I am very sorry to report that, no, you cannot play as former UK Prime Minister, Conservative party leader and unanimously beloved human being Margaret Thatcher in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Despite promising signs in the initial reveal trailer from developer Treyarch, where big Maggie features alongside the similarly well-liked Saddam Hussein, George Bush Senior, and Bill Clinton – and the fact that Ronald Reagan was playable in the previous entry, Black Ops Cold War – Treyarch confirmed to Eurogamer during an interview earlier this week that she won’t be playable, ever.
“No,” said Yale Miller, senior director of production at Treyarch on Black Ops 6, when Eurogamer asked.
“The historical figures – the game’s backdrop is the 90s, and it’s about the era,” I elaborated. “And then we asked just what was happening at the time, and that’s how we ended up playing with all of those historical figures of the era, moments of the era, music of the era, stuff like that.”
Call of Duty has been known for its controversial campaign choices over the years, from the rebooted Modern Warfare’s child soldier level right the way back to the infamous No Russian in the original Modern Warfare 2.
That’s alongside recreations of and allegories for current historical events, such as the Gulf War’s Highway of Death most recently in the rebooted Modern Warfare 2 (which was repurposed to have been carried out by the Russians in the game, rather than the US), and the targeted missile strike of an enemy general bearing close resemblance to the real-world general of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Qasem Soleimani.
As for Black Ops 6, with the series’ timeline moving on from the end of the Cold War era to something approaching the modern day in the early 90s, the natural question that arose was whether the team at Treyarch had any particular red lines that they would never cross, for featuring certain moments of real history.
“We ask questions and talk to people and go from there,” Miller told Eurogamer. “I don’t think there is any specific answer, because the world is gray on those things. But we always try to ask ourselves: what do we want to do?”
With that said then, would Call of Duty one day feature an even like 9/11?
“No,” was the response from Matt Scronce, associate design director at Treyarch. “No, I mean, like Yale said, it’s always about this being a fictional story, and we’re not going for cultural shock value. We’re trying to tell a fun story.”
You can read much more from Miller and Scronce, alongside a lot more detail on the game, in our big Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 preview.
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