In this essay, I am going to be talking about the game franchise ‘Call of Duty’. I will be talking about who the game is made by and how it is reviewed by other gamers and critics along with my own personal opinion. I will be discussing if the game has been a success over the years and if there are plans for more games like this in the future.
The franchise ‘Call of Duty’ is published by Activision who give the game rights to three major companies, these are Infinity ward (since 2003), Treyarch (since 2005) and Sledgehammer games (since 2011). The series was first popularised on October 29th, 2003 when Activision collaborated with Infinity Ward to produce ‘Call of Duty’. Treyarch who are developers for the game created their first in the series with ‘Call of Duty 3’, which is another World War 2 first -person shooter in the Call of Duty franchise. In 2011 Sledgehammer Games worked alongside Infinity Ward to produce the 24 pieces of DLC for ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ over a nine month period, but then in 2014 they worked solo to create a very controversial ‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’. Activision and Sledgehammer games have agreed on a three-year deal for sledgehammer games to produce a game in 2017. There are rumours that Sledgehammer games will produce a hyperrealism game based in Vietnam and set to be released in the November of 2017.
Activision (who published all 13 of the ‘Call of Duty games’ are a worldwide company and in 2008 they merged with Vivendi Games who owned Blizzard) founded in 1979 and now own 38 studios worldwide and as of 2014 have a total revenue of US$ 14.75 billion and have over 4000 employees.
Infinity Ward whose parent company is Activision were found more recently, only 14 years go in May 2002 and have created 8 on the 13 of the Call of duty games. The games received a lot of praise for multiple of their games, for example, games like ‘Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’ has just been re-mastered for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 1 because of many fans requesting it but they only released it with the newest addition to the game series and not on its own.
Treyarch (whose parent is once again Activision) were the second company to get involved with the Call of Duty franchise and joined them in 2005 and are still creating Call of Duty games. They have founded 20 years ago and have created some of the biggest and most selling Call of Duty games ever created, they developed all three of the ‘Black ops’ series as well as ‘Call of Duty: World at War’ and the reviews for these games have mostly been some very good responses.
Call of Duty is a first-person shooter and has been since the first game was released and remained that way over all 13 of the games. The series uses multiple engines to create the games, the id Tech 3, Treyarch NGL and IW engine which is developed specifically for the Call of Duty series and developed by Infinity Ward, Treyarch and Sledgehammer games who collectively created the engine. The game is played by both console and PC players alike; the game is known worldwide. The games are split into different segments and certain companies make different stories. In the beginning, all of Call of Duty, 2 and 3 were based on World War 2, Infinity Ward created the first two and Treyarch stepped in to create the third. The Black ops story arc were created by Treyarch and the four instalments within the Modern Warfare story arc are all developed by Infinity Ward.
The Call of Duty series is on all major platforms but originated on Microsoft Windows and OS X when Call of duty was released but when the 7th generation consoles came on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and it was also released on the N-Gage. The only Call of Duty to not be released Windows was ‘Call of Duty 3’ but that was released to the PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, it was later released to the Xbox one as a backwards compatible disc.
With the most recent addition ‘Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’, it was only released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox one, this has been the focus when developing more recent games, the publishing team focus on allowing the games to be played on 8th generation consoles rather than a wider selection of them. This could be a problem for some gamers. Before infinite Warfare was released, the most recent Call of Duty game was released to both 7th and 8th generation consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) which mean more players could play the game, but if they decide to only release the game on newer models then gamers will have to buy 8th gen models which a lot of people might not want to, therefore, they may be losing out on money.
There are many first person shooter games that follow in the footsteps of Call of Duty, arguably most popular of these is the Battlefield series. If you compare the most recent addition in the two series, Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1, They are both stunning visually with DICE once again delivering another game with amazing graphics but not far in front of Infinity Wards galactic masterpiece. On the case of game play, Infinite Warfare uses its usual faced paced game play that has been tried over the many years of the games. They have added features such as grappling hooks that allow you to quickly move through open spaces. Battlefield one on the other hand is a complete opposite and takes place in World War 1 and gives us features like Tanks, Planes and a host of classes such as 'Scout', 'Support' and 'Medic' and fan favourite modes such as Rush and Conquest
Infinite Warfare offers a cheaper price on Amazon but this could be due to when it was released also the expected sales for Infinite Warfare weren't as good as the previous Call of Duty games.
With the ‘Call of Duty’ Franchise and because there are multiple developers for the game, different companies will bring out different story arcs (as mentioned before). This is a good move by Activision to get these companies to do this as it avoids confusion and if the game that comes out isn’t as good as promised then not all the companies involved will have the backlash from the audience. And now with Sledgehammer games bringing out Advanced Warfare, despite having a 9.1/10 had a bad review from a lot of gamers.
World War 2 story arc –
The first three games published by Activision were ‘Call of Duty’, ‘Call of Duty 2’ and ‘Call of Duty 3’. One and two were developed by Infinity Ward and the third was created by Treyarch and is the only story arc where both Infinity ward and Treyarch work alongside each other. The first Call of Duty was brought to us in 2003 and primarily focus’ on American Paratroopers, British Paratroopers and Red army in 1942. The campaign is split into four sections, the U.S, British, Soviet and Allied, altogether it contains only about 14 missions, then Call of Duty 2 comes around in 2005 and similarly focus on the American army, British Army and Red army as they overcome the hardships of war. The soviet campaign lets us take control of Private Vasili Koslov of the 13th Guards Rifle Division in his defence of Moscow. The British campaign focuses on Sergeant John Davis of the 7th Armoured Division that based in North Africa, the division is led by Captain Price who plays a major role. Lastly, the American campaign is based on the fictional Corporal Bill Taylor of the 2nd Ranger Battalion and starts this section of the campaign in the middle of D-Day. the ending is a rescue attempt of captain price who had previously been captured by the Germans. The Third attachment to the series was set up after the Normandy breakout in which the British, Canadian, polish, American and French resistance move into the village of Chambois in France. In this addition to the series, the player can arm bombs, fighting off a melee ambush as well as this, some missions have multiple choices in routes, overall the game has about 25 missions to complete.
Modern Warfare story arc -
The entire of the 'Modern Warfare' is developed by only by Infinity Ward except for number 3 where sledgehammer games helped with the DLC.
The first in the series, 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare' lets you take on the role of multiple characters during the campaign. Despite having multiple characters the plot that occurs is simultaneous and the story overplays meaning as the player's perspective changes you carry on the same story. During the campaign, we are introduced as Sergeant John MacTavish who is known as Soap and his induction into the SAS who then meets Captain Price and Gaz. The three then set out to rescue a Russian informant who goes by the name Nikolai, take out Al-Asad and then attempt to take over a launch facility that was previously captured by the Ultranationalists.
'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2' is then released two years later. The story acts as a sequel to the story in Modern Warfare but is set five years later. This instalment introduces us to General Shepherd who recruits Private First Class Joseph Allen into Task Force 141. In the end of the game (SPOILER) it turns out that Shepherd has betrayed them, Price and Soap attempt to catch him, Soap is then stabbed and Price issues a fist fight with Shepherd. Soap then pulls the knife from his chest and throws it at Shepherd and kills him. Nikolai then picks the duo up in a helicopter as they leave the scene.
The last on the list for the Modern Warfare story arc is 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3'. Once again it follows the previous two story lines and begins just after Shepherd's death with Price, Soap and Nikolai all heading to a safe house. We are also introduced to a four-man team code-named Metal who meet up with Price to attempt to take out Makarov but Soap is gravely injured in the process. The story ends with Price and Makarov engaging in a fight and Makarov being hung by a steel cable around his neck.
Black Ops story arc-
The Black Ops storyline is a developed by Treyarch and there are three instalments to it.
The first to come out was 'Call of Duty: Black ops' in 2010. It takes place amid the Cold War and familiarises us with SAD Operative Alex Mason who in 1961 along with Woods and Bowman attempt top assassinate Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In the story, we find out there are sleeper cells ready to release Nova-6 gas and Mason is the only person that knows where the broadcast station is, he eventually figures it out and attempt to take out Dragovich in which they succeed.
The ninth instalment in the franchise and the successor to Black ops is 'Call of Duty: Black ops 2'. The story is split into two arcs, one in the 1980's and the other is in 2025. During the 2025 campaign, military technology has been taken over by terrorist Raul Menendez, urging the US military to take back control.
The last story in the Black Ops story arc is 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 3' is set in 2065 and is set in a future where new soldiers are created, the line between humanity and technological breakthrough is very thin.
There are four other games with major stories behind them, Ghosts', 'Advanced Warfare', ' World at War' and 'Infinite Warfare'. Advanced Warfare is the first game in the series that is developed by Sledgehammer games with help from Raven Software and High Moon Studios. Also 'World at War' has been shrouded in controversy because during the course of the game you have to shoot and kill multiple attack dogs. This addition to the game has caused an uproar from animal lovers as they say Activision Blizzard "would take abusing dogs for entertainment purpose more seriously". Another mission that caused mass hysteria is the 'No Russian' mission in the Modern Warfare 2 game, in which you must gun down an airport full of civilians whilst accompanying terrorist Vladimir Makarov.
The worldwide known game has received a lot of praise over the course of 13 years but also a lot of negative reviews. The Call of Duty series has had an average rating of 9.0 from IGN. The best of these was 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2' which received an IGN review of 9.5/10, they said "For those planning to check out everything Modern Warfare 2 has to offer - online competition, full co-op Spec Ops mode, as well as the campaign - you're looking at a no-brainer purchase". Other critics gave it a 10/10 like GamesRadar who said it is a "must-buy first-person shooter" back in 2009.
The worst ranked game in the Call of Duty franchise according to IGN is the newest entry to the series and developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. IGN gave it a rating of 7.7/10 which is terrible in comparison to the other games ratings. It received a lot of its criticism for being too futuristic. but Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg acknowledges that many fans enjoy the "boots-on-the-ground-style gameplay" but said, " we also have millions of people in our community who want to have new innovative experiences in the game each year and Infinite Warfare is going to deliver that". There are other reviews that say the game is a 9/10 like VideoGamer.com who said, "infinite Warfare's multiplayer may lack new ideas, but it's still first-rate, and its stunning sci-fi campaign is Call of Duty's best in years."
In my opinion, I believe the Call of Duty series is amazing but I am not a big fan of the most recent more futuristic games with all the jumping and flying. To me, the visuals for the game are second to none and have been for years. The series will more than likely carry on for years to come and hopefully, they listen to millions of fans and bring back the older versions of the game which they have half done with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare being remastered. The series should carry on into the future and all the companies involved should take the game however they see fit. Overall I would rate the franchise a 9.5/10.
