10 Cruel Tricks Video Games Played On FPS Players
9. Watch Your Own Slow, Agonising Death - Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare
Back in 2007 when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare hit stores, players really didn't know what to expect.
Beyond delivering a slickly cinematic campaign, Infinity Ward also pushed the boundaries of FPS storytelling for the era, dishing up one majorly shocking moment which the series has repeatedly attempted to recapture ever since.
In the mid-game mission "Shock and Awe," the player takes control of Sgt. Paul Jackson as he chases down the terrorist Khaled Al-Asad, who is alleged to be in possession of a nuclear weapon.
The mission ends with the aforementioned nuke being detonated while Jackson and his team are evacuating the city, causing their helicopter to crash before it can clear the area.
The FPS genre being what it is, most players simply assumed that the game would continue with Jackson having inexplicably survived. And at first, that seems like it's case - an interactive cutscene shows Jackson pulling himself from the wreckage and surveying the irradiated surrounding area.
But it's also clear that Jackson's in a really bad way, and after a minute or two, he ends up dropping dead on the spot.
It remains perhaps the single most unexpectedly chilling moment in the entire Call of Duty franchise, eschewing the typical oorah military fetishism for a disarmingly sobering account of war's brutal cost.
After this the game of course switches perspectives yet again to another character, with players coming to understand that nobody they control is safe for the campaign's remainder.