Forums → Games → Why I fear for Modern Warfare 3

Hello all. Well, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sadist has something he has to get off his chest. Me and Highfire have been ripping this game across all threads ever made about it because we're Battlefield zealots. As an industry analyzer, i feel it should be my responsibility to explain my actions.

I fear for Modern Warfare 3.

Not the sales! No! When i learned that MW2 AND Black Ops broke entertainment-sales records, i smiled. A step forward had been made for gaming as a legitimate form of entertainment.

I don't see this as a threat to my favorite titles, Halo, Gears, or Battlefield, as a multiplayer king. In the game industry, quality has always beat out quantity, (Sonic being the only deformed variable in this equation) but, a fall to an overall, pretty **** good franchise.

Modern Warfare 1 released in 2007 next to Bioshock, Halo 3, and Mass Effect, as superb gaming experiences, the absolute best of the time.

Three years later...
Three CoD's later...
Three gritty, corridor-shooters later...

Black Ops
A best seller and a zombie wonderland... but... it's too... familiar. While being forced to play it by my friends, i felt like i was playing it again... like it was a new experience, already experienced. I glanced at my game library, and there they were. Modern Warfare, World At War, and Modern Warfare 2, all nicely organized. There was no progression, i realized... there was only CoD. And that is what I fear. The most popular franchise on the planet... causing a quality standstill.

Let's evaluate how MW3 will be by looking at it's developers, and it's predecessors.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be developed by 3 teams. An Infinity Ward with all the good bits and pieces missing, an Activision subsidiary called "Sledgehammer", and our friend Raven.

Let's start with our pals, IW.
They make great games. MW2 may have left too much grit in my mouth and too many seizures from the never-ending explosions, but it was fun. And, as previously stated, they did shock the world with the goliath MW1 was.
They got a bad deal, them and the publisher of CoD games, Activision, got into a heated legal battle, resulting in many top IW members getting fired, and many lead designers departing the company as well. The Prince is now Pauper... in the most tragic of scenarios.
IW will be co-developing the singleplayer game with Sledgehammer

Now Sledgehammer.
Remember how Microsoft cut off some extra mass, called it 343, and put an aluminum foil crown on it, forever labeling it the King of Halo? well, they're not doing anything so far, except releasing the extremely popular and well-recieved Halo Waypoint, a go to stop to unify the Halo Community.

Replace Microsoft with Activision, and put yourself in Activision's shoes, a big-time publisher who just got into a scandal with one of your biggest developers that stirred some tense feelings. Not to mention, your biggest rival and his 2-letter name is really annoying you with his marketing. What would you do? Sounds like you'd do what Microsoft did, only use this team of Activision employees to keep the IW boys in line, make the game into something that the higher-ups at Activision know will break a 3rd record, and do it with as little effort and cost available, crafting an extremely popular, low-grade product. well... low-grade as compared to the true blockbusters of today, the Crysis' and the Bulletstorms, the Dead Risings, even EA Sports is pushing their games to become more innovative to craft a richer experience. Fifa 11? Awesomeness. B^)
This will ultimately put a mindset into other developers that if they want to sell millions, they just have to do something similar to Call of Duty... lowering the bar for all games, eventually creating a standstill in game quality. Sure they're somewhat fun experiences, but they all maintain a very mediocre level.

Remember the last time in history something very popular maintained a line of mediocrity nothing could achieve higher than?

I'll give you a moment...
Got it? Yep? Good job. That's right.

The Communistic Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapses after 60-odd years of repression towards the people of Asia and Eastern Europe.

Think about that for a little bit, my friends.

Alright, it seems I've visited the transition of CoD's over teh past 4 years without even noticing. We'll just move onto the 3rd developer of Modern Warfare 3.

Raven Software. Let me give you a history of titles Raven has worked on. Quake 4, Wolfenstein (2009), Turok (rebooted). These titles sound familiar? Raven just can't seem to make a good game. Turok was a bust, Wolfenstein's openworld was pointless, as was the game as a whole, although it did insult some of the industry's veteran community a bit too much. Quake 4 was only halfway good because legendary developer, id, was developing it with Raven. Can we really trust the next installment of Video Games' crown jewel to a junkyard like Raven?
Raven will be developing the ever-addicting Multiplayer aspect of Modern Warfare 3

As I've stated before my whole monotony of quality argument, let me quickly restate it using a metaphor. As the years go by, time is measured on the X-axis, while the overall quality is measured on the Y-axis. The greater in value of the slope between the two points means the sequel was overall, what a sequel should do, take the previous game, fix its flaws, and add some goodies while at it. Assassin's creed, Mass Effect, Dead Rising, halo 3, and Resident Evil 3 all have steep curves leading to their respective blockbuster sequels.

Call of Duty 3 to Modern Warfare's line is, in my opinion, the steepest a line's gotten in a long time. Modern Warfare to Black Op's? the flattest. The community is starting to realize this, and it's not going to be good for Activision until some kind of change is made that IW made back in 2007.

For my closing, I'll look at Battlefield.

Battlefield 2 shocked the world with superb multiplayer, releasing alongside Ratchet and Clank 3, God of war, Half-Life 2, and Halo 2 as one of the best titles of teh year. Sound familiar?

Four years later, Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the master minds behind Battlefield, took to the consoles after their PC only run, and released a strange new game with a strange new engine in 2008, Bad Company 1. The Frostbite engine was able to simulate war-like scenarios and house destruction physics, shellshock, and bulet time/fall with excelled quality. However, the game was considered only above average, an 8.5, if you would.

Two years later, in a cold march of 2010 with Mass Effect 2 and God of War 3 warm from play in our libraries, the Swedes at DICE gave us Bad co. 2, a revamped, ultra-awe inspiring shooter that gave the Frostbite a new makeover and the new multiplayer king, Modern Warfare 2, a bit of a pinch.

Now, its 2011. This is what DICE has been planning. The multiplatform releases of the Bad Co. spinoffs were a beta, a test, of the Frostbite engine. DICE knew they had to make the ultimate shooter experience for the industry, so spanning across two games and three platforms, they gathered enough data to create the divine Frostbite 2.0.

Go watch some Battlefield 3 gameplay videos, and cover teh hud with your hands. You'll be blown away.

Taht's an example of raising the bar, wanting to create a game that would require two previous games to perfect an engine to run it? The amount of money and manpower required to attempt this feat was massive, and through it all, EA has proven that despite weird marketing, they will defeat Modern Warfare 3. Not by sinking to its level and trying to do Cod better than them, but by trying to create a game that will truly be, the perfect shooter, and that's what the games of the future need.

-Chillz