The following GUNNAR Call of Duty Ghost Edition sunglasses were provided by the manufacturer for review purposes.
OK, that subtitle I’ve set isn’t the best, a bit cheesy—but that apply to the shades themselves: this is the GUNNAR Optiks “Call of Duty Ghost” sunglasses, a collaboration between the lens tech company and Activision-Blizzard to bring one of their famed franchises to the world of blue-light blocking glasses. That thing is GUNNAR’s specialty—one I’ve covered before in the past—and for the last two months or so, I’ve been using a couple of their recently released shades primarily when I’m gaming or doing work with electronics indoors. As my vision falls under moderate myopia, this was the best use case scenario for these blue-light blocking glasses (and a big point selling point for GUNNAR) in my case, but you can also get these shades fitted with your prescription if you prefer.
GUNNAR’s Call of Duty Ghost Edition glasses are, as you’d expect, a male-centric “aviator” frame that’s best suited for those that love to sport that “military, cool guy who’d pay for some kid’s Arizona tea at the gas station” sort of energy. And what better style of frame would better fit ‘Call of Duty’ than this? Mind you, GUNNAR’s frame isn’t some cheap kit you can purchase from your local Walgreens or Tesco—the Ghost shades sport a polymer frame with metallic temples. They sit firm on your face, are lightweight, and can stay seated for long periods of time even for people with massive faces like mine—all though, do take care when prying them off your face if you too have a giant face like mine as they still are a bit of a tight squeeze. But they look stylish, at least according to everyone I’ve shown them to. They’re a bit bulkier than the average aviators, but the onyx finish coupled with the metallic top make them look great on the shaven and properly shaved.
The Call of Duty Ghost glasses are a comfortable pair for me and the frame is large enough that just about all but my peripheral is covered by GUNNAR’s lens technology. This is their big selling point for all their glasses—their blue-light blocking, anti-smudge and reflective coatings. Now I did what I do best: sweat a bunch and touched my Ghost glasses a bunch over the course of the last couple of weeks. Gross indeed, but science calls and I must answer: smudge marks were hardly noticeable and were easily wiped off with the included cloth—nestled within the admittedly nifty foam-based Call of Duty case. It took me some time for my eyes to adjust wearing these shades at first—I even managed to strain my eyes in the beginning! But now I love wearing this particular pair at night when I’m hacking away at the keyboard.
See, at first, I doubted the efficacy of wearing blue-light filtering glasses when the majority of my computing devices have some sort of “night light” filter built into them. And for what it’s worth, those do the job amicably (when Windows isn’t freaking out over full-screen applications). But as I wore these glasses, it didn’t occur to me just how much blue light I was taking in not just from my computing devices but from literally everything around me. My lights at home are all bright-white LED bulbs, my desktop is an RGB haven (self-inflicted but still), my calibrated QLED being bright enough to sheer images unto the untrained retina, etcetera. Don’t even get me started on my iMac. But what impressed me even more was just how well these glasses fended off that dreaded glare from looking at direct light sources. Even if I were to stare right into my house lights, there’s nary a shine—I can basically look right into a bright light and come out without a migraine.
I had been so used to taking in all these lights that it never occurred to me how nice it would be to not take in all these blue lights. Particularly at night, where the amount of light we absorb through are devices alone is enough to mess with our circadian rhythm and cause undo muscle strain that’ll really mess with you as you get older. The Call of Duty Ghost glasses come with GUNNAR’s Amber level of blue light blocking, which blocks “65% of blue lights” from sources at 450nm “high energy” light sources. Great for typing on WordPress and GDocs, but if you choose their prescription option you can choose even greater filtering strengths or weaker ones depending on your workload, such as photography editing and the like.
GUNNAR’s Call of Duty shades look nice, they feel great to wear, and the technology actually works. And at their price point (prescription lenses notwithstanding) these are a fantastic pair of sunglasses. This being a collaboration pair with Activision, they also come with a “box” charm for your weapons across the latest Call of Duty games (including Warzone Mobile). I redeemed my code, tried it out on one of my weapons and was able to confirm that it is indeed a box that hangs off your rooty-tooty shooty. I’ll be honest, it’s not very noticeable much less impressive, but it is nice to have something unique to show off. Even if it is a box.
These Ghost shades, like the other GUNNAR glasses I’ve been wearing (and will be covering soon, like the “Fallout” TV show shades), have been a boon for nighttime workloads. I think it’s worth considering the amount of blue light you take in from the electronic sources you have around your home and, if it’s too much, picking up a pair of GUNNAR’s shades is a worthy investment for your vision health. Double if you like Call of Duty, Fallout, and Overwatch as they’ve got a number of unique frames that sport the likeness of those properties while keeping the bright lights at bay. ∎
You can pick up a pair of the “Call of Duty Ghost Edition” shades from GUNNAR’s website at $74 USD, more if you choose to fit in your prescription lenses. Free shipping is available to the domestic United States on orders over $50.
