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The most recent installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Vanguard, has now released, and it looks as though Captain America may be joining the game. Within the files scouted out by data miners, there are strong hints that Captain America and Indiana Jones could join Vanguard at some point. While players don't have any real knowledge of how these characters might be integrated at this point, it feels like a major mismatch to plunge Captain America into the world of Call of Duty.
Call of Duty is no stranger to cameo and crossover characters, but these characters have usually come from more mature source material, such as John Rambo, which hails from a franchise where bloodshed and killing is shown in a fairly gratuitous manner. The run and gun style of Call of Duty that encourages kill, move, kill, and don't dwell on things makes a cameo by Rambo feel fitting, but it runs contrary to how Captain America presents himself, especially in recent years through the Marvel films.
Captain America is trained to be the ultimate soldier and there are few human beings in the Marvel Universe who are as capable of killing as he is, arguably making him a good fit for a WW2 Call of Duty game. However, Steve Rogers is also a superhero who prioritizes saving lives rather than taking them. Of course, Captain America killed many Nazis during the Second World War, and there's even an argument to be made that Vanguard features some of the pulpy qualities of his earlier WW2 adventures, but depicting him killing people in a multiplayer setting effectively betrays the character.
Call Of Duty: Vanguard Shouldn't Feature Captain America
Thematically, Captain America is a protector more than he is a soldier. While Captain America may occasionally sport a sidearm, his weapon of choice is an actual shield. The Captain does his best to save lives, avoid civilian casualties, and even reduce casualties on the enemy's side. Call of Duty rarely spotlights these elements, and the series openly celebrates the most efficient killers through KD ratios, killstreaks, and rewards doled out tied directly to body counts. There's also a huge contextual difference between Captain America killing Nazis in an actual story compared to him being used as an avatar to murder enemy players in multiplayer.
Epic Games manages to pull off a wide range of crossover characters in Fortnite, including Marvel properties, but Fortnite's cartoony style and lighthearted tone make for a good fit for someone like Captain America. If Activision Blizzard really wanted to secure Marvel licenses for Call of Duty, there are much better fits than Captain America, such as Punisher, Deadpool, Wolverine, or Nick Fury. Those characters have fewer qualms with taking a life than Steve Rogers has, although only two (Logan and Fury) served in WW2.
There's always the possibility that Captain America himself is not put into action but rather his weapon, suit, or presence are leveraged in a way that keeps him on the sidelines. While this would still feel a bit out of place, it would go a long way toward preserving Captain America's image, and ensuring Vanguard doesn't feel tonally dissonant. Either way, even though it's still yet to be confirmed if Captain America will be used in Call of Duty: Vanguard, it would still feel like a stretch to see a Marvel superhero mercilessly murdering enemies in an online battlefield.