Captain Price

Captain Price (John Price)
Call of Duty character
Captain Price as he appears in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)
First game	Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
Voiced by	Billy Murray (original trilogy) Barry Sloane (reboot)
In-universe information
Origin	England
Nationality	English

Captain John Price is a character from the Call of Duty series of video games published by Activision. First appearing in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), he is the commander of Task Force 141, a fictional Special Air Service unit. He has subsequently appeared in every other game in the Modern Warfare sub-series, including the reboot series started in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). In the original trilogy, he is voiced by Billy Murray; in the reboot series, he is voiced by Barry Sloane.

Captain Price is based on another character named Captain Price, which appeared in the original Call of Duty (2003), set in World War II. When designing the character for Call of Duty 4, the development team overhauled the original design from the 2003 game, incorporating elements such as a thousand yard stare, a damaged boonie hat, and a receding hairline. Price has been widely considered the most iconic character in the Call of Duty series, and has been considered by some to be one of the most iconic video game characters. Critics have praised his role in the series, and the character has ranked on reader polls for the best video game characters of all time.

Creation and design

The design of Captain Price was heavily inspired by the design of another Call of Duty character named Captain Price, who appeared in the original Call of Duty (2003). This game was set during World War II, and saw that game's Captain Price die in battle while infiltrating a Nazi battleship. In an interview with Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling, he stated that during the develop of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), they wanted to give the character "a fresh new look," making his design to "look like a character", and allowing his actions in-game to "make him a hero". While that game's Captain Price already had a beard, the developers chose to make it scruffy as to make it fit better with his face and "give him a grizzlier look." His face is asymmetrical, and he has a receding hairline along with a bald spot. The team spent an extensive amount of time working on his eyes and boonie hat, giving him the appearance of a thousand-yard stare complete with a shadow over his eyes from the deformed hat. According to Infinity Ward character designer Sami Onur in an interview, Captain Price is the grandson of the original Captain Price from the first Call of Duty game. However, him being the grandson of that game's Captain Price has never officially been confirmed.

In the original Modern Warfare trilogy, Captain Price is voiced by Billy Murray. In the reboot series, starting with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), he is voiced by Barry Sloane, who also does motion capturing for the character.

Appearances

Original trilogy

First appearing in Call of Duty 4, Price serves as the commanding officer of a Special Air Service unit investigating the recent civil war that had broken out in Russia. The player character, sergeant John "Soap" Mactavish, is a part of unit. In two of the game's missions, "All Ghillied Up" and "One Shot, One Kill", the player takes control of Price in 1996 when he was a lieutenant under his superior Captain MacMillan as he attempts to assassinate the game's primary antagonist Imran Zakhaev. In the game's final mission, Price is heavily injured in a standoff against Zakhaev, though Soap manages to kill him. Between the events of Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), the ultra-nationalists win the Russian Civil War, avenging Zakhaev as a national hero and capturing Captain Price, giving him the prisoner number "Prisoner #627".

In Modern Warfare 2, which takes place five years later, Price first appears after Soap helps him escape the gulag. Shortly after, Price rejoins 141, which is now controlled by General Shepherd, the new head of the United States Army who is using the task force to hunt down ultra-nationalist Vladimir Makarov. The ulterior motive of Shepherd, however, is attempting to start World War III himself to gain control of an army capable of avenging the death of thousands of American soldiers in a nuclear blast. As part of his plan, he assassinates Task Force 141 members "Ghost" and "Roach", and labels Price and Soap as war criminals. At the end of the game, Price and Soap shoot down Shepherd's helicopter, and a battle ensues that leaves Price beaten up, Soap impaled, and Shepherd dead. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011), Price spends the majority of the game hunting down Vladimir Makarov during World War III, ultimately killing him in a hotel in Dubai. He is the only member of Task Force 141 to survive the events of the original trilogy, as Soap dies mid-way through the game.

Reboot series

Captain Price reappears in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), which is a reboot of the original Modern Warfare games. He first appears after being called in Station Chief Kate Laswell to deal with an incident involving a group of insurgents in the fictional country of Urzikstan seizing a shipment of chemical gas weapons. A mission set ten years before the events of the game sees Price free the resistance leader Farah Karim from imprisonment by Russian General Roman Barkov, who in the present occupied Urzikstan. At the end of the game, Price and Karim with the assistance of Kyle "Gaz" Garrick kill Barkov. In a post-credits scene, Price proposes the creation of Task Force 141 to Laswell during a private meeting, with characters such as Ghost, Soap, and Gaz as its proposed members, setting up the events of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022) and Call of Duty; Modern Warfare III (2023).

Other appearances

Captain Price also makes an appearance in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) as a playable character. His design in Black Ops: Cold War is reminiscent of his appearance in the Call of Duty 4 mission "Crew Expendable", which has him in all-black gear. This variant of his design also replaces his boonie hat with a gas mask. He also appears in Call of Duty: Mobile and Call of Duty: Online.

Reception

Captain Price has been often referred to as most iconic character in the Call of Duty series, as well as one of the best characters in the series. Captain Price was considered one of the most iconic video game characters by the editorial staff of GamesRadar+, with another list from Glixel considering him to one of the most iconic characters of the 21st century. He has ranked on reader polls conducted by Guinness World Records and the editorial staff of Game Informer, with the former having over 13,000 respondents and the latter having over 70,000. Meagan Marie of Game Informer considered Captain Price to be one of the most memorable designs for video game characters, writing that while most people remembered the character for his "selfless nature and unique personality," the design of him made it where Captain Price "never feels lost in the crowd."

In a retrospective video highlighting the history of the character throughout the series, Ian Higton of Eurogamer described Captain Price as the "true star" of the Call of Duty series, further claiming him to be the "most famous mustachioed military man of all time". Citing the voice actor for Price in beta builds of Call of Duty 4 to be the same as the original Call of Duty character, Higton highlighted a theory that claims Captain Price to be a time traveler. He compared Price to Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, describing Price as "leaping from time period to time period, taking out Nazis and terrorists, wherever he's needed the most". The editorial staff of GamesRadar+ described Captain Price as being a "badass", and that "arguably no other character in the history of games goes harder" than him.

In 2021, GameRant reported that a study conducted by Top10Casinos found Captain Price to be the most attractive male character in video games via a "Golden Ratio", in which he scored a 88.90%, which surpassed Geralt of Rivia in second place by 2%. According to TheGamer, the study was met with fierce backlash from the fandoms of numerous other video games on social media, arguing for other characters to have been more deserving of the top spot.

Analysis

Writing about his role in the Modern Warfare reboot, Jeremy Peel of Rock Paper Shotgun highlighted Captain Price's choice to make sacrifices and committing various acts –getting "dirty"– so the world can be "clean". He highlighted this mentality as also being presented to the player in a specific scene of the game, where Price offers to escort a mother and a child on the players behalf to keep them innocent. He described Price as an example of "decisive utilitarianism", and compared his actions to be resolving the in-game equivalent of the trolley problem, where one person has to die so that many more can be saved. He compared his character to being that of "Santa with an assault rifle."

Media researcher George Blackburn believed that the relationships between MacMillan, Price, and Mactavish were akin to that of a patriarchal family dynamic. He cited the repeated appearances of older commanders directing younger officers throughout the games, affectionately addressing them as "sons". Another media researcher, Claudius Stemmler, described Price as a character primarily driven by revenge, similarly to the antagonists of the series. He found this to be reflected by every mission in the games culminating in a killing of a villain, satisfying the potential wish of revenge on the part of the player as well as Price; When Shepherd, Makarov, and Price disagree on who should actually write history, Price insists that "all history is lies", but later stresses that he wants to kill Shepherd "for the record".

Sources

• Blackburn, Gregory (2018). "Army Men: Military Masculinity in Call of Duty". Masculinities in Play. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 37–53. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90581-5_3. ISBN 978-3-319-90580-8.
• Stemmler, Claudius (2017). "New Media, Same Stale Ideology: Recurring Themes and Global Representations in the Modern Warfare Trilogy". In Garrelts, N.; Kapell, M.W. (eds.). Responding to Call of Duty: Critical Essays on the Game Franchise. Studies in Gaming. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. pp. 51–63. ISBN 978-1-4766-6875-8. Retrieved 2024-04-15.