After a less-than-stellar year in the trenches of World War 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II was supposed to be different. It was meant to signal the glorious return to a modern-day setting spearheaded by Infinity Ward, the same team that brought 2019’s smash hit, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Modern Warfare II launched in November and ran up huge numbers, raking in huge opening weekend numbers, despite lacking a noticeable amount of content and features that are series staples. That last bit doesn’t matter because this year’s CoD will be supported for two years, meaning Infinity Ward will have time to fix everything and keep the player base happy for twenty-four months while Treyarch works on the next entry, right?
Well, that pipe dream came crashing down last week when Insider Gaming leaked that the rumored “premium DLC” coming to Modern Warfare II would be a full-price title, with the beta and early access campaign dates to back it up. The timing could not have been any worse, as one day before the rumor, the roadmap for the delayed season two was revealed, and fans were fuming at the absolute barebones amount of content present. Needless to say, the rumor was met with huge backlash, as Call of Duty continues to shatter the remaining community it has.
There are many reasons why this rumor being true would be the ultimate insult to injury from the juggernaut FPS. Primarily, many players, myself included, have been playing CoD every year since 2007, bringing an unholy level of military fatigue with us every step of the way. Conversely, as Call of Duty has evolved, it’s become apparent that the developers are stretched extremely thin, with Warzone adding yet another layer to produce content for, along with a minimum of a working campaign, multiplayer, and whatever horde mode is in the next iteration.
What makes the last part of the previous statement worse is the price point. Since the introduction of next-generation consoles, Call of Duty has managed to weasel its way into charging players $70 for a game that severely lacks content. Each year since 2019’s Modern Warfare, the introduction of Warzone and the seasonal model has constricted what players receive at launch as content is drip-fed over the course of a year, in what has been an extremely lazy attempt at looking like top-tier content providers. Now picture spending $70 for Call of Duty for the past three years with minimal content at launch and the corporate promise of “immense post-launch content” only to receive two remade maps from previous CoD titles.
Modern Warfare II promised the above, and it’s become laughingly aware that’s not the case. Activision never promised a two-year cycle, but why should we buy a new game, when the last one won’t be anywhere near complete when the next one launches? On top of that, Sledgehammer Games made last year’s iteration, and if this rumor proves true with this very same team attached to the next, how good could this project be with only one year to deliver a game with all the bells and whistles? Would it even work out the $70 box?
If this rumored project turns out to be real, expect to be deep in Call of Duty for seventeen years without respite. It’d be one thing if the quality continued to improve, but it hasn’t, becoming a video game punchline. While I don’t particularly like Modern Warfare II, I don’t like watching the series that I grew up with falling so far from grace, and I don’t think any fan should either.
Keep this one in the archives, Activision. We don’t want it.
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