Past, Present, and Future: Call of Duty

Past, Present, and Future: Call of Duty

In honor of the reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, I'd like to make some suggestions for the future of CoD and how to realistically improve the franchise. Most fans of the Call of Duty games have very loudly voiced their desire for the series to ditch the futuristic combat and Exo suits for a return to a World War II setting -- the backdrop of CoD 1, 2, 3, and World at War (5).

When Infinity Ward started making Call of Duty Games the property became so popular that Activision eventually split the license between two companies: Treyarch and Infinity Ward. The stipulations set on the companies were that Treyarch would create games set in the past, relative to their release date, and Infinity Ward would develop entries taking place in the present or future, relative to their release date. The formula worked as consumers raved about how amazing Modern Warfare 1/2 (Infinity Ward), World at War (Treyarch), and Black Ops were (Treyarch). Unfortunately, Infinity Ward and Activision had a sort of falling out and as of the writing of this article, Infinity Ward essentially no longer exists and their half of the development cycle is in the hands of Sledgehammer Games (who helped co-develop Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward). The last released title for Call of Duty was Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare which is set in the future and introduced an Exo suit mechanic which turned CoD gameplay from horizontal to quicky, vertical, combat. For all intensive purposes, Advanced Warfare is a welcome evolution in the CoD universe. However, from what the Black Ops III trailer showed us, Treyarch is delivering another future-set game with Exo suits. Naturally, people complained citing how they want another WWII game and "no more Exo".

The problem with returning to WWII is if we take a look at the games developed by Treyarch, they've created a nice story arch which has branched across all of their games, usually in the form of recurring characters. To be frank, Treyarch does a much better job of story-telling than their sister-development house because they take the time to add in character development in an over-arching story line; they even created an over-arching Zombies story line in order to justify having the greatest horde mode ever made in each game. Following this overarching story though, it stands to reason Black Ops III is going to continue the story line farther into the future from where they left off in Black Ops II. Unfortunately, this means that Treyarch has to continue pushing their games into the future due to the story they've dedicated themselves to. Technically Treyarch could set a game in the past after Black Ops III, but at this point a traditional return to WWII would be a step backwards in gameplay without a hook like the Exo aerial movement. Furthermore, there has already been four games set during World War II and every possible Allied story line has essentially been done to death. In order to feasibly go back to World War II, there are a few fun options Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, or Infinity Ward has for returning Call of Duty to the past without sacrificing the improvements the series has accomplished over the years.

1) Treyarch could use a similar method from Black Ops II where they transition from past and future to bridge the story. Treyarch could accomplish this by basically copy/pasting the story of Black Ops II where the player plays a special forces member of either the British, America, or French Resistance in the past and the Player Character's decedent in the future who has to deal with a threat that stems from their ancestor's actions in the past.

2) Again, going with the past/future flip-flopping, Treyarch could introduce a time traveling element where Axis remnants in the far future send technology into the past to assist the Axis. However, from a surface perspective this option is more or less a Wolfenstein rip-off. Treyarch could get away with a mash-up of Wolfenstein and Time Splitters which could be really great.

3) Since the game would be set during WWII, give players three "campaigns" again; French Resistance, British Special Forces, and a Nazi campaign. Players never play as an Axis soldier in CoD and being able to could create a unique perspective in the Call of Duty universe. Of course, Activision tends to only want the player to be on the side of "good" so during the Nazi campaign, the player could effectively take down the Third Reich from within similar to Operation Valkyrie.

4) Don't go back to WWII. Instead, make a game set during the Vietnam war. There is so much Treyarch could do with story, character development, and keep the SpecOps/Back Ops feel of their recent games by putting the player in the shoes of a Green Beret deep in the Saigon jungle. They could even put an additional Predator mode into the game to accompany Zombies. WWII has been played out by this point in the series and having a game set during Vietnam opens up a lot of room for sequels that could expand into the Korean War; prolonging the life of the Call of Duty series.

Personally, I love that Activision is proceeding with allowing its development houses push CoD further into the future because we, as players get to experience better and more diverse gameplay. EDIT**Now that the Call of Duty Black Ops III beta is now live the Exo mechanics have evolved from air dashing around to include power sliding and wall running. Furthermore, the much better loot drop system from Advanced Warfare gets an expansion as players select a "specialist" to play as who has their own unique power ability which is like a character specific added kill streak.

So what do the consumer complaints boil down to? "The story sucks". Well I've already given four examples for improvements for the setting which would effectively improve the story, but in short, avoiding cliches and/or varying the missions structure so that the story has more meat than "just shoot bots for eight hours" (i.e. add in more extraction missions, intel gathering, stealth assassinations, bomb planting or defusing sabotage missions, etc. - essentially making the bonus modes like "Light 'Em Up" part of the main campaign story) would go a long way in "correcting" this "issue".

Derek is an avid Call of Duty player, having played ever entry since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Additionally, he holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar