarrely, the montage of torpedoes hitting warships and airstrikes hitting targets actually begins with footage from 2023's Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, and CoD references are scattered throughout. In response to the video, one of the original founding developers of Infinity Ward (and thus the Call of Duty franchise) has described this as unsurprising, claiming that there was previously "awkward pressure" from parent company Activision to make a game "about Iran attacking Israel."

US President Donald Trump and his administration have already leaned into gaming culture in the past when communicating with the American people on social media. In response to a viral post from GameStop last October, in which it declared the 'console wars' over, the official White House account posted an AI-generated image of President Trump wearing Master Chief's iconic armor from the Halo games. Even more controversially, on the same day, the account for the Department of Homeland Security posted a Halo image with the caption "Destroy the flood" and the web address for its recruitment page for ICE.

Now, the Trump administration is at it again, this time using Call of Duty as its reference point. In the first few moments of the 65-second video posted to the White House's X account, you'll see footage taken from 2023's MW3 showing a player calling in an MGB - this is the special, match-ending scorestreak earned by players who achieve 30 consecutive weapon kills without dying. It's one of the many descendants of the Tactical Nuke killstreak that first appeared in 2009's Modern Warfare 2.

After the MGB has been summoned, the video then shows actual footage of attacks from 'Operation Epic Fury'. However, you'll also notice that yellow score indicators that are synonymous with the Modern Warfare series have been laid over the top. Two voice lines from in-game announcers can also be heard, saying "We're winning this fight" and "We've taken control." The video has been met with widespread disbelief within the Call of Duty community.

Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue. pic.twitter.com/kTO0DZ56IJ

- The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 4, 2026

However, former Infinity Ward developer Chance Glasco - who was one of the original team of developers at the studio that made the first Call of Duty, and went on to work on several more entries in the series up until 2014 - says: "This doesn't surprise me."

"I remember after Activision took over post-Respawn [Entertainment] formation there was a very awkward pressure from Activision for us to make the next CoD about Iran attacking Israel," Glasco says. "Luckily the vast majority of our devs were disgusted by the idea and it got shot down." Respawn was set up in 2010 by former Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and the late Vince Zampella.

Glasco repeats this claim in response to CharlieIntel's coverage of the White House video. "Fun fact: Activision encouraged us to make a CoD about Iran [attacking] Israel after they took over (post-Respawn formation). The devs overwhelmingly said that's absolutely nuts and it never happened."

While the Call of Duty series has never directly explored a conflict between Israel and Iran, nor has it had a mission set in either country, it's worth noting that 2013's Call of Duty Ghosts uses the fictional Tel-Aviv War as the loose contextual groundwork for the global events that happen in the game's campaign. It's suggested that this war saw the United States help to defend Israel from unnamed Middle Eastern countries.