There is a lot of speculation going on about the next Call of Duty going to the future. We’ve been in the future for a while now. This theme started with Modern Warfare 3, continued with Black Ops 2, then continued with Call of Duty Ghosts, except that with Ghosts we went a bit backwards. Advanced Warfare was tasked with creating their own sub-series, it picked up where Black Ops 2 left off with the futuristic theme, and tried to bring about their own innovations such as being able to jump into the air with exo-suits. Black Ops 3 followed suit with both the futuristic setting, and the thrust jumps. The last 2 months has been a little hectic for Call of Duty fans, there were unconfirmed leaks by not-very-well-known leakers, and confirmed leaks by well-known leakers.
The first leak was that Call of Duty would go back to infantry warfare with Call of Duty: Bloodline(s), and was going to center around a team of infantry “brothers.” The title was going to be released for a new Nintendo console codenamed “NX.” Since then, the leak went quiet, into the background.
The next leak was, and universally “understood” that the next title was going to be Call of Duty: Ghosts 2, since there was a story cliffhanger at the end of Call of Duty: Ghosts. But, there were not many leaks of Ghosts 2 thereafter that, it just went into the background again. Mostly because it’s being met with silent “hms” by Call of Duty fans. Call of Duty: Ghosts didn’t sell well, and fans weren’t reacting well to it. Critics gave it a huge backlash for not being ambitious, not being innovative enough, not being bold in direction, and so on. Universally, the game stayed stuck into the “same ol’ Call of Duty.” I’ll get back into this subject later in this article.
Now, we’re getting very close to the end of March, and the beginning of April. Keep in mind, that between April, and May is where the real leaks, the real news of the next Call of Duty start to take shape. We’ll know news about the next title in the Call of Duty franchise rather soon. The main story we’re hearing as of right now is that Call of Duty is going into space.
This leak is growing bigger and bigger as we go along. Call of Duty: Space Warfare has received multiple leaks shortly after the initial reveal of “Space Warfare.” The story we’re hearing now is:
– The game takes place in the far future. Further than Black Ops 3.
– The whole game is “space themed.”
– Multiplayer maps will take place in space stations, living bases on Mars, and the moon. (And this is actually not far fetched since Black Ops explored the “moon” with Zombies, and Ghosts went to space at one point.)
– Each map will have different gameplay, since each map has different types of gravity. (The moon for example may allow you to jump 6 times higher than the gravity on Mars or Earth, or another planet.)
– Some maps will allow you to explore Space Ships – whether they are inside space ships, around it, outside it, etc.
– Classic weapons will return, but will have futuristic weapons thrown into the mix. Kind of like how Advanced Warfare was a mixture of futuristic weapons, and modified versions of weapons we already know.
– Maps will be interactive, the leaker said to look at the space station in Ghosts as an example. (Ghosts’ maps were already interactive with the moving items on the maps.)
– Maps will be larger, and more open according to the leaker.
– Supply Drops will return, but the leaker says that there is talk about calling them either Supply Drops or Battle Pods (to go with the space theme.)
– Movement is similar to Black Ops 3 than Advanced warfare. (So expect suits similar to exo’s and/or boosters.)
– There is talk of releasing Call of Duty Online worldwide, and/or releasing COD4: Modern Warfare and COD: Modern Warfare 2 as backward compatible for Xbox One. (What about PlayStation fans, Activision!?)
– Call of Duty 2016 will be released only for Current Gen consoles (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC) according to the leaker.
Likewise, all of these leaks has inspired reaction videos from the Call of Duty community as of late. For example, an eSports team by the name of Optic Gaming, released a video reacting to these Call of Duty: Space Warfare leaks. I’ll let you watch the video in it’s entirety so we can get to the nitty gritty opinions.
T’was released on NadeShot’s youtube, but team made their own reactions to Call of Duty: Space Warfare, and then they delved deeper into Call of Duty’s flaws. They even brought up Call of Duty: Ghosts. I’ll talk about them below the line.
I am completely fine with Call of Duty going into the future. I am also completely fine with Call of Duty going into space. Black Ops 2 was the best Call of Duty title in my opinion – since Modern Warfare 2. Space-themed games are on fire right now. No Man’s Sky is being released in 2 months, the reboot of Doom is being released in 2 months, and likewise with VR being hot as it is now, we’re seeing a rise of Space Shooters. So, it’s not at all surprising that Call of Duty: Space Warfare is the next title in the Call of Duty franchise if the leaks are anything to go by. Wrap your heads around the fact that we’re going to see more Sci-Fi, futuristic, space-themed games being released.
Black Ops 2 was in the future, and I am not going to lie to you: The game is good, despite the futuristic setting. Black Ops 3 was good, but the thrust jumps are just getting annoying. There are people who jump for no reason at all in Black Ops 3, especially inside corridors, inside buildings, and other trollish ways to piss off the players. The optic team brings up a few interesting points: Boost Jumps/Thrust Jumps are just “another thing to worry about.” It’s even worse for Snipers. When snipers try to pick off enemies from across the map, they have to worry about someone coming out the left field because they’re likely to be killed by jumpers.
There are a lot of reasons why Call of Duty: Ghosts got the flack by the Call of Duty community, and I’ll leave you to your own opinions why the game sucked. In my opinion, I thought Ghosts was quite fine. The game reminds you of COD4, or more likely MW2. My biggest problems with Ghosts was that it was too easy to exploit the game’s various glitches, various exploits, various gameplay imbalances, various spawn troubles. In fact, despite the fact that Ghosts had larger maps, more open spaces, the game inherited much of the spawn trapping that started in Modern Warfare 3. Black Ops 3 inherited that, too.
Since Modern Warfare 3, we’ve seen a growing pain of lag problems, which Ghosts and Black Ops 3 has tried to fix with the Call of Duty servers. Ghosts started the whole hybrid servers, and Activision says that Black Ops 3 has dedicated servers, but some servers don’t have the 100% uptime, and more horsepower to handle 6 vs 6 players, 12 vs 12 players or the maximum amount of players. Both PlayStation and Xbox One players are facing this problem every day on Black Ops 3. Which in this day and age, is inexcusable for Activision. There are games that can handle double that number, like Battlefield 4 on consoles. People who intentionally lag from across the world aren’t helping this, either. I’ve been in a few matches where lag would make people disappear and skip in front of you. Yeah, cheating exists in Black Ops 3, you just need to pay attention to the small details.
(And no, I’m not complaining about lag for no reason at all for those of you with those “your internet sucks!” Actually, I have good internet. Thank you very much.)
Advanced Warfare received a mixed bag of feedback from fans of Call of Duty. Activision, and its investors were panicking about Advanced Warfare’s sales. I found this to be a bit worrying because it sounds like they’re not confident in the Call of Duty brand, and likewise fans think that the futuristic theme of Call of Duty is destroying the franchise. Actually, quite on the contrary, if you saw the video by NadeShot – this is far from the truth. The Optic team said that the problem does not stem from the period in which Call of Duty takes place in. It does not matter where the series takes place in, what matters is keeping the series – where it originally was – on the ground. Yes, infantry warfare.
Black Ops 2 was the perfect balance between taking place in the future, and keeping more of the infantry warfare. And that’s just where everyone wants to keep Call of Duty if they’re to continue using realistic[-like] weapons.
