In 2012, Call of Duty: Black Ops II projected a dystopian vision of 2025—a future where drone warfare dominates, global powers clash through proxies, and technology is weaponized against civilians. A decade later, that once-fictional world is no longer far-fetched. As the actual year 2025 unfolds, it’s increasingly clear that the game’s narrative anticipated real-world developments with eerie precision. This essay examines how the current political, military, and social realities of 2025 in the United States and around the world align almost beat for beat with the storyline, themes, and warnings embedded in Black Ops II.

Drone Warfare and Domestic Militarization

One of the most striking parallels is the integration of military drones into domestic enforcement. In Black Ops II, drone fleets become central to both international combat and domestic policing—eventually being hacked and turned against their own nation. In 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alongside ICE and federal forces, deployed drones in Los Angeles to surveil and assist with immigration raids. These were not simply small surveillance units but Predator-style drones more commonly associated with overseas military operations. The federal government, under the Insurrection Act, deployed over 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to suppress protests, echoing the game’s depiction of cities under military lockdown.

What Black Ops II portrayed as a high-tech nightmare of military overreach is playing out with uncanny similarity in reality. Civilian populations are being monitored and, at times, detained by military-adjacent forces on American soil, and aerial surveillance is being normalized under the guise of law enforcement and national security.

Legal Erosion and Government Overreach

The game’s villain, Raul Menendez, manipulates the legal system, international laws, and media perception to incite a global crisis. While the U.S. in 2025 has no direct Menendez analogue, the erosion of legal norms is evident in multiple arenas—most notably in the case of Kilmar Abrego García. García, a protected Salvadoran national, was illegally deported despite a standing court order and subsequent Supreme Court involvement. He was sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison under the Trump administration’s reinterpretation of the Alien Enemies Act, a Civil War-era law revived to justify deportations of alleged national security threats without due process.

In the game, such legal manipulations are tools of authoritarianism. In reality, they are rapidly becoming precedent. Courts protested, human rights groups sounded the alarm, and yet the federal executive continued undeterred. The judiciary's power is being tested, and the integrity of checks and balances appears increasingly fragile—a reality that Black Ops II dramatized through fictionalized crises that now mirror actual policy decisions.

Clandestine Prisons and International Outsourcing

The mega-prison CECOT in El Salvador, funded partly by the U.S. government, is the modern embodiment of BO2’s secret internment camps. In the game, covert prisons are used to detain and indoctrinate perceived enemies under the radar. Today, hundreds of people—including individuals wrongfully deported—are held in brutal conditions in CECOT, without trial, legal recourse, or clear timelines for release.

The parallels are chilling. These facilities operate with minimal oversight, are glorified in national propaganda, and are defended as necessary tools in a war against crime and terror. The U.S.’s role in subsidizing and coordinating this prison strategy abroad mirrors BO2’s concept of global military-industrial partnerships that undermine human rights under the flag of security.

Operation Midnight Hammer and the Iran Conflict

Perhaps the most direct and unsettling match to the game is the unfolding military confrontation with Iran. In June 2025, the United States launched Operation Midnight Hammer, a surprise strike on Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities using B-2 bombers, Massive Ordnance Penetrators, and submarine-launched cruise missiles. This followed Israeli airstrikes and failed diplomacy, eerily reminiscent of the BO2 narrative where escalating conflict, technological superiority, and unilateral military action set the stage for world war.

The scope and nature of these real-world operations closely resemble Black Ops II’s depiction of precision warfare and geopolitical brinkmanship. The game warned of the dangers of advanced weapons in the hands of leaders willing to use them preemptively—and here we are, witnessing surgical strikes with bunker-busting bombs and intercontinental logistics planned in secret.

Proxy Conflicts and the Return of the Cold War

The 2025 of Black Ops II is a world in chaos: Africa in flames, the Middle East in turmoil, and the superpowers competing through puppets rather than direct confrontation. Our own 2025 is no different. The United States is entrenched in proxy conflicts in Yemen and Syria, supports Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression, and now faces off with Iran in a shadow war that risks triggering larger-scale conflict. China’s looming presence over Taiwan and its indirect alignment with U.S. adversaries also fits the BO2 mold, where strategic alliances shift and escalation is always a heartbeat away.

Just as in the game, the lines between open warfare and covert action have blurred. Intelligence, cyberattacks, and drone strikes are the new normal. And just like BO2’s speculative fiction, the result is a fragile, unstable international order constantly at the edge of collapse.

Media Manipulation, Populism, and Civil Resistance

Cordis Die, the fictional movement in BO2, uses viral media, emotional narratives, and populist ideology to mobilize resistance and manipulate global public opinion. In our world, the battle over truth, narrative, and identity politics is just as fierce. From the “No Kings” protests in Los Angeles to the rise of right-wing and left-wing media silos, 2025 is a year defined by informational warfare.

Trump’s Truth Social platform, the glorification of military operations, and the demonization of protestors and immigrants are all reflective of the propaganda tactics seen in BO2. The real world is struggling with the same forces of mass persuasion, digital radicalization, and authoritarian aesthetic that the game painted as dangerous precursors to global collapse.

Small Parallels with Big Implications

Even the smaller details in Black Ops II are echoed in today’s news:

Drone industry booms are paired with private counter-drone tech startups.
State legislatures push anti-surveillance laws while federal agencies expand AI and biometric capabilities.
Pro sports teams like the LA Dodgers physically intervening against ICE raids resemble the kind of grassroots resistance BO2 hinted at through in-game civilian defiance.
Human rights organizations mirror the in-game moral opposition to authoritarian encroachment, but increasingly with less success.

These details accumulate into a single message: the themes of BO2 are not just speculative anymore—they are deeply embedded in the reality of global politics, technology, warfare, and civil society.

Conclusion: From Speculation to Blueprint

Call of Duty: Black Ops II was never intended as prophecy, but its portrayal of 2025 now reads more like a strategic forecast than fiction. Its warnings about the unchecked rise of drone warfare, the dangers of populist manipulation, and the slow erosion of legal norms have all materialized. The world we live in today is one that would be entirely familiar to the game’s protagonists—where technology, power, and fear intertwine in ways that blur the lines between right and wrong, law and force, reality and simulation.

If we are now living in the world that Black Ops II imagined, the real question isn’t whether the game was accurate. It’s whether we will find a way to alter the ending.

Black Ops II Was Right About 2025: A Deep Dive Into Fiction Becoming Reality