Will Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ruin the CoD franchise?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is the fourth installment in the Call of Duty series. It’ll be released for PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows / PC. This “Modern Warfare” version is the first Call of Duty game that isn’t set in World War II. Instead, it’s set in a fictional modern-day conflict in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The Call of Duty games stood out as WWII games – that was the franchise’s niche, and the franchise did very well. The first Call of Duty game (made by Infinity Ward) won the 2003 Game of the Year award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Call of Duty 2 (also by Infinity Ward) received near-perfect and perfect ratings from the major gaming news sites.

Heck, even Call of Duty 3 (this time developed by Treyarch) came out as a good game that was worth playing – and that was despite the bugs and glitches (that is, bugs and glitches would’ve made most gamers throw out the game, but we still played and finished Call of Duty 3 despite it all because it was that good).

So let’s look at Call of Duty 4. Will branching out to modern warfare reduce the CoD franchise into nothing more than a clone of other modern warfare games? We think not. Far from being a clone of other modern warfare games, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is already setting out to carve its own niche in the image of the earlier CoD games.

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Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is the fourth installment in the Call of Duty series. It’ll be released for PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows / PC. This “Modern Warfare” version is the first Call of Duty game that isn’t set in World War II. Instead, it’s set in a fictional modern-day conflict in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The Call of Duty games stood out as WWII games – that was the franchise’s niche, and the franchise did very well. The first Call of Duty game (made by Infinity Ward) won the 2003 Game of the Year award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Call of Duty 2 (also by Infinity Ward) received near-perfect and perfect ratings from the major gaming news sites.

Heck, even Call of Duty 3 (this time developed by Treyarch) came out as a good game that was worth playing – and that was despite the bugs and glitches (that is, bugs and glitches would’ve made most gamers throw out the game, but we still played and finished Call of Duty 3 despite it all because it was that good).

So let’s look at Call of Duty 4. Will branching out to modern warfare reduce the CoD franchise into nothing more than a clone of other modern warfare games? We think not. Far from being a clone of other modern warfare games, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is already setting out to carve its own niche in the image of the earlier CoD games.

For one thing, this game’s take on modern warfare isn’t just about a small force of Western soldiers with superior technology taking out large numbers of bad guys with primitive weaponry. Instead, CoD4‘s fictional setting has set up a formidable opponent: “The Four Horsemen.” CoD4 places the devastating weaponry not just in the hands of the good guys but also in the hands of the bad guys.

And if the trailer is anything to go by, then you can already speculate that CoD4 is going to raise the bar set by earlier CoD games. The different environments, the rhythm of the battles, the stunning scenery, the sound (the sound! – CoD won the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards for Excellence in Audio, and it looks like Infinity Ward wants another award like it).

We’re also excited about the fact that you play different people whose adventures are welded together to form one narrative (you’ll play as several different soldiers, although it looks like the stars of the game are a US Marine and a British SAS soldier). This is the style of storytelling that did wonders in the first three CoD games, the style of storytelling that makes the story feel alive. And remember that Infinity Ward’s storytellers have always crafted engaging characters with different and dynamic personalities.

And here I’ll end with a personal observation. I particularly applaud the choice of setting up a fictional conflict as the setting of this game. While we all can admire the chutzpah and guts of developers who infuse their games with political commentary, I like the fact that CoD4 manages to be a game that casts a Middle Eastern dictator as one of the bad guy terrorists without dragging the conflict to Iraq. Not only does this free us from the constraints of having to play missions limited by real-world events, this also frees us from having to worry about a game getting ruined by overly-political hubris.