Remember Tamagotchis? The little virtual scamps – essentially digital pets you carried around on a keyring, and would grow as you cared for them – were a big part of many childhoods, even if it often fell to our parents to remember to feed them.
They’re gaining a new life, however, in the most unlikely of places: Call of Duty Modern Warfare’s online multiplayer.
Named the “Tomogunchi” – which humorously reads like a Western mispronunciation of the original gadget – the accessory fits onto your avatar’s wrist in online modes, and is helped to grow and survive by your continued dominance and lengthy kill streaks on the battlefield, as you shoot, explode, and take down other players with the game’s vast assortment of weaponry.
"Feed it, monitor its moods, and help it evolve," we're told in the promotional video. Even if you’re not literally pouring blood into the digital critter’s mouth, it’s certainly not far off – and feels more like a demonic pact than a mindless accessory. Buy it in the item shop, we guess?
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No, look over here!
The latest COD instalment had no shortage of controversy when it launched in late 2019, given some ill-advised revisionism – namely, rewriting a real-life US-led massacre in Iraq as a war crime instigated by the Russian military instead. Yup.
The online mode of Call of Duty should be free of the more problematic moments in the game’s campaign, being much more about point-scoring than a narrative of US military supremacy.
The Tomogunchi, at least, has the sense to be self-aware about the absurdity of lines of code trying to murder each other on today’s gaming consoles – and little quirks like this are probably only more likely with the expanded potential of the next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X.
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