By this point, I'm convinced the Call of Duty series is a sick experiment testing the limits of mass deja vu. Infinity Ward, the makers of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare have just announced their new game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.
This new game has a linear campaign that sees North Korea bombard South Korean capital Seoul before launching a land invasion of the city. In one strand of the campaign you'll play as a South Korean soldier repelling the invasion, in another you'll play as a North Korean soldier on the other side of the battle, and in a third series regular Captain Price is off causing a ruckus.
The reveal trailer does a good job of setting up the stakes:
I've played and enjoyed many Call of Duty games, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 looks like it could be as good as the best of them or as bad as the worst of them. It's, after all, a cinematic trailer, so who can tell? For what it's worth, there are several previews of the game from outlets who were invited to play the game at Activision's offices last week and they seem to be broadly positive. We weren't invited. (I'd like to say it's because we said last year's game, Black Ops 7, was naff and we've been blacklisted, but pretty much everyone said last year's game was naff so it's likely not that.)
As well as bringing a linear single-player campaign (unlike Black Ops 7's poorly-delivered co-op campaign and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's poorly-received – but very good – non-linear one), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 also has its standard multiplayer fare, and resuscitates the DMZ extraction shooter mode. What with ARC Raiders' success, Activision have got to be hoping they can do a Warzone and make DMZ a standalone success.
What's disappointing about Modern Warfare 4's reveal, from the new trailer and the interviews I've read, is that it's not clear where the game is pushing into the new. One quote in particular stood out from Eurogamer's preview:
"We're kind of unlocking this experience that hasn't been in our previous Modern Warfares," associate design director Alex Norris said. "Our previous Modern Warfares have been very focused on task force 141, special operators, and small raids. We've got the largest U.S overseas military base in South Korea.
"So it's tapping into infantry, armour, and air support; all these things kind of working together to retake a city. That's something we haven't gotten to do before on the gameplay side. You'll see D-Day-style beach landings, trench warfare and driving tanks in large-scale battles."
I don't think there have been any Call of Duty games that have felt lacking in infantry, armour, and air support. I remember vividly playing and replaying The End of the Beginning, the North Africa campaign mission released as a demo for Call of Duty 2, in which you assault El Daba in trucks and tanks before fighting through the streets in pitched battles. So it's hardly a new experience for the series, and even if Norris is speaking specifically to Modern Warfare games, even the original, as you inhabit the not-long-for-this-world Sergeant Paul Jackson, you start his campaign with a sea-launched helicopter invasion of a coastal town.
I realise I'm losing sight of the wood by focusing on the trees, and I don't want this to be mistaken as negativity for the game itself. It may well be a great shooter, Infinity Ward are talented developers. It's just dispiriting to see what has been done before many times being wrapped in language suggesting it's new.
But then, I'm sure we've been here and said all of this before.