Call of Duty has now become a predictable routine within the gaming industry, with the series still managing to garner a mammoth amount of cash for publishers Activision, but failing to recapture that level of excitement the franchise enjoyed following the release of Call of Duty 4. The continued annualization of the series may well be good for Activision’s finances, but despite the series having proven it can still stand with the best of them with the likes of the great Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, even the most die-hard fans of the series are growing tired of it.
This leads us to this week’s rumor that Activision is set to release Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered, with a big hint from the official CoD Twitter account all but confirming that this will be the case. Tellingly, the most excitement surrounding the upcoming new entry in the series now revolves around whether or not it will include this remaster bundled with it, highlighting the problem the publisher is facing when it comes to both annually pushing out new games in the series, but also rekindling the magic of the high bar it set for itself with its 2007 FPS.
With so many hoping that Call of Duty returns to the “boots on the ground” gameplay of previous games, the introduction of jet packs and free-running have been roundly criticized, though developers have plowed ahead with these changes regardless. With the series having been accused of growing stale multiple times over the past few years, it’s no surprise that Activision felt these changes were necessary in order to garner more consumer interest, but many are of the opinion that the series is headed in a direction that they disagree with.
This presents a unique problem for Activision, with their premiere franchise simultaneously being accused of not doing enough to keep fans of the series interested, while also supposedly making too many changes to its fundamentals. As such, there have been multiple requests for the series’ trio of development teams – Infinity Ward, Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games – to revert back to the Call of Duty games of old for inspiration. This is what makes the rumored release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered a great idea.
Activision issuing orders to its developers to scrap their plans of continuing to plonk CoD in futuristic settings, instead requesting that they dive back into the more straight-forward war scenarios that were played out in the Modern Warfare series, is directly at odds with the “bigger always means better” ethos that drives all triple-A sequels. Removing a number of key changes that have been made to the series in order to revert back to more traditional gameplay might prove to be jarring, and while there are a vocal group of people who wish for these changes to be made, it would be a risky move for Activision to make. Though many seem to have convinced themselves otherwise, Activision’s move to sci-fi warfare didn’t happen out of some bizarre disdain for the series’ fans; by the time the first jet pack had been slapped onto the back of a CoD soldier, people had long grown tired of the CoD formula they had been presented with time and time again. Let’s not forget the comparatively negative response to Modern Warfare 3.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered would therefore present an opportunity to both gauge consumer interest in returning to the series’ roots, along with reintroducing many to the gameplay of the Modern Warfare series. If Activision is to eventually go down the route of reverting back to the gameplay and tone of Infinity Ward’s classic FPS, then bundling a CoD4 remaster with the latest entry in the series is an intelligent move on their behalf, as it will both drive in more sales of their new game along with providing an indication of how successful reviving ’07 era CoD would be. Even if it stands to overshadow Infinity Ward’s brand new entry in the series, it remains a win-win situation for Activision, with it likely set to both propel the upcoming CoD to become one of the best-selling entries in the series while also laying down the groundwork for them to potentially create a Modern Warfare 4.
While this is obviously not a confirmed plan of action for the company to embark upon, it seems highly unlikely that Activision would risk sullying the work they’ve put into renovating the franchise by remastering the series’ most beloved entry to a more excited and roundly positive response, if they weren’t strongly considering the possibility of returning to the series’ roots. Though Infinity Ward are developing the next entry in the series, meaning that the series’ development cycle will ensure that they won’t develop another CoD game until 2019, it at least presents a great deal of hope for those hoping for Activision has a brand new Modern Warfare game in its sights.
