In a leak on Modern Warfare 2, football stars like Lionel Messi were discovered as possible operators. Now the developers have even officially confirmed it.
Update from 7 November 2022: It”s official: Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr. and Paul Bogba will appear as operators in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. The Twitter account of Activison Blizzard and Infinity Ward announced this with a teaser, but there is no release date for the footballer skins at the moment.
The fact that operator skins of football stars are to appear in Call of Duty was leaked a few weeks ago. Numerous fans were extremely sceptical about the idea. You can find out how the community reacted to the rumour in our original report on the topic.
@paulpogba, @neymarjr, and Messi are suiting up for a new type of game ⚽️ 🎮 🪂Warzone2 ModernWarfare2 CODMobile pic. twitter.com/ANh2pgUpSk
– Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) November 4, 2022
Original post: A curious leak has just caused great concern among the fan community of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 fans. According to this, the football stars Lionel Messi, Neymar and Paul Pogba could appear in the first-person shooter as skins for operators. This info comes from the well-known CoD leaker TheGhostOfHope
Some upcoming unreleased operators for ModernWarfareII
Aksel
Connor
Klaus
Luna
Messi
Neymar
Pogba
Roze
Reyes
Gromsco pic.twitter.com/zkzpPH8P57– Hope (@TheGhostOfHope) October 9, 2022
Call of Duty, in particular, frequently resorts to celebrity endorsements for promotions. For example, as recently as April, rapper Snoop Dogg was playable as an operator for CoD: Warzone. Other big products like Fortnite even release various skins related to blockbuster movies or celebrities on an almost monthly basis.
Whether the names revealed by TheGhostOfHope will actually appear as operators or skins in Modern Warfare 2, however, remains unclear for the time being. Most of Modern Warfare 2”s vocal fanbase at least hopes this leak is wrong.
Is the leak to be believed?
Of course, the first question is how credible this leak is in the first place. After all, TheGhostOfHope does not state in his tweet how he got this information. So we have to be sure that this person is not deliberately trying to pull the wool over our eyes. In fact, TheGhostOfHope is no stranger. This leaker has already made correct predictions in the past. For example, he was completely correct in predicting the release date of Warzone 2.
So this is a source who definitely has confirmed possibilities to reveal information about Call of Duty. In the CoD scene, GhostOfHope is therefore considered a reliable source. But there have already been situations in which he was wrong. So the leak is not to be believed without reservation.
Football stars fit the World Cup: What could also speak for the veracity of the leak is the 2022 World Cup, which will take place this year from 20 November to 18 December in Qatar. In the course of such a major event, it would be an understandable idea to have great athletes like Messi appear in Modern Warfare 2. Even if only for the duration of the tournament.
The fact that Modern Warfare 2 also likes to advertise with celebrities is most recently shown by a trailer:
Fans react with concern
On Twitter and Reddit the leak immediately caused a lot of reactions from the CoD community. Many made fun of it in the first step, of course. However, there were many reactions that were genuinely concerned. On Reddit, for example, a user named Patamaudelay spoke about how he hoped for more realism from Modern Warfare 2 and received over 700 upvotes for this:
☻
“I think it completely ruins the game. I like it when games have a realistic approach, when they are immersive and believable. These Fortnite-like skins that turn the battlefield into a clown fest are just embarrassing and I don”t understand the appeal of playing Ronaldo in an FPS with a realistic war setting “
In another thread, a poll was even started. This is not only about possible football stars as operators, but whether such unrealistic skins should be completely dispensed with. As things stand, almost 5,000 users voted against such skins, while around 2,000 users voted in favour.
What do you think? Do you hope that the leak is wrong or would you not mind the kickers in CoD? Write us your opinion in the comments!
