ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – One of the main characters in the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to be released on October 25, 2019, is inspired by female Kurdish commanders in Syria.
The highly-anticipated game gives players point-of-view control through a fictional character named Farah Karim, “a Middle Eastern woman and battle-scarred warrior who has been fighting for survival since childhood,” reports the LA Times.
Karim was inspired by the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), which fight under the umbrella of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces (SDF). So far, no footage has been released of the new female protagonist.
Taylor Kurosaki, who headed the story creation for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, told the Hollywood Reporter that his team made an effort to learn a great deal about female Kurdish fighters.
“We did a lot of research specifically into a group of militia fighters called the YPJ who operate in Syria and Iraq. These are mostly all-female fighting forces who have decided that picking up a weapon and fighting for what they believe in is the best way for them to move forward.”
“These women are so incredibly resilient and brave to go out on a battlefield where the enemy is targeting them specifically,” he added, “because for the enemy to be killed by one of these women in battle is the most dishonorable way to be killed.”
“It just felt like that is a more complete definition of ‘modern warfare.’”
The game is set in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Urzikstan. As the story unfolds, Karim’s hometown is attacked by the Russian army with drones and nerve gas, and Karim takes down a Russian soldier with a screwdriver and later becomes a fierce warrior.
In real life, the YPJ has mainly fought against the Islamic State and other Islamist rebel groups, not the Russian military.