Call of Duty or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Love the Slop

Man rambles incoherently about the downfall of Call of Duty for the 10000th time

Introduction

Ah, Call of Duty, once a cultural juggernaut, now a monetised hollow shell of its former self. Since 2013 the series has been on a near constant decline, with each subsequent instalment of the franchise being worse than the last. So, in this guide I will be going over each of the various eras of the series, beginning with its rise with COD 1 and 2, through the golden age from COD 4 to BO2, through the decline from Ghosts to Infinite Warfare, and finally the modern slop era. This was once a franchise of hope and whimsy, but now, for many, that whimsy is gone. I want to look at why this perception exists and whether or not this series will ever be gone for good.

Now, opinions vary from person to person; some have never liked it, while others find it consistently entertaining, but by going through sales numbers, looking at Google search trends, review scores, and more, it's really not hard to see how people's perception of the series has changed.

So grab your Mountain Dew and bag of Doritos and listen to this spastic state the obvious.

Rise to the Call of Duty

Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2, and Call of Duty 3 are all World War 2 shooty gun games, and we all know how it works. I know the games; you know the games. You shoot, you fight, you look down sights, you run, you gun – oh wow, so fun. The series at this point was your bog-standard FPS of the early 2000s with modest popularity, but this was a game of a different time, when games played by different rules, a time when single-player experiences were the main focus of studios, with online multiplayer being something tacked on at the end. The first two were made by Infinity Ward, while Treyarch made the third; two studios working together on what were essentially Medal of Honour ripoffs. The economics and discord surrounding these games at the time weren't really anything special either, with them generally being regarded as "doing the same things as other games but in a slightly better way". So, yeah, nothing too special, just an up-and-coming franchise that showed promise, and hell, I'd expect that most of whoever ends up reading this sh♥t haven't even played these early games anyway.

"The Golden Age"

Ok, so this is when the series became a household name as well as an absolute juggernaut of the industry. This "Golden Age" is generally agreed, by fans, to have existed between the releases of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007 and Black Ops 2 in 2012. Between these two years, each new release was greeted with ever-increasing critical and commercial success.

Everybody bought them; everybody played them. They seemed to be more than just games; it was a cultural event; it was a part of your life (at least if you were a part of that 10-25 age demographic at the time). They each hadorable single-player campaigns that featured a distinguished cast of characters, but what these games really brought to the forefront was online competitive action. The Multiplayer. An addictive cycle of progression is present throughout these games: play matches, complete challenges, get weapons and attachments, and play more matches. It may sound basic nowadays, but back then, it was the bee's knees.

Now since these are the games that most of us have fond memories of, this is when I'll start talking about them in more detail.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Ah, the one where it all (properly) began, created after players and Infinity Ward both decided that bleeding out on Omaha wasn't as interesting as pillaging developing nations for their petroleum reserves. Modern Warfare was the jumping-off point for many of the people who grew up with this series, featuring a gripping campaign featuring a cast of characters that would go on to be centrepieces of the entire genre. The story was one that mirrored reality: the Americans go into a nondescript Middle Eastern country, cause a big mess, and things end up going horribly, horribly wrong; meanwhile, the British go in behind the scenes and bail them out. Now, what you have to remember is that in the year of our lord 2007, singleplayer was the main reason for buying a video game. This was still the time when everyone was still getting connected to the internet; online gaming hadn't really taken off with most platforms; it was more of a specialised game mode for people lucky enough to have an internet connection. Luckily for us, with the advent of Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus, Infinity Ward was able to capitalise on this newly emerging market for online games by releasing an extensive online multiplayer with things like kill streaks, multiple gamemodes, levelling and prestigeing, even down to choosing cool camos to put on your boomstick.

Call of Duty: World at War

Now this is how you properly portray World War 2. That's right, this game isn't afraid to show swastikas or the atrocities committed by the Japanese, Nazis, or Soviets (both in-game and through the use of actual footage), nor is it afraid to show limbs flying everywhere or people burnt to a literal crisp. You won't find Germans using Russian weapons everywhere, nor will the weapons look like autistic drawings compared to their real counterparts. Enemies will go down in about 2-3 shots, almost no matter what you use instead of a whole magazine. Fun fact: the weapon sounds in this game were all recorded from the actual weapons themselves, probably resulting in all of the guns sounding much better compared to most COD guns these days. The game has a dark atmosphere with one of the greatest and most fitting soundtracks in gaming history, new avenues of gameplay based around how differently the Japanese fight compared to the Germans, and good characters that I'm able to care about without the game trying too hard *cough* cough COD WWII *cough* cough.

While the game may not be 100% historically accurate (Tiger II in Stalingrad, Black Allgemeine-SS uniforms at the Reichstag), it is historical authentic, it portrays the atmosphere and tone of the second world war in an unflinchingly horrifying manner, while the historical errors are present they are usually issues of items that historically did exist and are mostly modelled correctly in game simply being present in the wrong time, I give these errors a pass because unlike COD:WWII or Vanguard that make mistakes because the devs were either lazy or didn't care, the devs of World at War clearly did their homework and cared about what they were making and in all likelihood made the mistakes due to oversights rather than laziness or apathy.

The multiplayer, which is one of the best in the series, has actually got quite a few people still playing it. A relatively mature fanbase, no OP shotguns, satisfying gunplay and progression, HUGE maps with 16v16 servers, vehicles... and who could forget the MP-40 with dual mags & juggernaut? Good times...

And of course the cherry on top for this game is, of course, Nazi Zombies. Nazi Zombies was originally conceptualised and developed by Jesse Snyder, who revealed that originally the end sequence of the game was going to involve the player being placed into a German bunker on D-Day where they would have to mow down allied soldiers until they were overrun; however, this level ended up being canned due to there being a lot of resistance to playing as a German. He stated he was inspired to make a zombie game mode by a mix of some AI in the level “Little Resistance”, which had Japanese soldiers looking dazed after a rocket strike on their defensive line (apparently the way they moved made the members of the dev team compare them to zombies), and a flash game called The Last Stand. [armorgames.com] Zombies of course, went on to be a cornerstone of the series and introduced some of the most beloved characters in video gaming history.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Now, coming off the back of Call of Duty 4 and World at War, I doubt anyone thought that series could get any better, and then we got this. Modern Warfare 2: people lost their minds over this thing. Its singleplayer is probably the most memorable of the series, abandoning the relatively grounded nature of COD 4 and World at War and instead going in the more fast-paced, high-octane action movie direction, which resulted in all the stuff we remember. You all know how it goes: No Russian, Russia Invades America in like a day, Price has a schizo moment and launches a nuke, Shepherd kills Ghost and Roach, and Soap kills Shepherd with a knife to the eye. It's dumb, it's fun, it's Modern Warfare 2.

These games sold like hotcakes; the franchise could do no wrong. Sure, you had some hipsters giving the games ones and twos on Metacritic, but come on, that's just what comes with any game that is massively popular. Ah yes, the future was bright; what wonderful experiences would grace our open arms next?

And then, this happened.

Vince Zampella and Jason West, two of the founders of Infinity Ward, are fired. The reason? "Breach of Contract and Insubordination". Sounds pretty fishy, right? Soon after, half of the entire Infinity Ward staff resign; as you can expect, losing half of your employees is not particularly great. Especially when you consider that Infinity Ward was on top of the world at the time, having created a series with unprecedented growth. Sinister forces were working against our team of heroes, and our villain?

His name is Bobby.

Bobby

Who is Bobby? Bobby is a little boy who once resided as CEO of the small money-making venture known as Activision. Activision owns Infinity Ward. Now, after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's success in 2007, Jason West and Vince Zampella, the two top dogs at Infinity Ward, went into contract negotiations with Bobby, where Infinity Ward promised to make Modern Warfare 2 for 2009 in exchange for a percentage of the profits that each of their games made as well as creative control over the Call of Duty series. The more money the game makes, the more money Infinity Ward takes. Seems fair enough, right? And Bobby agreed but added a clause to the contract that should they be fired, the rights to Call of Duty would fall back to Activision. And as you can imagine, after the new contract came into effect in 2008, Bobby immediately began looking for ways to find reason to fire West and Zampella to trigger the new clause. Bobby actively trying to fire them made West and Zampella look for a way to make Infinity Ward a studio outside of Activision's control. Modern Warfare 2 came out in 2009 as promised in the contract. Now Modern Warfare 2 made lots of money, and when Bobby noticed this, he promptly went, "This is good, money good," but when Bobby needed to share his new toys with Infinity Ward, he got mad. So on March 1, 2010, West and Zampella were released by Activision for "insubordination", forfeiting the bonuses they had negotiated. Half the staff at Infinity Ward resigned in the following months; many of them joined Respawn Entertainment, West and Zampella's new company, and they would go on to make Titanfall with EA. All of this resulted in the legal cases of West and Zampella vs. Activision and Infinity Ward Employee Group vs. Activision presiding in court.

Now, as with any legal mumbo jumbo, we can't be 100% sure what went down, but considering that they're Activision, I would never, ever, give them the benefit of the doubt. But most COD fans were not really concerned over all this stuff; they were more focused on the upcoming Stimulus Package DLC. It was gasp £12 ($15) for only 5 maps, which doesn't sound too bad nowadays, but in 2010, this was an atrocity of the highest nature. Nowadays, £12 just gets you the chance to win a stupid skin. What a wonderful dystopia we find ourselves in.

The Twilight of the Golden Age

Well, after all of that, Bobby still wanted a new Call of Duty out ASAP. Yeah, sure, half of Infinity Ward was gone, but who cares? As far as Bobby and Activision could see, the only way forward from here was MW3, so Sledgehammer Games was brought on to help the remaining staff at Infinity Ward get something done.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Black ops came out after the adrenaline ride that was MW2, it brought a welcome change in setting from both the Modern setting of the MW games and the WW2 setting of the originals and WAW, being instead set in the 1960s, taking players into the clandestine world of the Cold War through the eyes of CIA operative Alex Mason. Suffering from amnesia and under interrogation, Mason relives key missions involving the Bay of Pigs, a Soviet plot to unleash a deadly chemical weapon, and his entanglement with a mysterious numbers program. The campaign is a gritty and often mind-bending narrative filled with twists, memorable characters like Viktor Reznov and Frank Woods, and iconic moments.

Upon release, Black Ops was met with positive reviews and significant commercial success. Players loved its compelling story, the strong performances of its voice cast (including Sam Worthington, Ed Harris, and Gary Oldman), its darker and more mature tone compared to previous entries, and the depth of its multiplayer modes. While some criticisms were directed at the linearity of the campaign and occasional technical issues, the game was widely praised. It broke sales records at the time, becoming a cultural phenomenon and solidifying the Black Ops sub-series as a cornerstone of the Call of Duty franchise. The further evolution of the popular Zombies mode also contributed to its positive reception and lasting appeal.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Modern Warfare 3 came out at the end of 2011, right on time. I bet development on it was just a joyful experience, but even after all that, Modern Warfare 3 worked out as pretty ok; it was generally considered "just fine". Did it add a lot? No. It wasn't a game changer but wasn't too bad considering what happened at Infinity Ward a year earlier. The campaign was pretty good, I guess. It had some funny moments, like when Shoigu and Gerasimov decided to expand the Special Military Operation and invade Europe in literally 6 hours. What is it with these games and overestimating the capabilities of the Russian military? It also had quite a lot of meandering before getting to the good bits, and the good bits did stand out: Soap's death, the Eiffel Tower falling, and the entire final mission, which is one of the best in the series. So yeah, overall, I would give it a thumbs up and say it provided a satisfying ending for the plot set up in the previous games. The multiplayer was there but, in the end, was just a less fun version of the MW2 multiplayer. The special ops were quite good with the survival mode, along with some fun missions as well.

But, you see, the average consumer wasn't really impressed and saw the game as just a repackaged Modern Warfare 2, a cash grab, which is a sentiment that wouldn't go away any time soon. This unfortunate development is where the stigma of "Call of Duty doesn't change" really began to be quoted by the general audience.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

In 2012 we got Black Ops 2. In terms of raw game design, this is probably one of the most ambitious, especially for the time. It's nice when a series you like actually tried (sometimes) to do something different for each new title that came out. Remember those days when each game was actually thematically and athletically unique as well as in the gameplay? I remember being excited for this game in the early summer of 2012, seeing all the trailers back in the day when you could trust that pre-ordering a game was actually going to get you some kino.

And upon playing through it, Campaign? Banger. Zombies? Banger. I even remember enjoying the multiplayer, as it wasn't a copy and paste like MW3. And the wider community seems to agree with me. The campaign is remembered fondly for its branching paths which, while nowhere near something like Fallout games (actual Fallout, not the Bethesda slop), marked a major change from the normal linear storylines of the previous games and gave it replay value.

The zombies, while having definite problems, were still enjoyed by many players, including myself, although the word enjoyed is stretched a little when it comes to Tranzit.

And the multiplayer was praised for its balanced gameplay, fun and varied weapon selection, and the introduction of the Pick 10 system, which allowed for more customisation and class variety.

The Rot Takes Root

So after Black ops 2 came out, most people were thinking "Ah, it can only get better for the series, right?",

Then Ghosts came out

Then Advanced warfare came out

Then Black ops 3 came out.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Call of Duty: Ghosts, a fitting title, as many consider this the moment the series died. Instead of being more of the action-packed romp we got from BO2, it was peak stagnation at its finest. But why didn't people like it? Well, it was Infinity Ward's turn again, and they hadn't completely recovered from its recent internal conflict, and Sledgehammer Games was no longer assisting in development, and it showed. The game looked dull, stale, and more of the same; the graphics looked dated, especially considering major competition was arriving at the same time in the form of Battlefield 4.

The campaign was boring, generic, forgettable and contrived; it seemed as though Call of Duty had run out of nations to use for antagonists in their modern games. They'd used Russia for the past four games now. So the other option was China, which would make sense with the tension in the Korean peninsula and over Taiwan, but, you know, they couldn't make a major western game that was going to alienate a large portion of their player base, so China was out. So after that you have North Korea, which obviously wouldn't work because North Korea is a failed state that only exists because of China. After that you have what? Iran – well, COD has already used the Middle East, so they couldn't go there again. So after all that, we're left with Venezuela, which makes about as much sense as North Korea, but nonetheless, this is the direction they went in, but in order to make Venezuela a threat to the US, they turned it into the leader of a united South America. Both the enemy faction and the main villain have very little to no backstory nor any real motivation beyond just being cartoonishly evil on the part of the Federation and just wanting revenge on the part of the villain.

The multiplayer, while not a 1-for-1 recreation like what MW3 did, didn't really do anything new. The maps were way too big, the levelling system was worthless, as due to the way it was put together, you could unlock whatever you wanted no matter your level, and the game didn't even have Capture the Flag or Search and Destroy on launch.

And Extinction, while being an entirely new mode, didn't make a big enough impact to change people's feelings about this game; no amount of aliens or next-gen dog models could save this hunk of junk.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

This was Sledgehammer Games' first foray into the Call of Duty series as the main developer for a game, and how did they do? So, while BO2 was the first futuristic Call of Duty game, this was the first FUTURISTIC Call of Duty game. With the new exosuits, the player could boost jump and use different abilities, which you would think would lead to entirely new play styles. The problem was the fact that the game hadn't really been designed around these new abilities; the multiplayer maps were home to loads of invisible walls, which neutered the boost jump system, basically making it pointless.

As for the campaign, this game features Kevin Spacey before news of his happy hours caught up with him. In the first mission, your character, silent protagonist 427, loses his arm; luckily for him, Kevin Spacey is into that and invites you to join his PMC. For the first half of the story, you're fighting a Russian version of Ted Kaczynski, and then it turns out, *gasp* Kevin Spacey was the bad guy all along and has been making racist gas that he's going to shoot at the US. So you spend the second part of the story hunting down Mr Spacey. At the end you get captured, Kevin Spacey molests you in prison, and then at the very end you throw him off a roof. And then there is a melodramatic speech by the protagonist where literally the only takeaway is Goodman = Good, Badman = Bad. All in all, it's a standard generic sci-fi shooter, with forgettable characters and a predictable plot, and, in terms of level design, it's very confined, so you can't really get much use out of the new features.

The multiplayer suffers from the problems mentioned earlier; all the maps can be played like a regular COD game without advanced movement, and most of the time when you use advanced movement, you'll just hit an invisible wall, so there's no point.

Exo-Zombies was very bare-bones; the advanced movement does set it apart slightly from the other Zombies modes, but beyond that, it didn't really account for much.

So while the new advanced movement and futuristic setting were novel, fans weren't really impressed. Many in the community today consider this game to be the most forgettable in the series, and in terms of quality, the only way the series went from here was down.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

So this is probably one of the most incoherent games I've ever played, and it seems that was the mutual feeling of the general audience when this released in 2015. The campaign is a mess; you play as a generic sci-fi soldier with no personality whatsoever, to the point where they are literally called "Player". The story is complete nonsense and basically takes place inside the mind of the protagonist as they are dying; the dialogue writing is head-scratchingly strange, and the voice acting is awful, almost school play level. This does save the game from being boring, as you'll at least be able to laugh your way through it.

The multiplayer seemed like more of the same, with advanced movement this time with wall running; the maps worked slightly better with the new system because this time at least some thought was put into it.

The zombies was great and was the only saving grace for this dumpster fire; if you are going to play this game, only play it for the zombies. The campaign is worthless, and if you're going to play multiplayer, the question is not if but when your IP is going to be grabbed.

At this point people were getting tired of the whole futuristic angle, so you can imagine what happened when the trailer for this next game dropped.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Infinite Warfare, to this day, still remains the most disliked trailer of any media product on YouTube. Why? Well, because people thought the series was just too far removed from what made it good in the first place.

However, nowadays, Infinite Warfare has gained a following, and the campaign, at least, is celebrated as one of the best. And, yeah. Compared to Advanced Warfare and whatever the hell BO3 was, Infinite Warfare is a masterpiece. While that may be true, I wouldn't go so far as to call it one of the best. A good way to describe the campaign is "as vast as an ocean but as deep as a puddle". The player character and supporting cast are generally pretty good at making you care about them, but everything else is pretty by the numbers for a Call of Duty game. The bad guys are just space Russians with no personality to speak of, and Kit Harington serves as our main villain but only has like two minutes of screen time. All in all, the campaign is a solid 6 out of 10; it's fine, not great, not bad, just fine.

The multiplayer was generally agreed to be just a copy-pasted BO3, so not much to say there.

Zombies was received pretty well; Zombies in Spaceland is generally regarded as a nice map.

But it was clear that futuristic COD had run its course, and I guess the only way to go forward was to go back.

A Quick Word on Microtransactions

While microtransactions had been present in Call of Duty games since Black Ops 2 with the personalisation packs, it was in Ghosts and Advanced Warfare where this really started to be a problem.

Advanced Warfare especially was famous for it. The game contained a very special strain of HIV in the form of the infamous supply drops. Advanced Warfare is pretty sickening in the ways that it monetised Call of Duty, be it the sixty custom-class slots that each cost money or the sh♥tty cosmetics that you can buy for £2, but aside from that, the real demon is the supply drops. Do you know just how many cringey, poorly acted, manipulative, vicarious pieces of sh♥t videos popped up on YouTube after this game came out? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56vF1eEkL40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngzal_fbgx8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRz-3U1GF8&t=2s

The Slop Era

As a general rule, these games are just garbage, none of them are great and only a few are half way decent, all of them are infected with micro-transactions, copy and pasted multiplayers, and mediocre to literal non-existent singleplayers.

Call of Duty: WWII

After the fatigue of futuristic COD hit its crescendo with Infinite Warfare, Activision decided to pivot back to the series' roots by returning to the gritty setting of World War 2. However, Sledgehammer developed it, so naturally it was sh♥t. The game's single-player is simultaneously trying to be World at War and Band of Brothers at the same time and doesn't have the balls to be either; it's a generic, historically inaccurate, insulting mess that gets both its setting and tone completely wrong. Featuring set pieces that fall into either the forgettable or so over-the-top-it's-funny tiers and one-dimensional, uninspired characters. Throughout the entire time I was playing, it just felt as if the game was closely following a checklist: Omaha Beach Section? Check, Vehicle Section? Check, Turret Section? Check, Stealth Section? Check. With all of the points on the list being linked together by a watered-down version of the sort of squad chatter that you'd hear in a movie like Fury, Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, which makes sense as this game is essentially just Band of Brothers from Poundland. But worst of all was the completely botched Holocaust segment at the end. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3337261697 The multiplayer is about what you'd expect at this point; the maps are pure garbage, it seems, like the rest of the game, and not a gram of thought or creativity was put into any of them. So first off, you've got nine base maps and three more of the war mode, which is sh♥t in itself; however, it gets worse because 7 of them are flat, small, three-lane maps that offer nothing unique or different from one another. There is hardly any high ground or low ground, and none of them offer power positions; hidden areas are nonexistent; environmental conditions are nowhere to be found; there are no explosive barrels, no gates to open; every map is surrounded by invisible walls, so there's no risk of falling off the edge; there is no interaction unless it is with the inconveniently placed turrets. But it gets even worse; all of the cover objects, like cars and barrels and whatever, are all surrounded by invisible walls, which further restrict movement on maps that are already of the three-lane variety. And finally, the zombies... has David Tennant.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

The pitch meeting for this game probably went along the lines of Bobby pointing at Fortnite gameplay and saying, "Do that." Out of all of the games in the series, I would consider this to be the most forgettable, although that may just be because it's also the one I've played the least. It was one of the games that came out during the whole battle royale craze brought about by Fortnite. Blackout was fairly well received despite technical issues; the lack of a campaign did rub some fans the wrong way. And this, as well as previous titles, continued the trend of squashing inequality between the teams in an attempt to give newer players a shot at getting the upper hand. For example, assists began to give the same amount of points as kills, and skill-based matchmaking was added (more on that later).

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

While I dislike this game, most of the community consider it to be the game that "saved COD". It depicts a much more visceral world that mirrors our own a lot closer than the previous modern warfare games did. While the majority of people liked it, there were still some like me who thought the campaign was generic, uninspired and was relying too heavily on fan service, leading to an extremely cringey ending.

The opinion on the multiplayer was generally mixed but leaned positive. Much of the criticism was aimed at the previously mentioned skill-based matchmaking, with many players stating that Call of Duty had turned into a game with no real goal other than making sure that noobs get to win.

And as for the Spec Ops mode, well, it wasn't really present for a while when the game launched. It had four standard missions, and when the players entered that classic mode, there was only one mission available. Most players agree that this spec ops, at launch at least, was one of the weakest modes in any COD game.

This was also the game that gave us Warzone, which quickly went on to take over the internet and was definitely the most notable thing to come out of this game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

As far as the games of the Slop era go, this is probably the best there is. It easily has the best COD campaign since BO2, with great set pieces, an interesting story and a very intriguing, if not underutilised, villain.

The general consensus on the multiplayer of Cold War was even more divided than that of MW 2019, with both praise and significant criticism. Aspects like the gunplay were well liked, but areas such as map design were heavily criticised since the devs were still making sh♥tty three-lane maps that offered nothing new in terms of gameplay. Say what you will about the maps in Ghosts and Advanced Warfare; at least they had unique elements like the Tsunami on Defender in Advanced Warfare or the Bus on Chasm in Ghosts.

Zombies was thought of as having great gameplay but lacking in personality.

Manufactured Garbage Without a Soul

Call of Duty: Vanguard

So after Sledgehammer went all autismo willy-nilly with Advanced Warfare, they then came out with Call of Duty: World War 2, even though they really wanted to make a sequel to Advanced Warfare (even though nobody wants that), but even so, COD:WW2 ended up sucking as well. So after that, they decided to double down and do another World War II game even though they still didn't want to make it because they wanted to make a sequel to Advanced Warfare (even though nobody wanted them to make it), and the game that emerged from that sh♥t show was none other than Call of Duty: Vanguard, and it is very obvious how little of a sh♥t they gave about the setting. There aren't many saving graces in this game; the campaign should only be used as an example of what not to do when you're trying to portray WW2, the multiplayer is exactly the same slop that you're used to by now, and the zombies is an embarrassment. The only positive things I can say about this game are that the gunplay is great and the graphics look nice, but since the gunplay is ported from Modern Warfare 2019 and the graphics look the same as Call of Duty: World War II, I'm not going to give Sledgehammer or Vanguard credit for it.

Also some of the quotes from the devs at Sledgehammer, my god...

"Something that resonated with the team were the REAL STORIES of the REAL PEOPLE who fought in World War 2."

Which, you know, is why all the characters in the main cast are fictional people and why we couldn't actually make a game about the actual war stories of the people we based these fictional characters off and also why we presented the actual history that we did feature in both an inaccurate and insulting manner. Also, since they went on about representation a lot when they marketed this piece of sh♥t I will now say that this game's campaign is host to a large dollop of racial tokenism; a number of characters feel more like stereotypes rather than people. Since a lot of these characters are meant to represent real people who fought in WW2, them being turned into walking stereotypes makes large segments of this game rather insulting. It really goes to show how lazy the devs were with this; if they really wanted to represent individuals from minority groups or individuals who were sidelined in history, there was so much real history that they could have used, but instead they just made stuff up, misrepresented the real history and then reduced it to this tokenistic crap.

"It was a privilege to work with all these teams to build a world that feels AUTHENTIC"

Which is why we gave all the Japanese soldiers on Bougainville Becker Revolving shotguns, Volkssturmgewehrs, MG42s, and STG-44s (all with time-travelling optics) and why mostly every uniform seen in the game is either at worst completely wrong or at best inaccurate.

"Witness the rise of the Special Forces as players drop into new locales with AUTHENTIC WW2 loadouts."

The cursed guns that came out of this game speak for themselves; the Modern Warfare gunsmithing is easily the worst thing that's happened to the series outside of the microtransactions; in fact, it's a close second to the microtransactions.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II

This was basically a natural continuation of MW 2019, with the more realistic and toned-down setting. This game continued in MW 2019's direction, bringing back the old MW characters and factions like Ghost and Shadow Company. While these additions were generally well received by fans, for me and a good portion of the community, it was just more fan service that was made worse with what the devs have been doing to the whole character of Ghost, where they insist upon making this whole really silly mythology around the character where they're like, "Ohh, Ghost, Simon Riley, no one knows what he looks like; he never takes off the mask because he's a really mysterious character. I bet you wonder what that's about," which is sh♥t because Ghost was just a side character; he didn't need to insist upon himself; he was just an army guy with a mask. That was it.

The multiplayer was just more of the same; much like the original MW3, it was simply copy-pasted from the 2019 game with minimal changes.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

This was a £60 DLC, so naturally no one liked it.

Conclusion

I don't think there is a way to fix this descent other than Activision simply taking a long break from the series, but they won't; it makes too much money, simple as that.

Let's look at some of the economic fluctuations for a bit of insight into where the franchise might be heading. You see, Activision isn't just Activision; Activision merged with in 2008, a time when both companies were seemingly in a better position, both in the eyes of gamers and their continued relevance. Activision had the phenomenon of Guitar Hero under their control, Tony Hawk was one of the most successful franchises of the decade, and Call of Duty was just hitting its stride. Blizzard was held in the highest regard with top-tier releases and the continued support of World of Warcraft.

Then it all went wrong.

Effectively every franchise Activision has going for it died with a whimper, except for COD. Activision got Destiny, lost Destiny. The Spyro and Crash remakes sold very well, but they've already gone over those classics. The occasional hit can't maintain an entire company, so it's pretty lucky for them to have Blizzard and King to keep them afloat.

Activision bought mobile gaming giant King back in 2016. Going through the Activision Blizzard financial reports, I noticed a few interesting details. First off, King makes a lot of money; in most quarters, Blizzard and King make more money than Activision proper, except for when a Call of Duty game releases. According to my math, 51% of the entire corporation's total revenue comes from microtransactions. All these little things, these skins, these weapons, these Candy Crushes, they make up a majority of the companies' gains.

Frankly, It's a sad but true reality of the AAA games market in the modern day.

[idiot 3]

https://youtu.be/DdmNYNkcwKE

[KamitoRings]

this really was a rant everyone else has done before more than 10000000 times. but well put for the 10000000 time.

[DOCE BOMBER FREEMONEY.NET]

.

[Jaquice]

Not yet, but I'm working on it

[The Other Guy]

This was really informative. Have you done a "review" on Black Ops 6 yet?