What’s next for Call Of Duty? (Picture: Activision)
A reader has some ideas for how Microsoft should handle Call Of Duty in the future and keep it away from the influence of Activision’s CEO.
Call Of Duty is going to be celebrating its 20th anniversary in October, but that’s the least important milestone it’s got going at the moment. Microsoft is finally going to be able to buy Activision Blizzard and they’ve said they may stop the yearly sequels. At the same time, the games are losing players and the general buzz around the series is poor, with the only thing fans have been getting excited about being the older entries getting their online matchmaking back.
This year’s Call Of Duty is a jumped up piece of DLC and I imagine that’s going to be very obvious, which is going to lead to even more negativity. That in turn is going to make the older games seem even more popular and I don’t think you have to be too clairvoyant to imagine that Activision is going to try and take advantage of that with new remasters and remakes.
As has been pointed out by others, Call Of Duty is getting to that sort of age where people have grown up with it and even though the game hasn’t really changed that much over the years it’s the earliest entries they remember with the most fondest, just because it’s mixed in with nostalgia for when they were younger and what else they were doing at that time.
I’m sure people don’t need nostalgia explaining to them, considering that’s all that movies and TV seem interested in at the moment, but games aren’t much different. But for a series like Call Of Duty it doesn’t really make much sense. The easiest way to make new games more like the old ones is just strip out all the modern quality of life options that people have got use to and remove two-thirds of the modes, but somehow I don’t think anyone’s going to be happy with that.
I think what actually needs to happen is two-fold. The first is stop the yearly sequels and make them every other year or, ideally, just whenever they’re ready. Every year was fine when you could make a good game in three years (Activision has three studios taking turns so they each get three years) but the average is five now and the last couple of games have only had two years anyway.
This is where Microsoft taking over could be a real benefit, because Activision, and the awful Bobby Kotick, want to keep the yearly schedule. Kotick has been the boss of Activision for decades now and he looks like staying on even after the acquisition, despite the fact that even his own employees petitioned to have him booted out.
So step one is have Microsoft give the teams as long as they need to make a new game. If three aren’t needed let the others even make some different games for once, or Call Of Duty games with weird settings, like really far back in time (they were going to make an Ancient Rome game at one point) or sci-fi again. Something so they’re not all making the same thing day in and day out.
The second step is to try and streamline the experience and stop making microtransactions such a focus. This is another thing that Bobby Kotick would never do unless forced to, but with Microsoft there’s suddenly a chance for some real change.
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No one wants the modern games to be as bare bones as they used to be but there’s a lot that can be done to improve the menu and UI, make sure the mini-map is in every game, give it a rest with the overly powerful killstreaks and other gimmicks, sort out matchmaking and lobbies so you don’t get split up from your group after a match, and either get rid of skill-based matchmaking or make sure it works properly.
I think it’s things like this that will make the real difference, and are what people are looking for from a retro experience, and they’re pretty easy to do if you make the effort. It just needs for Activision to stop thinking only about short term profits and instead about how they can make sure the game lasts another 20 years.
By reader Lambert
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A reader has some ideas for how Microsoft should handle Call Of Duty in the future and keep it away from the influence of Activision’s CEO.
