Why do people hate Call of Duty? My opinion on the series.

By Sam Coles:

There is no series at the moment that gets as much hatred like the Call of Duty series and most of the time it’s for stupid reasons like because it’s COD. I understand the fatigue that people have with the series but honestly it’s not as bad as some people like to make it out to be and consider it shares similar trends with DICE’s Battlefield series. A lot of people always hate the fact the Call of Duty series doesn’t “innovate” that it’s the same time and time again, however when they do bring something new to the table people complain still and want it back the way it was before which I can almost see the developers banging their heads against a wall in frustration.

Call of Duty when it was first released in 2003 on the PC was a different take on the military shooter because you weren’t  lone soldier you’re part of a squad and the battles felt more alive compared to Medal of Honor. COD liked the cinematic set pieces which were somewhat short in the first few games and didn’t interrupt the experience too much, but it changed when the series jumped to the modern day with Call of Duty 4 with the more explosive set pieces you would see in a summer blockbuster. People praised COD 4 for the singleplayer and multiplayer with the simple progression system and 3, 5 and 7 kill streak bonus which kept the game fair and balanced. However the things people like to complain about COD now were present in the “The best COD game” for example short and linear campaigns, unbalanced ranked multiplayer, campers etc.

Modern Warfare 2 was a great continuation to the series but this is where things started to get a bit out of hand with the progression system where you could customise your killstreaks which went all the way up to 25 with a game ending tactical nuke, which resulted in people exploiting the game to get said killstreak.

By the time we got to 2013 with the release of Call of Duty Ghosts people got fed up with the modern military shooter, so in early 2014 Activision did something bold and different which was in the form of the announcement of Advanced Warfare. Advanced Warfare said “screw it” to the modern or past warfare settings and set it in the future and before you say I don’t count black ops II as futuristic as the technology existed in today’s world and some of it was set in the 1980’s. Advanced Warfare is set in the distant future in the 2060’s where soldiers have access to the exo suits which run on Nano technology which gives the soldier increase strength and mobility.

Advanced Warfare increase the mobility of the player and this really helped the multiplayer as the movement reminds me of arena shooters of yesteryear with fast pace combat where you can retreat rather than holding down the trigger and hope you kill the other player first. Retreating in this game was more of a good idea than fighting especially when you’re out numbered. The ability to boost dodge left, right and backwards is great and makes you feel like a boss when you dodge a barrage of bullets.  

The game was well received compared to Ghosts and people seem to like the new movement for the multiplayer. Later however people complained about the movement and the term that really annoys me now that they like to use “Boots to the ground” where want to go backwards in the series.

The question I ask people now is why are people so down on Infinite Warfare? People say they have been too many futuristic COD games which they have only been two before this because Ghosts and Black Ops II aren’t really futuristic games. In my opinion I think Infinite Warfare looks really fun and different for the series and I don’t want to see the series go backwards to Modern Warfare or World War II because the audience will just end up complaining again and it will go full circle. The reason why we abandoned those genres was due to oversaturation whether it be Call of Duty or copycat games so the industry moved on so let’s not backtrack.

A lot of people like to say that Call of Duty is dumb and I retort so what! Not everything has to be high art in the video game industry there is always room for games that are loud, dumb and completely absurd. I like Call of Duty because I know what I’m getting into whether it’s set in World War II, Vietnam or even in space I know I’m going to be playing a highly entertaining and functional action game with good gameplay and visuals.

If you don’t like the series good for you but don’t try and force your agenda on others because you have a strong hatred for the series and if it gets you this worked up then you need to reassess yourself. Voice your opinion about a subject whether it video games or anything but respect others and have a constructive argument rather than result to school yard bullying tactics, let’s keep it civil let’s have intellectual arguments about subjects with good evidence that’s what makes a healthy debate a non-healthy debate is when you just say it’s shit for no reason.