Warning: There is content on this page that some readers may consider inappropriate, shocking or offensive.
- "Player discretion advised. Some scenes include graphic or intense content including violence. Please consult the game's ratings."
- — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) description
The Graphic Content Filter (or Disturbing Content Filter) is a feature which significantly reduces mature content such as blood, violence and strong language.
Call of Duty: World at War
The profanity is more focused on and completely removed, but there is no reduction in any online content. There will be no meat splatter if the player shoots a person but only a small cloud of blood. Blood and gore is still present in "Blood and Iron", as it is a vehicle level. In Zombies, it is still possible to decapitate a zombie, but there is no blood or meat chunk splatter. It is still possible to create crawlers, however their legs will stay connected to their bodies and will drag behind them as they move. Split Screen is completely unaffected, and online is reduced to less common than split screen.
Cursing is also very limited, and usually swear words such as "fuck" are replaced with less profane versions, such as "damn". Some words are even completely taken out.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
The filter's main purpose is to disallow the playing of the mission No Russian as well as some minor changes in the conversations in the game. Due to the fact that most graphic content is off by default in multiplayer (enemies explode in money rather than blood when hit, no gibbing), little is changed outside of the campaign.
This filter will not affect any achievement or stats by completing the mission, as the mission itself is optional and it does not count towards singleplayer completion.
Call of Duty: Black Ops
In this game, blood and gore are completely removed from all offline interactions and multiplayer. In pre-rendered cutscenes, the curse filter for subtitles is enabled by default, regardless if the content filter is enabled or not.
In Zombies mode, when playing solo, there is no blood from damaging zombies and no gore whatsoever. The opening cutscene and the outro in Call of the Dead are not edited, however. Note that blood is not caused by weapons like the knife or M1911.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
The filter's purpose in this game is very similar to Modern Warfare 2's variant of the system, albeit in a smaller scale.
This filter will only affect the ending outcome of Mind the Gap, if the filter is disabled, then the crashed truck will be revealed as a decoy, then it transitions to Davis Family Vacation. Otherwise, the truck will explode (incapacitating the player and ending the level) and the aforementioned cinematic mission will not play out. This does not affect the No Russian and One Shot, One Kill scenes of Blood Brothers, however.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Remains mostly unchanged from Black Ops, just that most profanity is muted instead of replaced. All blood and gore is turned off with the filter enabled. The word "God" and the related (such as "damn it") have been muted to not offend anyone adhered to a religion. It is still possible though to make crawlers on zombies in the map Buried by using the head chopper, although their legs will still be attached. Using the graphic filter option basically takes away everything "18" about the game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III
The Graphic Content Filter appears in Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and has been significantly improved since Call of Duty: Black Ops II. This time around, all cursing is removed in the campaign and Nightmares during gameplay, plus all the cursing is blocked out in cutscenes. Even in online play, blood and gore is completely removed; in campaign and Nightmares cutscenes, profanitive scenes with blood and gore are pixeled out.
Cursing in zombies is also removed, and the blood and gore are turned off. Zombies can still become crawlers though, but they will not lose their legs. Also, zombies do not lose their heads upon lethal headshots, though the "headshot" sound effect is still used.
In multiplayer, blood, gore, and cursing are all completely removed when the filter is on.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
The content filter only displays when a new campaign has started, unlike prior games where disturbing content can be skipped or filtered, this game cannot skip missions which are deemed too disturbing by younger audiences in certain scenes.
Gibbing also makes an appearance in a few instances during the campaign and multiplayer, but they can be disabled through a separate option in the settings menu.
Examples
- In "Semper Fi", the player cannot look around when the Marines are getting tortured.[1] Also, when Sgt. Sullivan says "Tojo's at home in this shit", he will instead say "Tojo's at home in this muck" as well as the Marine saying "Looks like a temple or something" as opposed to "Looks like a temple or some shit".[2]
- In "Numbers", the torture scene at the beginning is entirely gone, and near the end of the mission, instead of Clarke being shot in the head, his eyes roll back and he dies.
- In "Payback", Frank Woods says "Damn!" instead of screaming "Fuck!" during Russian Roulette.
- In "Revelations", Hudson's line "The Russians fucked you up, I know you, you're not a traitor." has been completely muted for an unknown reason, rather than just the F-word itself (probaly due to time constraints).
- The swastikas in Kino der Toten scattered around the map are replaced with eagles.
- In "Pyrrhic Victory", the scene where the trapped man is burning alive has been removed. He is not shown screaming or smashing his arms against the glass, but Mason still attempts to break the glass.[3]
- In "Old Wounds", when Mason, Woods and Hudson meet with the Mujahideen, Woods' line "That's a bullshit plan," is changed to "That's a lousy plan."
- In "Time and Fate", Woods' line in the beginning "Let's not fuck around here boys, let's smoke this bastard." has been changed to "Let's not fool around here boys, let's smoke this bonehead.".[4]
- When Noriega's men ambush Menendez and his sister Josefina, the cutscene will fade to black, due to the violence and Menendez stabbing the PDF soldier's neck.
- When using a Machete to kill enemies, there will be no blood splatter or gore.
- In "Suffer With Me", Hudson's line "Fuck! Okay, me, do it... Do it!" has been completely muted for an unknown reason, rather than just the F-word itself (probably due to time constraints).[5]
- Also, Hudson receives no damage to his legs when shot with the SPAS-12 by Menendez during the ending.
- In the "good" ending of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, when Menendez slams his head to the TV several times, his entire body including his face will be censored.
- In Black Ops, when the Player is attacked by the robot, the cutscene will be censored.
- In "New World" , Diaz' line "Hey Taylor, you're a fucking dick." is replaced with "Hey Taylor, you're a tool." Also in the same dialogue, "If you ever call him a dick for real, he'll fuck you up worse than those robots, brother." "Dick" is again replaced with "Tool" and "fuck" is replaced with "mess".
- In Rise & Fall, after the interrogation of Dr. Salim, Hendricks will shout "Fuck!" when the station comes under attack. However, with the Graphic Content Filter enabled, Hendricks will shout out "Nuts!" instead.
- In Life, when Kane enters the Nova 6 room, the entire screen will be censored until the room is locked down.
Gallery
Trivia
- In "Revelations" on the Wii, Jason Hudson's line "The Russians fucked you up" is not censored, due to the fact that the level is actually played as a cinematic on the Wii (like U.S.D.D.).
- By default, the German versions of World at War and Black Ops have gibbing disabled because it is against the German youth protection law. This means that in the German versions, the GCF does a little more than just censor the profanity.
- When playing in Split Screen in Call of Duty: Black Ops III, only one of the players doing split screen needs to have the Graphic Content Filter on in order for it to be active for both players.