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Marine Corps

Marines turn to modified Call of Duty 4 to train new sergeants

By

Chad Garland

Chad Garland

Stars and Stripes

May 22, 2026

Louis Hickman, assistant professor of industrial-organizational psychology at Virginia Tech, shows Marine Corps University students how to maneuver in the custom gaming module that leverages a modified version of the 2007 game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. (Office of Naval Research)

The Marine Corps hopes that a modified version of the nearly two-decade-old hit video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare can help newly promoted sergeants level up as leaders.

A group of researchers from Virginia Tech and the University of Memphis developed a training adaptation of the genre-defining game to help teach students in the Sergeants School at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va. The effort, funded by the Office of Naval Research, is known as Research into Competency Acquisition with Novel E-gaming.

The fourth installment of the Call of Duty franchise, a top seller after its release in November 2007, was the first to bring the series out of World War II and into the modern era, though much about modern warfare has changed since, with the advent and growing use of drone technology and artificial intelligence.

In the game’s modified version, which was introduced to the first cohort of Marine students in January, players participate in over a dozen scenarios tailored to help them hone skills in leadership, critical thinking, decision-making and communication in real time, Virginia Tech said in a statement this week.

“The actual skills translate directly into making good decisions under high stress,” said Brig. Gen. Matthew Tracy, commanding general of Marine Corps Education Command and president of Marine Corps University, according to the statement.

Sergeants School is designed to prepare newly promoted sergeants to take on more significant leadership roles as noncommissioned officers, according to a description on the Marine Corps University’s website.

The curriculum emphasizes Marine Corps doctrine, tactical decision-making and maneuver warfare concepts. Course instruction is typically delivered through guided discussions, case studies, practical applications and other exercises.

Traditional modes of instruction provide students with the necessary knowledge, but the video game lets them develop that knowledge into skills “through practice, reflection and refinement,” said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Natali, a program manager with the Office of Naval Research.

The students see “how their thoughts, decisions, and interactions with teammates affect performance and mission success in real-time vice theoretical talking points,” Natali said in the Virginia Tech statement.

Having the chance to work with the military on something with a real-world impact “instead of something sequestered away in the ivory tower” was a plus for Louis Hickman, assistant professor of industrial-organizational psychology at Virginia Tech, who leads the research project.

“This is one of the few things in the course that allows for active practice and a more engaging experience,” Hickman said.

The similarity of the game’s setting to the real world was also part of the reason the researchers chose Call of Duty 4 over something like Halo, which is set on other planets centuries in the future, Hickman told Stars and Stripes this week.

‘Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’ — released by Activision in 2007 — is being used at the Marine Corps University’s Sergeants School to train newly promoted Marines in real-world leadership skills needed to level up as noncommissioned officers. (Brian Bowers/Stars and Stripes)

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