'Call of Duty,' the world's best-selling shooter series, is a remarkably complex franchise. While unified under the 'Call of Duty' name, it is divided into several sub-brands, the most clearly defined of which are 'Modern Warfare' and 'Black Ops.'

As everyone knows, Modern Warfare is a brand that depicts modern warfare in its entirety, covering both conventional and unconventional combat, and it has been beloved by many. While the narrative is driven by the agents of 'Task Force 141,' the game also highlights conventional warfare from the perspective of soldiers or non-commissioned officers throughout the series—much like the Korean War depicted in the upcoming 'Modern Warfare: [Title].'

'Black Ops' is a bit different. True to the term 'black ops,' which refers to unrecorded, unconventional warfare, this brand depicts the countless armed conflicts that take place behind the scenes of history. These interconnected 'backstage stories' are largely based on actual history or subjects suspected of having existed.

I'm talking about what we commonly call 'conspiracy theories.'

Conspiracy theories, by their nature, involve startling claims that remain unverified—though some have eventually been declassified and proven true. This makes them a staple in media. Conspiracy theories from the Cold War era, when the world was divided into Red and Blue teams engaged in shadow warfare, are particularly popular due to their secretive nature and massive scale.

This is especially true for the series' first installment, 'Call of Duty: Black Ops,' and its narrative successor, 'Cold War.' Let's examine how the erratic behavior of the brainwashed soldier Mason and the game's cinematic direction were crafted, and look at the real-world cases that served as their foundation.

Alex Mason, the protagonist of Call of Duty: Black Ops, is a veteran soldier born in 1933. At the start of the game, Mason is being interrogated while confined in an unidentified facility. His interrogator repeatedly asks about the 'meaning of the numbers,' and Mason, confused by the situation, begins to piece together his memories one by one.

To summarize Mason's life without spoilers: In 1961, he infiltrates Cuba with his team to assassinate dictator Fidel Castro, but they are lured into a trap and Mason is imprisoned in Vorkuta, a Soviet Gulag. There, he befriends Viktor Reznov, successfully incites a revolt, and escapes. After returning to the U.S. and taking on new missions, he spends five grueling years identifying the biological weapon 'Nova-6' and successfully eliminating those responsible for it.

However, the story is quite different when you add the massive spoilers. Mason had already been brainwashed by the Soviets to assassinate the U.S. President after being captured in Cuba, but Reznov, whom he met in Vorkuta, realized this and inserted the three 'Nova-6' masterminds—who had personal grudges against him—into the assassination target list. Mason succeeded in assassinating President Kennedy (though not explicitly shown, it is implied) and sending the three 'Nova-6' masterminds to their graves, but he never fully shook off the effects of the brainwashing.

The concept of 'brainwashing' is a staple in all kinds of media today, but it truly began during the 'Cold War' era—specifically, from 1953, after the Korean War ended. At the time, the U.S. received a significant number of prisoners of war back after the armistice, and among them were some who suspiciously criticized the U.S., praised communism, or released statements confessing to the use of American biological weapons.

The U.S. was deeply shocked at the time, fearing that the Soviets were using drugs and psychological manipulation to turn prisoners into entirely different people. This anxiety was perfectly captured in Richard Condon's 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate, which features prisoners captured during the Korean War who are brainwashed into 'sleeper agents'—war heroes on the surface who carry out assassinations without question upon receiving a specific signal.

Of course, the novel itself was written not just because of the 'shock of brainwashing terror,' but to criticize 'McCarthyism,' the whirlwind of Red Scare hysteria that shook American politics at the time. That is why the title includes the political term 'candidate.' However, the plot of the novel is very similar to Alex Mason's narrative. The only difference is that 'The Manchurian Candidate' is about being captured in 'Manchuria,' while Alex Mason was captured in Cuba.

At this point, you might think of another character with a similar narrative. Bucky Barnes, the 'Winter Soldier'—Captain America's right-hand man who replaced his own left arm with a mechanical one—also undergoes a process similar to the Manchurian Candidate, appearing as a brainwashed super-soldier and assassin.

Another interesting point here is the story of the various 'numbers' that appear in Alex Mason's narrative. In the game, Mason is tormented by meaningless numbers that keep floating through his mind. This implies that the numbers played a role in his brainwashing process. Typical 'Manchurian Candidate'-style assassins are triggered by specific conditions. The Winter Soldier's activation code, which starts with 'Longing, Rusted' and ends with 'Freight Car,' is one such example, and in the original 'Manchurian Candidate,' the assassin begins a card game with a specific sentence and enters a brainwashed state the moment he sees the Queen of Diamonds.

In Alex Mason's case, however, 'numbers' appear as both a crucial trigger and a brainwashing process, a directorial choice that adapts another conspiracy theory: 'Numbers Stations.' Numbers stations are mysterious shortwave radio broadcasts that mechanically recite numbers; it is widely accepted that this is a method of transmitting instructions to spies who possess codebooks.

These numbers stations have existed for a long time and are a conspiracy theory with such history and tradition that they continue to this day. If you actually listen to them, they are strangely eerie and bizarre. Of course, they have nothing to do with actual brainwashing, but Mason's brainwashing process adds to the bizarreness of these 'numbers' for dramatic effect.

The fear of Soviet brainwashing didn't just cause social ripples; it led to concrete action. Then-CIA Director Allen Dulles, believing that 'if the Soviets have the technology to control the human mind, we must understand it first,' consolidated existing interrogation and hypnosis research—'Project Bluebird' and 'Project Artichoke'—into a single, massive initiative. This was the birth of 'MKUltra,' a staple subject of conspiracy theories (though, having been declassified, it is technically no longer a theory).

MKUltra was kept top-secret throughout its duration, but it was exposed by chance when it became entangled in the Watergate scandal, which led to President Richard Nixon's resignation after his attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters was discovered. The U.S. Congress, concluding that domestic government agencies could no longer be trusted, launched investigations into the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Fearing the fallout, then-CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of most records related to MKUltra.

Because of this, the state of 'we know such a project existed' but 'we don't know what it was' continued, until 20k pages of documents—including accounting records, contracts, and research funding details—were discovered by an employee working on a Freedom of Information Act request, bringing MKUltra to the surface.

The contents of MKUltra were beyond imagination: interrogation and memory alteration via LSD and drugs, inducing confessions, potential for mental collapse, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, sleep and memory, personality disintegration, poisons, chemicals and alcohol, behavior modification and confession research, and even personality replacement and memory binding via electric shock. It was packed like a department store with materials that would make for a great conspiracy theory even if taken individually. In many cases, these experiments were conducted without the subjects' knowledge.

The reason I keep talking about 'MKUltra' is that if 'Black Ops' is a story that started from the Red Scare regarding Soviet brainwashing, 'Black Ops Cold War' is directly related to MKUltra.

The protagonist of Call of Duty: Cold War, 'Bell,' is a blank slate with no fixed gender or name; players define Bell's appearance and background at the start. This is a narrative foreshadowing, as Bell was originally an operative for 'Perseus,' the game's primary antagonist faction, before being captured and brainwashed via MKUltra.

Although Bell's memories are completely rewritten by another protagonist, Russell Adler, the player is kept in the dark for much of the early game. Through drugs, hypnosis, and psychological torture, Adler convinces Bell that they were comrades-in-arms in Vietnam and a CIA Black Ops operative. This influence manifests throughout the game; for instance, the weapons used in the Vietnam War segments are historically inaccurate, and Bell is constantly, and strangely, asked if they 'remember.'

In the 'Break on Through' mission, the progression changes based on Adler's words, and the background distorts or characters' faces change—situations that anyone would find strange for actual memories. In actual MKUltra experiments, a Canadian psychiatrist named Ewen Cameron conducted experiments to remove patients' memories and inject new behaviors, but he failed, and many patients suffered severe memory damage. The memories of 'Bell' in the game also gradually fragment and collapse.

As such, 'Black Ops' and 'Black Ops Cold War' unfold their stories around the conspiracy theory of 'brainwashing' on two occasions. Alex Mason deals with the 'Manchurian Candidate'-style narrative where the Soviets secretly brainwash prisoners to use as assassins, while 'Bell' deals with 'MKUltra,' which the CIA actually conducted in response.

However, the 'Black Ops' series is filled with countless other Cold War conspiracy theories and top-secret projects that were later confirmed to be true. For example, in 'Black Ops,' the Soviets use Nazi scientists after the fall of Germany to create 'Nova-6,' a powerful nerve agent. Dimitri Petrenko, the protagonist of the Russian segment in 'World at War,' even dies a miserable death as a test subject for this 'Nova-6.

The project that secretly recruited German scientists after the war was 'Project Paperclip,' and the U.S. actually took away numerous German scientists. Perhaps the most representative figure is Wernher von Braun, a master of rocket engineering. A similar case is the deal involving Japan's notorious biological research unit, Unit 731, after World War II, where the U.S. received numerous research materials in exchange for immunity. In the game, it's as if they used a hypothetical scenario of what would have happened if the Soviets had taken the scientists instead of the U.S. under 'Paperclip.'

'Operation Chaos,' one of the bonus missions in 'Cold War,' is a mission that can only be played after securing three pieces of evidence while doing other missions, and this operation actually existed. In reality, it was a domestic surveillance program by the CIA; its surface purpose was to investigate whether anti-war movements and civil rights groups in the U.S. were influenced by Soviet intelligence agencies, but it illegally wiretapped thousands of American citizens and organizations. In the game, it appears as an intelligence analysis mission to root out Soviet agents, just as its surface purpose suggested.

Perseus, the primary antagonist and extra-legal spy network in Cold War, is also based on a prominent conspiracy theory. It began after the Cold War when a former Soviet intelligence officer claimed that 'Perseus,' the individual who provided Manhattan Project secrets to the Soviets, was still alive. This theory hinted at the existence of spies beyond the known Klaus Fuchs. The subsequent release of the 'Venona papers'—Soviet cables decrypted by the U.S. and UK—confirmed that a vast network of informants had indeed existed.

However, the existence of 'Perseus' itself has not been confirmed, and there are opinions that it might be a fictional entity created by Soviet intelligence or disinformation. The game, however, was created under the assumption that this 'Perseus' operated for decades without revealing its identity. Of course, Cold War researchers are leaning toward the idea that 'Perseus' did not exist.

The assassination of President Kennedy, which appears in the ending of Black Ops, is another perennial conspiracy theory and is often called the 'mother of all conspiracy theories' due to its many unresolved mysteries. While the official finding is that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the case remains 'suspicious' to many because Oswald denied the charges, acted strangely, and was subsequently murdered by Jack Ruby. A 2003 poll showed that 25% of Americans blamed the FBI/CIA and 15% blamed the Soviets; Black Ops builds its narrative on that 15% theory, with Mason being the Soviet-brainwashed pawn.

As such, 'conspiracy theories' have served as the foundation and pillar of the 'Black Ops' title. When 'Black Ops Cold War' was unveiled, Treyarch and Raven Software said while introducing the campaign, "We explore the gaps in actual history." This means they filled in the unsolved mysteries of the Cold War or the blanks not expressed in classified documents with plausible stories.

When Black Ops was first released, TreyArch's campaign director, Dave Anthony, made similar remarks.

"Leave the events that actually happened in history as they are, but imagine the secret operations that might have happened in between"

The Bay of Pigs invasion where Mason heads to Cuba, the Vorkuta riot, the assassination of JFK, and the Vietnam War all actually happened. However, the developers dug into the stories in the gaps and created a new, well-structured story, and the narrative line itself was highly praised. Well, it was inevitable that they would be criticized for the length of the campaign.

And as many know, Call of Duty is just a representative example; conspiracy theories have been used as a staple in the game industry for a very long time. Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series is almost one big conspiracy theory in itself, and 'Deus Ex' has also synthesized almost all modern conspiracy theories. The 'Assassin's Creed' series is also, in a way, a game that deals with one huge conspiracy theory.

Perhaps it's because 'conspiracy theories' are such an interesting subject. Unlike so-called 'history,' which is honestly recorded in chronicles, conspiracy theories are added with assumptions, guesses, and imagination, and in many cases, their veracity is not even certain. Even conspiracy theories that have been declassified and revealed are often suspected of having another truth behind them.

Perhaps it's because that 'unknown' is that interesting, chilling, and in another way, fun.

However, if you dig into them, there are many cases where the reality is not as good as the rumors. The Soviet psychological manipulation that terrified the entire U.S. was actually the result of very classic propaganda and interrogation techniques. The 'crop circles,' the strange patterns carved into wheat fields, also turned out to be the confession of two Englishmen who made them themselves with boards and ropes.

It means you don't need to dig too deep. Personally, I like conspiracy theories very much, so I've bought and read several books, and I'm still curious about the inside story of D.B. Cooper and the death of JFK, but if you get too obsessed, everything in the world might look like a conspiracy theory.

You just have to enjoy it. Like the story of Black Ops, and like the story of Metal Gear Solid.