Why do Call of Duty weapons have different names from the real-life ones?

Call of Duty weapons have garnered the interesting reputation of not having the real names of the actual guns as seen in real life. This is in contrast to some other FPS titles, such as Counter-Strike 2, which clearly calls weapons by their universal names such as AK-47 and the Desert Eagle. Call of Duty weapons, on the other hand, have code names like Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and such, whether they're SMGs, rifles, or others.

This change was made in a patch that was released in 2022. The guns are still named differently and some of the issues stem from financial and legal reasons.

---

Why do Call of Duty weapons have code names instead of real names?

Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered (Image via Microsoft)

All of the Call of Duty weapons are assigned code names based on the NATO phonetic alphabets. Players may have heard these in popular media such as films, other video games, and may have even read them in books.

The names symbolize the letters of the English alphabet, with the very first letter being in alphabetical order. Alpha is A, Bravo stands for B, and so on. The names were changed in-game due to licensing reasons.

A Reddit post displayed tweets by CoD developers from Treyarch Studios and Sledgehammer Games. Originally posted by u/OriginalXVI, it showed a Twitter exchange between a player and developers Sam Leichtamer, the Comms Manager at Lighthammer Games, and Matt Scronce, the Associate Director of Design at Treyarch.

3arc & SHG devs explain why they use "Assault Rifle Alpha" instead of the actual name in store / patch notes byu/OriginalXVI inCODWarzone

Leichtamer noted that the new way of naming weapons was confusing for them as developers too. However, legal reasons prevent them from actually naming similar to their real-world counterparts.

Scronce also resonated a similar sentiment, admitting that the naming was not something he had any control over as it had to do with licensing reasons. Essentially, naming weapons similar to the real ones would imply paying a fee for the licensing of the name.

And this fee can only be paid to the entity that owns the weapon's name, the ones that make them or made them for the first time. Not only will the makers of CoD have to pay for these Call of Duty weapons, they'll also have to deal with the legal side of the licensing procedure.

Instead of going through all of the hassle, it seems that the developers just decided to change the Call of Duty weapon names once and for all. This likely helps with the finances spent while trying to obtain the legal right to use the name.

The move reasonably left fans frustrated as they may be used to seeing the real names of these weapons in many games. However, it seems like the decision made by the CoD developers is final and lasting.