Once the most famous first person shooter franchise, Call of Duty, has always been a legendary game which almost guaranteed to get most gamers to spend their hard earned cash every year.
With the most popular editions, namely Black Ops 1 (2010) and the original Modern Warfare 3 (2011), each selling over 30 million copies each, the franchise was seen to have a monopolistic type hold on the FPS genre, but this no longer exists. The numbers of the most recent release in the franchise, Modern Warfare 3 (2023) are not extremely transparent, but it has been heavily reported that the sales of copies are 25% down from last year’s edition, whose numbers are equally lacking in transparency, although, the new game was still the second best selling game of the year in the US.
Much can be said about CoD, but it cannot be denied how much of an impact the franchise has had on esports and gaming in general. Releases like Modern Warfare 2 (2009) and Black Ops 2 (2012), are looked upon by the community like the crown jewels of the franchise, but many players struggle to see the new games with the same optimism and joy. Maybe its’s not something the developers can fix, maybe it is a time, and games, that are looked back on extremely fondly by most of the community, with the help of rose-tinted glasses and nostalgia.
From 2009-2015, it seemed Call of Duty had the Midas touch.
Most would say the decline begun after the peak of Black Ops 2, which for me, is the game where I had the most fun, ever. To match a game, in my eyes so perfect, would always be a struggle, but they showed it was possible previously by crafting Black Ops 1 on the back of Modern Warfare 2 in 2010.
Soon enough, the developers introduced jetpacks, which was a seismic shift in the game, and the gameplay, because of the way the movement could be utilised. The new style of games being released were met with widespread criticism and worrying sales, with Infinite Warfare reaching under half the sales of the game released the year before, Black Ops 3. Although the lack of zombies in infinite warfare could be seen to have had an effect, as zombies is an extremely popular game mode added usually only to the Treyarch releases of CoD.
Colourful executions are often a step too far away from the game.
The developers of CoD, did attempt to adapt and evolve their game with the times, although it seems that has been unsuccessful. They tried too much to copy other game styles than developing and modernising their own style. Personally, I think the dark and mellow tones of call of duty should not be met with the bright animated colours of games like Valorant and Overwatch.
Another thing that had an impact for me, was ranked play and esports. Ranked Play is what started my obsession with the franchise back in 2013, and kept me hooked after that, but it began to get neglected. Now, the ranked play game mode is rarely available upon release, with the last game receiving access to it months after.
Ranked Play Is such a critical game mode in the franchise, which allows players to focus and grind in order to get better and achieve higher ranks, which did for some reason, feel a lot more fulfilling than “pubstomping” – playing in public matches.
Games like Counter Strike and Valorant are known for their ranked and competitive scenes, with e-sports integration being a vital tool that the game uses, to hook players in to the esports scene. CS even allows players to watch pro games on the main menu of their game, whilst in with the chance of receiving rewards. This integration can only help the scene develop, but CoD have made no attempt to capitalise on this opportunity, instead, it does the opposite, and neglects the professional side of the game.
Players can watch Vitality vs Cloud 9, or any live game on the main menu of Counter-Strike 2.
Another thing that certainly warrants a side note, is Warzone. The extremely popular battle royale game is probably the only thing that is keeping the franchise moving at the minute. For context, at the point of writing this, CoD MWIII currently has 16,00 viewers on twitch, whereas Warzone has 62,000 viewers. Warzone certainly helped CoD bring in new players that might not have played the franchise, but the question is can they bring them over to the main game? Or will Warzone overtake the main game as priority for the developers?
In order for CoD to fight against other FPS’ like Valorant and CS2, they must evolve.
A new title would help, Black Ops and MW have been squeezed to their pulp, so the developers must bring a new, fresh game which will bring old players back, but keep new players happy, it also must prioritise competitiveness but encourage casual play and finally, and most importantly, it must stick to the core of its own game, and not borrow to much from others.
Easy, I’m sure Activision have a folder full of ideas.
