That can be good or bad, depending on your perspective. And the most recent games- Advanced Warfare, Black Ops III, and Infinite Warfare-bear little resemblance to the classic World War II, Modern Warfare, and Black Ops (I and II) games.

COD has evolved in important ways every single year. But since I actually spend every year actually playing each of these games, I can accurately explain that nothing could be further from the truth. To its detractors-because, let’s face it, there will always be trolls who can’t stand anything that gets too popular or overshadows their own personal favorites- Call of Duty is a repetitive mess.

But compared its own past, these recent COD games have been duds. That is, compared to the rest of the industry, Call of Duty is always wildly successful. Calling them failures thus requires a bit of perspective and understanding. And even those failures-all of them-were, in fact, the best selling games of their respective years. It is the most successful video game franchise of all time, by far. And each failed.”Ĭall of Duty is complicated. “And that, ultimately, is the problem: The real failures of Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, and Infinite Warfare is that they did not garner enough interest to grow them into three-game arcs that could help pad out a decade of gaming. “I can’t see Activision creating a new series out of this war,” I explained. In August, when I had the chance to test the Call of Duty: WWII multiplayer experience in beta, I described it as an unwelcome throwback. “But its biggest fans want more Modern Warfare or Black Ops multiplayer mayhem. “As with last year’s blockbuster Battlefield comeback, Battlefield 1-which features a World War I setting and very strong single-player campaign-Activision is not surprisingly plumbing its past, and nostalgia, in an effort to regain the support of its biggest fans,” I wrote. When Activision announced that it was returning to the World War II setting for the next Call of Duty, I noted that World War II was not the answer for a blockbuster game franchise that has lost its way.

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