Dear Call of Duty (and all associated members);
When we first met, I hated you. My brother was a huge WWII geek; so of course when he got Call of Duty for PC, he got the original WWII version. As I got older, I started appreciating that genre of games. First person shooters was one thing, but a WWII themed game added more fun to it. Compared to today's shooters, the weaponry was limited but effective, the atmosphere was bloodstained art with classic foreign architecture, and above all the music. The game that made me understand this was Medal of Honor: Frontline. In one mission, you have to infiltrate a castle swarming with Germans and you have a fake ID. When you walk into the castle, you show them your identification and they immediately notice that you're American and, what else do you do, shoot the place up. The reason why that mission still sticks with me is because of the above reasons (mostly the music; "Manor House Rally," look it up). Through that whole mission I felt like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade helping Sean Connery escape.
You're probably wondering what the hell does any of this mean? What I'm trying to say is there is no shame in bringing back the WWII genre. I understand that making war games based in the future is easier to do because it's open game. The future can't always be predicted and it's fun to add whatever when it comes to technology and weaponry. BUT, there's a specific way to do it. If someone comes out with a game, not to name names, about a futuristic war where soldiers use giant mechs called TITANS that FALL from the sky and fight each other either man on man, man on mech or mech on mech, you let them have their fun. Your new series Advanced Warfare you signed up to do with Sledgehammer was an interesting approach. It was different from the rest of your games, and from the looks of it, it seemed fun. Now let's look at your latest, soon to be released title in the Black Ops line up Black Ops 3. Futuristic, robots, you can run on the side of walls; seriously what gives? I have to be honest, this has to be your worst attempt at a new game. At this point, you've gone so far into the future, you tore a hole in the fabric of time and wound up in Titanfall. But it's not just Black Ops 3 that's made me disappointed, it's what you've done to the genre.
Remember what you called the original Call of Duty? You code named it "MOH Killer". Well guess what. You succeeded. Before you came around Medal of Honor was the first and leader of the war shooters. Yeah Battlefield was around, but Medal of Honor kicked serious ass in that field. Then you came around. Giving credit where credit is due, you did change the genre. You took what was good and made it better. Big Red One, outstanding. CoD2, fans loved it. CoD3...I liked it. World at War, masterpiece; you even introduced the now default zombie game that come with every CoD game since then. But then you did something different, you brought the games into the modern age of warfare. It was new, yet familiar. Take what we already knew how to play and update it. Harmless to some, but eventually progressed and got better at it. Then what happened? You got greedy; too big for your britches. You were the #1 selling FPS war based shooter. Remember MOH? Because of you, they now had to live up to your standards because you took their fans away. So what did they do? They followed with "Medal of Honor", a reboot. It did okay, but in the midst of following they stumbled and fell and made MoH: Warfighter. Didn't do so well. Now you're on top. But where are you going to go from there? What's gonna happen when we finally realize that you're no longer bringing anything new and just rehash every Modern Warfare Black Ops title and give it a new name and number and tell some other company to do it? What's next, go so far out you're now in Halo territory? "It's not just mechs, but aliens on another planet, but still plays like every CoD before. Oh, and let's add Shaq to it! Yeah, Snoop and Jason Vorhees was dumb, but who cares they'll still buy it." Do you know what you've become? You're the Michael Bay of video games. You feed us the same stuff every year and you thrive on the fact that we're dumb enough to keep buying it. You know it's the same game and uses other gimmicks from other successful games that are not by you. But because you want to stay on top you'll do anything.
But you say, "Well we've done WWII, it's in the past, it's been done." Well then have you ever heard of another game franchise called Wolfenstein? Specifically, Wolfenstein (2009), Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: The New Order? You know what they did? They took WWII and added something unique and fun. What if the Nazi's won? What if you had access to the Nazi scientists' discoveries of Dark Magic? That's fun! It's something we're familiar with with classic shooters in WWII that we grew up with, but it turns it on it's head and makes it new again and adds something we've never thought about; Alternate story lines. Refresh WWII. Go completely crazy with it and add your time travel concept from Zombies and have Sgt. Moody fighting a Nazi with an exoskeleton. Take a page from Bioshock Infinite and go through "tears" or time portals between classic Normandy and wind up in the future, or the events of Advance Warfare, and your actions in Germany effect the outcome of WWIII, or IV! There is so much you could do with that genre.
And if making a new WWII, or any old war, game isn't your thing, then for crying out loud, HD REMAKE!! Technology in video games are advancing so quick that a lot of stuff you couldn't do, make or see in Call of Duty 1 through World at War can be done now. Right now, everyone loves seeing HD remakes. Fans get to see their favorite childhood game come back to life for this generation to witness for the first time and for the kid who played after middle school gets to play it again as a young adult with the new standards of games now.
Remember what you called the original Call of Duty? You code named it "MOH Killer". Well guess what. You succeeded. Before you came around Medal of Honor was the first and leader of the war shooters. Yeah Battlefield was around, but Medal of Honor kicked serious ass in that field. Then you came around. Giving credit where credit is due, you did change the genre. You took what was good and made it better. Big Red One, outstanding. CoD2, fans loved it. CoD3...I liked it. World at War, masterpiece; you even introduced the now default zombie game that come with every CoD game since then. But then you did something different, you brought the games into the modern age of warfare. It was new, yet familiar. Take what we already knew how to play and update it. Harmless to some, but eventually progressed and got better at it. Then what happened? You got greedy; too big for your britches. You were the #1 selling FPS war based shooter. Remember MOH? Because of you, they now had to live up to your standards because you took their fans away. So what did they do? They followed with "Medal of Honor", a reboot. It did okay, but in the midst of following they stumbled and fell and made MoH: Warfighter. Didn't do so well. Now you're on top. But where are you going to go from there? What's gonna happen when we finally realize that you're no longer bringing anything new and just rehash every Modern Warfare Black Ops title and give it a new name and number and tell some other company to do it? What's next, go so far out you're now in Halo territory? "It's not just mechs, but aliens on another planet, but still plays like every CoD before. Oh, and let's add Shaq to it! Yeah, Snoop and Jason Vorhees was dumb, but who cares they'll still buy it." Do you know what you've become? You're the Michael Bay of video games. You feed us the same stuff every year and you thrive on the fact that we're dumb enough to keep buying it. You know it's the same game and uses other gimmicks from other successful games that are not by you. But because you want to stay on top you'll do anything.
But you say, "Well we've done WWII, it's in the past, it's been done." Well then have you ever heard of another game franchise called Wolfenstein? Specifically, Wolfenstein (2009), Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: The New Order? You know what they did? They took WWII and added something unique and fun. What if the Nazi's won? What if you had access to the Nazi scientists' discoveries of Dark Magic? That's fun! It's something we're familiar with with classic shooters in WWII that we grew up with, but it turns it on it's head and makes it new again and adds something we've never thought about; Alternate story lines. Refresh WWII. Go completely crazy with it and add your time travel concept from Zombies and have Sgt. Moody fighting a Nazi with an exoskeleton. Take a page from Bioshock Infinite and go through "tears" or time portals between classic Normandy and wind up in the future, or the events of Advance Warfare, and your actions in Germany effect the outcome of WWIII, or IV! There is so much you could do with that genre.
And if making a new WWII, or any old war, game isn't your thing, then for crying out loud, HD REMAKE!! Technology in video games are advancing so quick that a lot of stuff you couldn't do, make or see in Call of Duty 1 through World at War can be done now. Right now, everyone loves seeing HD remakes. Fans get to see their favorite childhood game come back to life for this generation to witness for the first time and for the kid who played after middle school gets to play it again as a young adult with the new standards of games now.
Bottom line is; we want to go back to Normandy, France, Britain. We want to go back to a time where, because of us; the player, we helped America win one of the biggest wars in our history. We were able to bring freedom to many countries overseas. We stopped the Nazi regime. We didn't care what our KDR was, we didn't care what design we got on our over-powered gun with lazy sights, neon tiger stripes, and passenger side airbags. I'm not saying stop making the games you've become famous to this generation of gamers, where that's all they care about. I'm just saying if you going to expand operations and include more studios to make games and broaden your horizons, take a step back and think about how you got there in the first place and who put in that position. Was it really that bad back then?
Sincerely and still hoping,
Dirk Sholar
Dirk Sholar
That's Just Me Reviews: An Open Letter
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