Players will be up against a militarized SCO in Black Ops 2

By Stephany Nunneley

Treyarch’s Mark Lamia has said the organization players will be up against in Black Ops 2 is the real-life Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or SCO, which in the fiction of the game has militarized itself.

First, a bit of background on the SCO for you, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The real SCO is an intergovernmental “mutual-security organization,” which was originally formed in 1996 as the Shanghai Five by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. When Uzbekistan joined the group in 2001, the organization was renamed.

During its July 2005 summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, representatives of India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan attended, and by 2007 the SCO had “initiated over twenty large-scale projects” ranging from transportation, energy and telecommunications to meetings where discussions on security, military, defence, foreign affairs, and economics were held.

The SCO is now recognized by the United Nations and is an observer in “the General Assembly, the European Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.”

In Black Ops 2, during the year 2025, the organization has its own special forces as well as its own black ops.

“As the proxy war conflicts occur [in the game],” Lamia told Kotkau, “you might encounter these SCO forces. Maybe they’ll be a part of the multiplayer. Who knows?”

Although that was all Kotaku could get out of Lamia in respect to the game’s opposing forces, he was most adamant about the main villain this time out, Raul Menendez, who is supposedly acting alone and has hacked into the US’s robotic tanks and drones in order to stir the already sweltering pot of mistrust between the superpowers

Hopefully, the developers will shed more light on the conflict in the game, and how closely it all ties into current politics between the various counties and organizations – and how, if at all, they will play into the zombie portion of the game.

Black Ops 2 is out in November.