This year's Call of Duty reveal was as impossibly bombastic as any other. Submarines were perforated, skyscrapers pummelled, human beings shredded by bullets and shrapnel. Hyperbole has dribbled from every customer-facing orifice: Call of Duty is a "leap forward", the "gold standard" for next generation shooters - a game that will "raise the bar". Away from the glare of cameras, however, Activision has painted a more sedate picture of the title's prospects. "For Call of Duty, consistent with our past practices, we are planning for the mainline release in Q4 to be down versus 2012," Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg commented during an earnings call in February (via Polygon), a month or two pre-announcement. Echoing many a publisher in recent times, Hirshberg blamed this on the "on-going console transition". You can see the sense of this - current gen software sales are stagnating across the board as consumers weary of their dusty old Slims, research costs have peaked as the industry prepares for another hardware launch, and sales of next gen software will be constrained by sales of the machines themselves.
Still, I can't help feeling like there's more to Activision's guarded projections than end-of-cycle softness. Claims that Call of Duty is "dying", "dead" or in various advanced states of unconsciousness crop up every year, and aren't getting any less ridiculous, but the franchise does appear to have peaked - a Gamasutra study from December found that Black Ops 2 had failed to match either Modern Warfare 3 or Black Ops 1's US launch month sales on Xbox 360 and PS3. The series remains well ahead of its competition, but EA's Battlefield has gained ground, and the latter's traditional technological advantage should make more of an impact on Xbox One buyers hungry for production values worthy of their flashy new kit.
E3 gave us an unfortunate parallel: both Ghosts and Battlefield 4 feature collapsing skyscrapers, but DICE's take on the idea is player-driven and, what's more, a multiplayer map feature - a feat of programming Infinity Ward's own interactive map fixtures probably won't rival. Mindful of Activision's taste for negligible visual upgrades, fans have called Ghosts' "next gen" tech credentials into question. The game debuted as a true "next generation" shooter running on a "new", "next generation" engine, but developer Infinity Ward has conceded that "when we're talking about a new engine we're talking about upgrading significant systems within that engine".
All this is doubtless a source of some unease at Activision, and that's an anxiety I want to read into Ghosts' premise and tone. In terms of the broad strokes, at least, this isn't quite your usual Call of Duty: the game is set in the aftermath of a global catastrophe, with the United States stripped of its resources and vapid "superpower" branding. The game's leads are relics of the country's former military institutions, come together on a quest to protect what's left against unknown threats.
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This is hardly a novel elaboration of the usual "world in crisis" setup - lest we forget, Homefront's been here and bought the T-shirt - but it's rather telling in the circumstances. It's almost as though Infinity Ward has constructed a metaphor for Call of Duty's slowing momentum, an expression of tacit dread as regards a gaming generation in which Activision's juggernaut no longer - shock! - tops charts on the day of release. Call of Duty has always been the premiere North American videogaming project, a glorification of its nation's patchy record as an international peacekeeper. With Ghosts, Infinity Ward has thus posited both America and Call of Duty's lapse into irrelevance.
This anxiety has tactical usefulness for Activision: it pays into an attempt to establish emotional resonance prior games have lacked, in order to deter rivals the franchise can no longer hope to beat by way of sheer cinematic bombast. It's no accident, of course, that the title recalls Modern Warfare 2's perpetually masked Ghost, a fan favourite character cut down near the game's conclusion. The tone is that of a mourning project, in which soldiers don't "stand against" enemies but "haunt" them.
Another way of looking at the choice of premise - the one publicly endorsed by Activision - is that it "sets the stage" for a franchise rewrite. One of the more depressing things about modern videogames is that post-apocalyptic settings are the ultimate empowerment fantasies, opportunities for a player to impose his will on a shattered society. Eric Hirshberg's recent comments to IGN about Ghosts pong strongly of this fatalistic drive.
"We've changed to a world where America is not the dominant force, but an underdog," he said. "That opened up new visual opportunities. It opened up new gameplay opportunities. We're shaking things up. Multiplayer is going to have new ideas. Dynamic maps are something we're doing. Character customization is something we're doing." The equation of America's fall with new possibilities is quietly sinister: it suggests that the best way to make the world your oyster is to burn the world to the ground.
If that's the idea, the distinction seems only to exist at the level of rhetoric for the moment. What we've seen of Ghosts' single player in motion is classic Call of Duty to the bone - you follow an AI helpmate down variously styled corridors blasting things to bits when you're told to. So much of this undeniably attractive game seems designed to be either ignored or trampled as players stampede from A to B, and after Black Ops 2's in-game technological excesses, talk of fancy new gadgets falls on deadened ears. All that's without mentioning Riley the Dog, perhaps the most dispiriting addition of all. It's saying something about a developer's social priorities when its first, bold step beyond the white Anglo-Saxon male viewpoint is a playable Alsatian.
The multiplayer should redeem the campaign, as it usually does, but it'll have to work harder than ever - particularly in the context of shooters like Titanfall and Destiny, which attempt to blur online and story modes into an organic, bewitching whole. I had a rather large go at Call of Duty's "rollercoaster" design principles in 2011. Most of those concerns still apply, and while Infinity Ward's move to post-apocalyptic times is an intriguing show of self-awareness, I doubt Ghosts will put any of them to rest.
Source: OXM[SUP][1][/SUP]
[h=3]References[/h]
Thanks to: Rheena.com
Still, I can't help feeling like there's more to Activision's guarded projections than end-of-cycle softness. Claims that Call of Duty is "dying", "dead" or in various advanced states of unconsciousness crop up every year, and aren't getting any less ridiculous, but the franchise does appear to have peaked - a Gamasutra study from December found that Black Ops 2 had failed to match either Modern Warfare 3 or Black Ops 1's US launch month sales on Xbox 360 and PS3. The series remains well ahead of its competition, but EA's Battlefield has gained ground, and the latter's traditional technological advantage should make more of an impact on Xbox One buyers hungry for production values worthy of their flashy new kit.
E3 gave us an unfortunate parallel: both Ghosts and Battlefield 4 feature collapsing skyscrapers, but DICE's take on the idea is player-driven and, what's more, a multiplayer map feature - a feat of programming Infinity Ward's own interactive map fixtures probably won't rival. Mindful of Activision's taste for negligible visual upgrades, fans have called Ghosts' "next gen" tech credentials into question. The game debuted as a true "next generation" shooter running on a "new", "next generation" engine, but developer Infinity Ward has conceded that "when we're talking about a new engine we're talking about upgrading significant systems within that engine".
All this is doubtless a source of some unease at Activision, and that's an anxiety I want to read into Ghosts' premise and tone. In terms of the broad strokes, at least, this isn't quite your usual Call of Duty: the game is set in the aftermath of a global catastrophe, with the United States stripped of its resources and vapid "superpower" branding. The game's leads are relics of the country's former military institutions, come together on a quest to protect what's left against unknown threats.
[embedded content]
This is hardly a novel elaboration of the usual "world in crisis" setup - lest we forget, Homefront's been here and bought the T-shirt - but it's rather telling in the circumstances. It's almost as though Infinity Ward has constructed a metaphor for Call of Duty's slowing momentum, an expression of tacit dread as regards a gaming generation in which Activision's juggernaut no longer - shock! - tops charts on the day of release. Call of Duty has always been the premiere North American videogaming project, a glorification of its nation's patchy record as an international peacekeeper. With Ghosts, Infinity Ward has thus posited both America and Call of Duty's lapse into irrelevance.
This anxiety has tactical usefulness for Activision: it pays into an attempt to establish emotional resonance prior games have lacked, in order to deter rivals the franchise can no longer hope to beat by way of sheer cinematic bombast. It's no accident, of course, that the title recalls Modern Warfare 2's perpetually masked Ghost, a fan favourite character cut down near the game's conclusion. The tone is that of a mourning project, in which soldiers don't "stand against" enemies but "haunt" them.
Another way of looking at the choice of premise - the one publicly endorsed by Activision - is that it "sets the stage" for a franchise rewrite. One of the more depressing things about modern videogames is that post-apocalyptic settings are the ultimate empowerment fantasies, opportunities for a player to impose his will on a shattered society. Eric Hirshberg's recent comments to IGN about Ghosts pong strongly of this fatalistic drive.
"We've changed to a world where America is not the dominant force, but an underdog," he said. "That opened up new visual opportunities. It opened up new gameplay opportunities. We're shaking things up. Multiplayer is going to have new ideas. Dynamic maps are something we're doing. Character customization is something we're doing." The equation of America's fall with new possibilities is quietly sinister: it suggests that the best way to make the world your oyster is to burn the world to the ground.
If that's the idea, the distinction seems only to exist at the level of rhetoric for the moment. What we've seen of Ghosts' single player in motion is classic Call of Duty to the bone - you follow an AI helpmate down variously styled corridors blasting things to bits when you're told to. So much of this undeniably attractive game seems designed to be either ignored or trampled as players stampede from A to B, and after Black Ops 2's in-game technological excesses, talk of fancy new gadgets falls on deadened ears. All that's without mentioning Riley the Dog, perhaps the most dispiriting addition of all. It's saying something about a developer's social priorities when its first, bold step beyond the white Anglo-Saxon male viewpoint is a playable Alsatian.
The multiplayer should redeem the campaign, as it usually does, but it'll have to work harder than ever - particularly in the context of shooters like Titanfall and Destiny, which attempt to blur online and story modes into an organic, bewitching whole. I had a rather large go at Call of Duty's "rollercoaster" design principles in 2011. Most of those concerns still apply, and while Infinity Ward's move to post-apocalyptic times is an intriguing show of self-awareness, I doubt Ghosts will put any of them to rest.
Source: OXM[SUP][1][/SUP]
[h=3]References[/h]
- [SUP]^[/SUP] Source: OXM (www.oxm.co.uk)
Thanks to: Rheena.com