History VideoGame / CallOfDutyInfiniteWarfare

''Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare'' is the thirteenth installment in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series, developed by Infinity Ward and released on November 4, 2016 for the PC, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxOne.

* AnAesop: The entire game's campaign is all about the fact that a leader caring too much about losses can result in more losses ''and'' a defeat, and that in war, victory is more important.

The one where they finally said "screw it, [[RecycledInSpace let's go to space]]."

In the future, having depleted Earth's natural resources, the nations of the world band together under the auspices of the "[[TheFederation United Nations Space Alliance]]" and set out to colonize the farthest reaches of the solar system. However, tensions soon emerge in the form of an organization dubbed the "[[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized Settlement Defense Front]]," which consists of disaffected colonists out on the frontier who begin quarreling with the UNSA over the rights to precious resources, led by the AxCrazy Admiral Salen Kotch (Creator/KitHarrington). Soon after, the SDF declares war on the UNSA and launches a surprise attack on Earth itself, crippling much of the UNSA's navy in the process. Captain Nick Reyes (Creator/BrianBloom, who also wrote the story), a Special Operations pilot with the Solar Associated Treaty Organization, is tasked with commanding the UNSA carrier ''Retribution'' (one of the few remaining ships from the UNSA's fleet) and its crew on a mission to launch a counter-attack against the SDF.

In the future, having depleted Earth's natural resources, the nations of the world band together under the auspices of the "[[TheFederation United Nations Space Alliance]]" and set out to colonize the farthest reaches of the solar system. However, tensions soon emerge in the form of an organization dubbed the "[[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized Settlement Defense Front]]," which consists of disaffected colonists out on the frontier who begin quarreling with the UNSA over the rights to precious resources. Soon after, the SDF declares war on the UNSA and launches a surprise attack on Earth itself, crippling much of the UNSA's navy in the process. Captain Nick Reyes (Creator/BrianBloom, who also wrote the story), a Special Operations pilot with the Solar Associated Treaty Organization, is tasked with commanding the UNSA carrier ''Retribution'' (one of the few remaining ships from the UNSA's fleet) and its crew on a mission to launch a counter-attack against the SDF.

[[caption-width-right:320:''Call of Duty'' [[Main/SequelExcalation finally goes to space.]]

[[caption-width-right:320:''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Call of Duty'' style.]]

* DaylightHorror: "Operation Dark Quarry" puts a party of marines into an OutOfGenreExperience (see below) searching for survivors on an asteroid base spinning out of control and hurtling toward the Sun. The base's proximity to the star has cooked its generator batteries, meaning the base only has power during the minutes-long "day." Of course, the local hacked mining droids are wired into the station's power grid, and can only run full-tilt at you while nearby solar panels are illuminated. Couple that with that fact that direct sunlight at this range will fry you alive in a few seconds, and it quickly becomes apparent that the day-star is not your friend.

*** The Beretta ARX-160 is the "OSA" in reference to ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyGhosts'' due to it being the standard issue of Orbital Space Aeronautics. It also carries the white finish of the OSA ARX-160s.

* AnAesop: The entire game's campaign is all about the fact that a leader caring too much about losses can result in more losses AND a defeat, and that in war, victory is more important.

* An Aesop: The entire game's campaign is all about the fact that a leader caring too much about losses can result in more losses AND a defeat, and that in war, victory is more important.

* AmericaTakesOverTheWorld: While technically a multinational alliance, the United Nations Space Alliance seems suspiciously American with no traces of cultural diversity whatsoever. They use American military jargon; UNSA Admiral Raines keeps an American flag in his office; the Lebanese Lt. Salter speaks English with an American accent; and even Kashima (a Canadian) speaks of receiving a Purple Heart (an ''American'' military decoration) after being wounded.

** The first and last missions of the game, excluding the prologue, feature crippled capital ships crashing to a planet's surface. In "Black Sky", it is the SATO ships at Fleet Week crashing into Geneva after being attacked by the AATIS guns, and in "Operation: Blood Storm", it is [[spoiler: the ''Retribution'' and ''Olympus Mons'' crashing to the Martian surface after their attempted raid on the SDF shipyard.]]

* LighterAndSofter: While it features planetary scale invasion, the plot returns to a straightforward war fiction after the bleak, dark CyberPunk thriller that is ''Videogame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII''. It helps that the reveal trailer uses the upbeat Space Oddity as the theme. [[spoiler: That is, before the game's ending shows that WarIsHell and SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs.]]

* SacrificialLion: Captain Ferran and the ''Tigris'' fight alongside you for the first two missions, show up in a BigDamnHeroes moment midway through the game [[spoiler: and then get blown out of the sky off-screen while ''Retribution'' is out of contact investigating the Vesta mining station.]]

* YouAreInCommandNow: Reyes is promoted from Lieutenant to Commander and appointed Captain of the ''Retribution'' after the ship's captain and XO are killed in battle post-Geneva.
** [[spoiler: Salter ends up in command of a captured SDF Destroyer with ''Retribution's'' surviving crew after Reyes orders her to open fire on the shipyard with him still inside.]]

** [[spoiler: Salter ends up in command of a captured SDF Destroyer with ''Retributions'' surviving crew after Reyes orders her to open fire on the shipyard with him still inside.]]

** [[spoiler:''Everybody'' aboard the ''Retribution'' by the end of the game. Once the ship crash lands on Mars, every survivor is forced to take up arms and participate in a vicious ground assault against the SDF, including non-combat personnel like Gator, Griff, and [=MaCallum=]. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Most of them]] [[KillEmAll do not survive]].]]

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Nearly every character is dead by the end of the game; the only ''Retribution'' survivors are Salter, Brooks, "Boats", and Kloos. Additionally, a large majority of the armed forces of both the SDF and the UNSA have been destroyed; the latter, at this point, has ''literally'' no navy.]]

Previews [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaDJX0Ttsfc Know Your Enemy,]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIxMNUOt0eU We Can Still Fight Back!,]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeF3UTkCoxY Reveal Trailer.]]

* ArtisticLicenseSpace: Given that the game is soft science fiction primarily set in space, there's bound to be a lot of this. Some follows RuleOfCool (like descending through clouds on Europa, a moon with almost no atmosphere) while others are based on common pop culture misconceptions, including the use of a famous image of Pluto with infrared as one of its main colors to skin the dwarf planet. Fire fights in space are extremely noisy, and while usually justified by artificial gravity, some outdoor scenes on Titan or 3 Vesta notably lack realistic physics. An unusual example in the case of Mars has Salen Kotch praised for climbing Olympus Mons (which is 69,841 feet high, nearly 2.5 times the height of Mount Everest on Earth) and establishing this as a major part of his back story, while in the same sentence acknowledging that it is a shield volcano.[[note]] His accomplishment crowing also completely omits the fact that Mars surface gravity is an average 0.38G, meaning it was more of a light hike then a climb. Basically, he bounced up a gentle, wide hill.[[/note]] Possibly justifiable, given that Kotch is a major leader in a totalitarian dictatorship, and this could be propaganda.

** Hornet - Glock 18

-> ''"Make no mistake, we will rip you from the history books. Every last trace of you, '''gone'''. You will know loss, we will be the architects of your pain, we will build monuments to your destruction. The whole world will bear witness to this, our ascension. We will blot out your skies, we will bury you in darkness. Know this, and know us. We are your enemy. We are the Settlement Defense Front."''
-->-- '''Caleb Thies''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaDJX0Ttsfc Know Your Enemy teaser.]]

* NostalgiaLevel: One of the multiplayer maps is Terminal, which is basically Terminal from ''[=MW2=]'' if said level was modernized and put on the moon.