Every time a new one is announced Call of Dutythere is a question that is repeated in the community: “Are they going to charge us a fortune for the same game again?”. It is a fact that the new installments look similar and perhaps it is more exaggerated now that they have decided to bet only on reviving Modern Warfare. However, the criticism is not entirely fair. There was a moment when Activision decided to change the entire design philosophy of the ‘shooter’ by taking it to futuristic warfare. They were looking for the same revolution that they achieved by betting on modern conflict and also refreshing a stagnant experience. However, the result was the creation of a ‘jetpack trilogy’ that received a lot of hate from the community.
The most hated Call of Duty games in history
The revolution came with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. It was released in 2014 and quickly became one of the lowest-rated games in the franchise up to that point. If we take into account user reviews on Metacritic, it only surpassed Modern Warfare 3 and Ghosts. Despite everything, this was the first installment and the community did not take it as badly as it might seem. It was a decision that divided the community. Some users embraced the change characterized by dizzying mobility through jetpacks, but an equally large group of players did not understand this adjustment in course. The truth is titanfallwhich premiered a few months earlier with similar mechanics and great success, had influenced the decisions.
Despite this response, Those responsible for the Call of Duty saga risked everything triple or nothing. After Advanced Warfare came Black Ops 3, with a somewhat less frenetic mobility but still based on vertical displacements and science fiction movements such as running up walls. Here things began to go wrong, although when they exploded it was with Infinite Warfare. It is the most hated game in the franchise and by far. Without going any further, its presentation trailer in Youtube has 81.6% of ‘dislikes’ from a total of 4.6 million opinionswhich placed him among the ten most hated videos on the Google content platform. In addition, of course, it garnered very poor marks on Metacritic.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 didn’t just have jetpacks. It also introduced the concept of operators and skill-based gameplay.
That community hatred was also reflected in sales. A Statista analysis reveals that Infinite Warfare was, along with Black Ops 4, the least selling installment of the decade between 2009 and 2019. Its release even had a negative effect on the titles that came after it. In fact, although this has not been officially confirmed, it is the most probable cause for the reboot of the saga which took place with the launch of Modern Warfare (2019). Activision continued to sell over ten million units each year, but it could not allow its goose that laid the golden eggs to lose even a little bit of strength.
The best games in the Call of Duty saga?
A safe opinion is to say that these were some of the most innovative games in the entire franchise. The small changes in mobility in each of these three titles meant that we always had to adapt to the new developments and they felt fresh, especially for players who dedicate dozens or hundreds of hours each year to the franchise. In addition, they avoided what has become one of the big problems of Call of Duty throughout the latest installments. Currently there aren’t many ways for players to express their skill in a satisfactory way. In fact, it is a failure recognized by Activisionwhich has put on the table some changes in the next Modern Warfare 3 to try to reverse the situation.
I understand who might not like these games, but for me this is the maximum expression of what Call of Duty can be.
Ghosty, a player who competes in the highest Call of Duty competition worldwide, said the following: “Jetpack CoDs are swept away to anyone who doesn’t have them. There are more ways to express skill, they are more fun, they have more mobility and more ways to win games (…) In games like Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3 or Infinite Warfare you may not even know the fundamentals. You just push forward and because you are better than the others you will win. That was what made them cool, there were many ways to win. You could win by knowing the fundamentals [mecánicas básicas de la saga que se aplican a cualquier juego] or for your skill with weapons. Now you have to be much more balanced because that’s how the games have been designed, otherwise you lose.”
Another aspect is that of the spectacularity. Player rewards are normally understood as a tangible prize, but in this jetpack trilogy it was something different. In Advanced Warfare you could take a kill, jump to the top of a building to take another, and then jump from the roof to take out an enemy on the ground with a melee strike. The mobility system offered a creative system for solving problems. The kit also came accompanied by a scenario design tremendously adapted to the new mobility. Everything invited you to move and the feeling was that the situation depended more on you than in previous games.
Good proof of this is that The community’s rating of all three games has improved over time.. In fact, and although the idea seems destined to never return, there are many players who miss a Call of Duty with jetpacks. The problem is that Activision missed what was a perfect opportunity to create that feeling of variety. It could have maintained three parallel sagas: the Modern Warfare or equivalent with classic gameplay, the Black Ops with its mechanics based on operators with unique abilities and the Sledgehammer Games titles with this mobility. However, what he did do was release the three jetpack-based games back to back. He burned the idea and caused a backlash. Shortly after innovating, he returned to the idea that they were selling us “the usual game.”
From Infinite Warfare, Activision has become somewhat less risk-prone and this situation has become even more evident over the last couple of years. I am optimistic about Modern Warfare 3 (2023) and I understand that releasing a game a year is now more difficult than ever. However, I can only miss that innovation which they surprised us with when Advanced Warfare came out. Will Microsoft intend to get it back when it completes the purchase of Activision Blizzard? I find it difficult, although I also plan to live on illusions.
