After the largely excellent release of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot, the last two entries haven’t received quite the same degree of success. Criticisms of the lack of content plagued Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer experience, and tangentially the integration of Black Ops Cold War’s weapons into Warzone caused controversy as well. Vanguard sought to remedy this with a greater collection of maps and more subtle changes to the multiplayer foundation, but otherwise didn’t make any fundamental changes with its WW2 setting beyond Modern Warfare’s gameplay foundation. Both Vanguard and Cold War emphasize that Call of Duty needs more development time.
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Call of Duty Isn’t Failing, But It Is Declining
To clarify, Call of Duty: Vanguard and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War aren’t inherently or objectively “bad” entries in the franchise, both critic reviews and user reviews will emphasize that. Hardcore fans will have their gripes with the franchise’s iteration over time, whether that’s the differences in development engines and mechanics, or the overall game balance in multiplayer. However, beyond the preferences of Call of Duty players, there’s been a recurring sentiment that Call of Duty hasn’t made enough innovation between entries to justify the amount of new games the franchise has received in as short of a time.
Sales numbers bumped with Modern Warfare’s positive reception, and were maintained with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s release, but the reception of the fifth Black Ops game was not as positive in comparison. Call of Duty: Vanguard has received similar criticisms to Black Ops Cold War, and as a result, has had marginally less sales compared to Black Ops Cold War, even if it’s still a multi-million dollar franchise. Call of Duty is definitely not failing by any stretch, but compared to past efforts, it’s a pretty swift decline paired with other problems plaguing Call of Duty games currently, like cheaters, bugs/glitches, all culminating in the game’s mixed reception.
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Call of Duty Needs ‘Revitalization’ Beyond Annual Releases
In a vacuum, this doesn’t spell any kind of disaster or downfall for the Call of Duty franchise, but it does lend credence towards a growing dissatisfaction with the annualized nature of Call of Duty’s release schedule. Similar evidence and arguments were weighed against games like Far Cry 6, which saw similar criticisms of iteration instead of innovation. Even with Far Cry, which has a distinctly narrative-focused gameplay loop empowered by charismatic villains, has an air of familiarity that many fans believe has made the franchise stale. Call of Duty focusing on short-term content to tide players over until the next annual franchise entry may not be enough anymore.
Infinity Ward’s former content strategist, Robert Bowling, summed up this sentiment in response to a tweet criticizing the status of the Call of Duty franchise currently: “We need more than iteration, we need revitalization.” Bowling, who now works at the new Midnight Society development studio founded by Dr. Direspect, had previously worked on the Call of Duty franchise from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2006) to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011). Bowling worked on some of the greatest Call of Duty games of all time, many of which contributed to the series’ meteoric rise in popularity, and yet Bowling was still quick to criticize the current state of the franchise.
Call of Duty should move away from its annual release schedule if it’s going to make any kind of significant overhaul or reinvigoration of the series. As Black Ops Cold War’s development will show, factors both interior (cut content, development crunch) and exterior (the pandemic, the ongoing Activision-Blizzard controversies) have contributed to the stagnation of the series. Under the assumption that a new Call of Duty game is on the way this year, the reception of 2022’s annual release should help determine how Call of Duty will fare moving forward. That being said, another iterative effort likely won’t move the needle for any of the potentially jaded fans of Call of Duty.
Call of Duty: Vanguard is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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