So, the new CoD is a WWII game. Interested?

[fix-the-spade]

I thought Infinity Ward was defunct?

Cliff notes version:
Activision decided it didn't want to pay contractual bonuses to Infinity Ward's senior staff, so right after the release of Modern Warfare 2 it fired the two studio heads on entirely ludicrous grounds (specifically, disagreeing with Mr Kotick and having dinner at E3 with a guy they used to work for who still worked for EA) and began withholding everyone else's bonuses and pay. By May of 2010 half of Infinity Ward's staff were gone (most of them ending up at Respawn to make Titanfall).

Naturally, lawsuits followed, many of them.

The legal clusterfuck that followed rumbled for two years and saw Activision resort to shady (Suing EA to stall for time, smear campaigns etc) and flat out illegal (Surveillance, hacking of private emails) methods. It came out over time that Activision had been planning the whole thing well in advance, the day before this all went to open court Activision settled.

Nobody knows the details of the settlement exactly, but West and Zampella were reportedly 'smiling' in the court room during the case withdrawal. Given how utterly shady Activision had been seen to be it's not unreasonable to assume they got most of what they wanted.

But Infinity Ward still exists, just with very, very few of the staff that developed CoD 1,2, 4 and MW2 still in the building, which should have been obvious when Ghosts rolled around.

 

[lepito]

What was important to me about the WWII Call of Duty games sans World at War wasn't just about the setting. It was in how they played and the experience those games tried to portray. The first two games by IW were unabashedly WWII movie-ripoffs, and while CoD did go farther than even games like Medal of Honor did in glorifying the Allies and personifying Nazi Germany as the blackest of evils, they still felt very self-aware to me. Later Call of Duty games became pretentious and to me lost respect for the source material that originally inspired them in order to cater to a crowd that simply did not care about that sort of thing.

You saw this a lot back when WWII games were going out of fashion. People hated the setting, refusing to play games simply on the premise of taking place during WWII. There's a reason why the generic middle-eastern modern war setting is so universally despised, and it's because it's essentially the new WWII. Games take place in that setting without consideration to the context.

I don't think WWII shooters will ever make a comeback. The best WWII video game I've played in recent memory is Heroes of Stalingrad (and that's had mixed reception for a number of reasons).

If you look at earlier WWII shooters such as Medal of Honor (produced by Spielberg after Saving Private Ryan, IIRC) they were very directly inspired by Hollywood works and made no attempt to hide this since they tried to emulate the aesthetic. I'd say that Modern Warfare and its ilk have been far less faithful in terms of their devotion to inspirations such as Black Hawk Down and Tom Clancy works, however. Overall they're just weaker and soulless as creative works in my opinion. They're too bombastic, mindless, and with too much chest-thumping jingoism. It doesn't help that the context for the conflicts in MW/BO/AW is completely fictional, either, because it reveals just how awful the writing for the series has been. It's more than I can take. World at War, despite taking place during WWII, was like that for me too.

The problem with modern Call of Duty isn't the setting, it's the thread that makes up the game itself. Going back to WWII isn't going to change that.

 

[Vampyre]

I haven't bought or played a CoD game since MW1; I mostly quit because they went to a peer-to-peer networking model which is inherently inferior (but was the only thing consoles were capable of doing at the time).

I'd ask this; what does a CoD set in WW2 offer that the older CoDs set in WW2 didn't, besides better graphics? I'd have to wait and see.

I'm vaguely interested in the last CoD because of the jetpacks and mobility changes, but not $60 interested.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I want a remake of first Call of Duty. That is something I'd buy in a heartbeat.

 

[lepito]

I haven't bought or played a CoD game since MW1; I mostly quit because they went to a peer-to-peer networking model which is inherently inferior (but was the only thing consoles were capable of doing at the time).

I'd ask this; what does a CoD set in WW2 offer that the older CoDs set in WW2 didn't, besides better graphics? I'd have to wait and see.

I'm vaguely interested in the last CoD because of the jetpacks and mobility changes, but not $60 interested.

Interesting that you would bring up the networking model of the series' multiplayer, because I'm fairly certain that dedicated server functionality was promised and then not delivered for Advanced Warfare on Steam. As a result, the game is unplayable and seems to barely be populated these days. Everything I've seen from reception to the PC versions of installments in the series points to the conclusion that consumers, at least on PC, are finally wiser than the days where "dedicated servers are archaic" was the motto of Modern Warfare 2 fanboys.

In the end what determines the viability of the Call of Duty property in the long-term is how well they're able to adapt to smarter consumers and subsiding interest in the brand. They've already caused plenty of ex-fans to turn away from the series entirely, and I'm not certain they'd be able to repair that relationship just with changes to the subject matter. Advanced Warfare proved that they can't.

 

[ExDeath730]

I'm only interested if there are multiple campaings following more than one side of the war.

Not levels, but campaigns. What i like about the first games on the franchise was exactly that, how you were trust in the role of a yankee, brit or huskie soldier and got your missions and own storyline. No conspiracies, no interconnected bullshit, just going through that guys missions.

Other stuff i like was how different those missions were, really, in the first games the 3 campaigns had completely different feels to them. In the american one you always feel like a grunt, a good soldier trying to make it, while in the british one you're a one man army that does take out an entire damn on your own (yep, there is a solo mission in the game) and in the russian you start like the low of the low, but at the end you're a freaking badass storming the german parliament. Anyway...Yeah, i want more of that.

 

[chuckman1]

Idk how much "proof" this is, but yeah I would like it.
I miss the WW2 games now. It could be fun.

 

[Michel Henzel]

While I did love CoD:WaW back in the day, and still like the WW2 setting, I don't think I would care if they went back to it. It would not matter what kind of setting they put it in as it would still be the same cod style arcade gameplay, which I'm just not interested in anymore. Not to say that their style of gameplay is bad, it's just not my cup of tea anymore.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

It's just gonna be another festival of mediocrity that has been riding off of "we made Modern Warfare 4!" for eight years now. I can already see them treating WWII with zero dignity and trying to bring back the bad old days of unironic escapism in the time setting with no respect.

 

[Mutant1988]

Not really. I'd rather see someone else attempt a good WW2 game. Call of Duty, I feel, has done all it could with it's gameplay in that setting.

Mind, my opinion is a bit tarnished by the fact that I HATED World at War (Grenade spam central!).

I miss Brothers in Arms... It's such a shame it turned into absolute garbage with the third game. Another game like that, with squad based tactics and a mild degree of realism would be great.

Third person cover shooting (Arbitrary gimmick!) and a complete lack of crosshairs or iron sights on the realistic difficulty setting, so that it's impossible to aim when shooting from cover. How stupid are those developers?

I am interested in the reboot however, because of the co-op focus, but I do wish it was another franchise entirely.

In the end what determines the viability of the Call of Duty property in the long-term is how well they're able to adapt to smarter consumers and subsiding interest in the brand. They've already caused plenty of ex-fans to turn away from the series entirely, and I'm not certain they'd be able to repair that relationship just with changes to the subject matter. Advanced Warfare proved that they can't.

Their games are also way overpriced on Steam, in my opinion. Games that are years old are still marked at 40 euro or more. But to be perfectly honest, I'd rather see Activision go out of business completely, for that subscriber service bull**** they tried to implement. No, if it's peer to peer you don't deserve to charge a monthly fee. And if it's server based, then let us run our own servers and not have to pay you for disfunctional servers (Here's looking at you EA).

 

[Neverhoodian]

World War II games making a comeback? Count me in!


Totally has nothing to do with my fascination with that historical era. Nope, none whatsoever.

>_>

<_<

Just...maybe not in the vein of a CoD game (or at least a modern CoD game). And hey, how about changing things up more this time around. Stories from the Axis perspective? Campaigns in new locations like China and Finland? Even *gasp* the return of WWII combat flight sims (I'm talking about PROPER flight sims here, not Star Fox-esque arcade stuff)?

Yeah, I know. I may as well wish for a unicorn at this point. Still, a man can dream...

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Eh. I think I'll stick with Red Orchestra 2. Call of Duty's become a strange and bizarre creature that I just don't recognize or understand anymore. It's a little too little too late there Activision.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The proof is pretty shakey, I'd wait a bit longer before saying we could tie down anything about it (90% of these teaser nonsense are deliberately too vague to understand without insider knowledge anyway.)

I'd actually be more interested in World War 1. Trenches, mustard gas, massive infantry swarms, endless artillery barrages and constant oppressive dread and hopelessness...

It would be interesting. They could even have you play as Adolf Hitler and experience the battles he was in first hand. Huge amount of potential being ignored, WWII has been exploited to the limit.

I...

I've heard a lot of game ideas proposed here on the Escapist, especially about where the new direction of FPS should go.

I thought I'd heard it all, but playing Adolf Hitler in World War 1? That really is a new one!

Not saying it's a bad idea, just a very strange one.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I want a remake of first Call of Duty. That is something I'd buy in a heartbeat.

This.

Man, that rush into occupied Stalingrad in full next gen graphics... phong shaded russian viscera for all.

And, in general, I think I'm pretty much Call of Duty'd out at this point. Last one I purchased was BLOPS2 and, yeah, I'm just over it. The cow's teats have been milked dry, melted down to their base genetic material, used to clone dozens of other working teats, and each of those were subsequently milked as well.

WWII would be fuckin' refreshing at this point. So many modern shooters. Ugh.