Opinion: How Call of Duty Can Come Back
Looking at the fall and potential resurrection of the AAA giant.
Over the past few years, internet “influencers” have repeatedly declared that Call of Duty is dead. As someone who hasn’t purchased a Call of Duty game in the past couple of years, I didn’t reach that conclusion until this past release. Black Ops 7, at least, suggests a dying franchise. From Black Ops 6 to Black Ops 7, initial launch sales dropped by more than 50%. Black Ops 6 sold 2.3 million units on Steam in the first month, while Black Ops 7 sold just over 400,000 units in the same period. At its peak, Black Ops 7 drew only 100,000 players on Steam. To be fair to Call of Duty, it also faced the most competition this past cycle, with Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders being major successes at the same time. However, Call of Duty has had a major public relations problem for some time now.
Recently, the release of the Black Ops and Black Ops 2 ports shows there is definitely a hunger for the franchise to return to its former glory. This past week, the combined ports dethroned Fortnite as the number 1 played game on the PlayStation Network; this is the first time this has happened in the last 6 years. As someone who has mixed views on the ports, I still enjoy them. I have said in previous writings that my dream is for these two games to receive full remasters, similar to the treatment that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare received. Every attempt the franchise has made to bring back the old has been objectively a monetary and P.R. success.
Obviously, bringing back the past can only last so long, regardless of their success. So what needs to change? For starters, I think Call of Duty has lost its identity. Today, the “Road to Success” is said to be about bringing in new players while keeping the old. While I don’t completely disagree, I think they have executed poorly. It’s not about expanding the player base to include every type of gamer; it’s about making a well-playing game. To put it more simply, I think Call of Duty has literally lost the plot.
It goes unmentioned, but the lackluster campaign has really stifled interest, in my opinion. World at War was a gritty, controversial depiction of the Second World War. The Japanese soldiers were aggressive. Swastikas were plastered on nearly every soldier and set piece during the Berlin invasion. As a player, for better or worse, you chose to execute captured soldiers or keep them prisoner. Modern Warfare 2 literally has you commit a mass terror event in a Russian airport as a CIA false flag. Black Ops and Black Ops 2 were thrillers centered on MK Ultra and Cold War events. While all of these examples show graphic depictions of violence, my argument is not to make the game brutal for brutality’s sake—from realistic depictions of historical tragedy to fictional revisionist history based on real events, the plots were bold, taboo, and really hooked you with the story. Black Ops dropped one of the most amazing plot points, suggesting that the main protagonist was the actual assassin of JFK. It used one of, if not the most, popular conspiracy theories to elevate the story. Even the zombies mode storyline uses conspiracy theories to elevate its backstory. There was a time when the writers focused on just writing and didn’t worry about which country or group of people would be offended. They took risks, and it paid off in a big way back then.
The Zombies storyline is underrated as well. Plot and story aside, the ports also showed that the legendary mode isn’t what it is today. Black Ops 3 was arguably the best zombie experience. It elevated the gameplay and concluded the main story spectacularly. However, revisiting the classics via the PS5 ports has shown, at least to me, that the classic goal of survival is what made it great. I forgot that the mystery box was actually a gamble and not a way to just get the next gun. You are only allowed two hits before you die; guns reload slowly and lose damage quickly, which makes perks and pack-a-punch crucial. The mode is just about making it to the next round, and while that sounds elementary, it does not hurt its replayability. It’s rugged and challenging. It’s lost today that making a third mode just for the sake of playing, not going after an objective, is still a success.
Which leads me to the main point of Call of Duty: its multiplayer experience. To which I say, less is more. Updated movement mechanics over the years have definitely made the games feel really smooth, and that, to me, isn’t part of the problem. The problems are map design and gunplay. I am not a map designer, so I won’t judge this too harshly. I can’t imagine how hard it is to make a map that is loved by all; however, I think other aspects of game development take effort away from this crucial point of replayability. That effort, I think, has been too focused on gunplay. It used to be that there were good guns and bad guns, but today, with new updates all the time, there is always a new meta. Developers confuse this constant change, keeping people coming back to build up new guns to stay competitive. This couldn’t be more wrong. It’s frustrating. To go from dominating the leaderboard to struggling just because you didn’t watch the “NEW META LOADOUT” video on YouTube is a catastrophe. My main point of proof for this is simple. When things were stable, and it was about getting better as a player, that’s when Call of Duty was at its player peaks. Do less of what you think needs to be done to keep things fresh and new, and keep the foundation perfect.
Unfortunately, I can’t put all the blame on the developers. As I stated in previous articles, the blame is on us, too. A big reason studios feel the need to change things like guns and gameplay is negative online posts. I’m gonna say this next part bluntly. Developers really need to try their best to ignore a lot of this negativity, because it’s usually coming from people who are just really bad at the game. They whine about not having things a certain way, and it’s usually because they don’t feel they are playing as well as they should. Some people are not strong runners, which is why they prefer to play hide-and-seek instead of tag. Today is about making a game everyone can play, and this is incorrect. Make the game you know will be played and let the whiners sit alone at home. We know this idea works because it has for over a decade, and if we go back to strong fundamentals, we can have a beloved franchise back on top of its game.