Dear Activision, a letter from the fans on how to fix Call of Duty

Dear Activision,

In 2005, my older brother brought home a game and put it into our PlayStation 2. He has never been the biggest gamer, so I was quite curious as to what new game he bought. After the iconic PlayStation 2 boot up screen, your logo popped up alongside Treyarch’s. What followed forever changed my life. A cinematic played showing explosive, epic battles taking place across the world during World War 2. I was blown away by the incredible action and was immersed in this game with just a minute long cinematic. The words “Call of Duty 2: Big Red One” then faded onto the screen and I sat in silence for several hours watching my brother play the game. I fell in love with the Call of Duty series, not only for its ability to tell fantastic stories with incredible action set pieces but also its epic gameplay.

I have played every single Call of Duty game. The main entries, the Nintendo DS games, the PS2 and PSP spin-off games like Call of Duty: World At War – Final Fronts and even the Wii ports of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, World at War, and Black Ops. I’ve completed seven Call of Duty games on Veteran difficulty (some multiple times, on multiple platforms), and I’ve prestiged probably hundreds of times in multiplayer. I’m a dedicated fan of the series and I have bought every single main entry in the series on release day since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007. I’m writing this public letter to you to tell you that I love this series and I’m very concerned for its future.

Since 2012, the series has been going down a very different path with some good choices and some bad choices being made, but mostly bad choices. In 2012, we got Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 which is one of the best selling games of all times. The game featured one of the best multiplayer modes in the series as well mixing the future with the present. Although the game was set over a decade in future and featured a lot of crazy technology, the game still felt grounded in reality. The more recent Call of Duty games don’t. Black Ops 2 was the last Call of Duty game in my eyes.

These last three years have given us Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3, and Infinite Warfare with each one progressing further and further into the future. I like all of these games for what they are, but they aren’t the Call of Duty games I fell in love with over a decade ago. You can see glimmers of that Call of Duty in some of these games, but that almost makes it even more painful. It’s like being starved and then being fed a single Cheerio. It just makes you crave more, you get angry that you can’t have more of it! It’s not enough to tame your hunger.

The series is going down a very dark path at the moment and as a fan, I’m really concerned. I’m going to tell you what I think will happen if the series continues to spiral out of control and what some of your mistakes are. I’ve also come up with a couple solutions and ideas so it doesn’t sound like I am just whining without providing any helpful feedback.

The sales will continue to decline

Fans are pretty fed up with the future, they’re sick of it. People were turned off to the idea when the series went super futuristic in Advanced Warfare by introducing exo-suits, but still gave it the benefit of the doubt. Over the years, people have grown tired of the same stuff and it’s showing in the sales. Sure, you can maybe attribute some of that to releasing next to Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 but maybe players wouldn’t have shifted towards those games if Infinity Ward had wound back the clock to another period in time like Vietnam or even present day by making a new Modern Warfare title.

Part of the reason I think the game is selling as well as it actually is might be because people want to revisit Modern Warfare, and you know that. It was a smart business move to bundle that in with Infinite Warfare but eventually you’re going to run out of good games to remaster and the sales will drop significantly.

The reveal trailer for Infinite Warfare also saw a record number of dislikes on YouTube, ranking it as the second worst YouTube video ever made. If that doesn’t show how unhappy your fans are right now, I don’t know what does.

Numerous studios all working on very similar games

You have 3 studios all working on the same type of game. The question is, why? When it was revealed that Sledgehammer Games would be added into the development cycle, I think many assumed this meant we would get more variety from each game, but it has actually been the exact opposite. There has been very little variety between titles, if you set some of these games side by side, you would barely be able to tell the games apart.

We all heard the rumors that Sledgehammer was working on a third-person Vietnam Call of Duty but then they ended up releasing Advanced Warfare. That’s not a jab at Advanced Warfare, but it made a lot of fans question what the hell happened to that Vietnam game? There was also a leak from earlier this year that showed a Roman army Call of Duty that was scrapped many years ago. While it was a BIG shift away from what we’re used to, it still would’ve been interesting to see.

On top of that, Infinity Ward released Infinite Warfare which was the second game to have a full three years in development and it still turned out to be almost identical to last year’s Black Ops 3. The HUD in multiplayer is the exact same, some of the animations are the same, the mechanics are the same, and much more. How does a game with three years of development end up becoming a clone of Black Ops 3? It felt like a big “Screw you!” to the fans, almost like you thought we would be too stupid to notice the very apparent similarities.

My solution to the whole “Call of Duty fatigue” and saturation problem is to have each studio work on something completely different. One sticks with the futuristic warfare, another does games set in present day, and the other one does stuff set in the past (not just World War 2 or Vietnam, could go as far back as they want). You could even throw in Raven as one of the primary studios to give the developers 4-year development cycles. Raven could make remasters or experimental Call of Duty games like a standalone zombies game.

Bigger isn’t always better

A large majority of fans agree that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the best games in the series. The game has both a rich campaign and an intense, yet simple multiplayer mode. The game was so simple, it felt really weird revisiting it earlier this month in the remaster. It felt like it was lacking something, but in reality, it’s what I’ve been wanting for many years. You have a gun, a couple grenades, and a couple of perks that can add some ammo or help slightly improve your accuracy or damage. Everyone is equipped with the same set of killstreaks and it feels balanced. Something I haven’t felt in a Call of Duty game in years. Nothing is wildly overpowered, it all feels right.

Call of Duty has been trying to go bigger and bigger with each game and it’s getting really out of control. People can get overpowered weapon variants with real money or pure luck causing a lack of balance, the movement system has changed into something that’s not Call of Duty, and the series has evolved into sci-fi games rather than war games. It’s more like Halo than it is Call of Duty, and that’s not a diss towards Halo, it’s just that Call of Duty has evolved into what was previously its biggest competitor.

I thought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops 2 both really balanced the simplicity while still taking it to the next step, and I would really like to see a return to that general concept. As I previously suggested, giving studios their own type of Call of Duty game will help them flesh out their own ideas. It’ll prevent saturation because there won’t be multiple studios working off the same template every year.

Give the series a rest.

The final and most important thing that needs to happen to Call of Duty is to let it catch its breath. I know this probably won’t happen, but in an ideal world where everything I want happens, this would be the first thing I would make happen.

A year or two without Call of Duty could be what the series needs to be seen in a good light again. Many people, including the series’ biggest supporters like some massive YouTubers who make Call of Duty videos exclusively, are really down on Call of Duty at the moment. We’ve given you the benefit of the doubt too many times and have received lackluster games. Activision, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer, and Treyarch, all need to take the time to reevaluate the series and plan out where to go from here.

Ubisoft recently did this with Assassin’s Creed to improve the series, and I think Call of Duty could do the same. Not only would it probably increase sales when the series returns from curious fans and people craving for a new Call of Duty, but we would more than likely see an increase in quality.

I really hope if someone from Activision is reading this, they’ll at least consider some of these suggestions. I’m not only writing this for myself but for the fans who share my concerns. If you’re a fan reading this and have other suggestions, leave them in the comments below. Please feel free to share this article as well to get this message spread around. I have dozens of other ideas for the future of Call of Duty floating around in my head, but those will be saved for another day.