Call of Duty Thread - Potential return to form? Or nothing but cope on the horizon? You decide!

[Tepes Thot]

I like the reboot story line sue me,

It’s good if you ignore every character that isn’t explicitly Price, Ghost, Gaz, Soap, and Graves.

If they’d been given a better supporting cast, less retarded hug box writing about literal war, and hadn’t whiplashed the story between half-assed callbacks and “this is NU-COD!!!”, we’d be in business.

It’s got good bones, and a solid core that they refuse to give any real effort to, and it baffles me.

 

[AnotherPleb]

I honestly think Graves was they wanted to see the reception and they they saw people liked him so he came back.

Graves is honestly a really cool character that plays well with the cast, far better than this older Shepard does.

 

[With the actors on it?]

Graves is honestly a really cool character that plays well with the cast, far better than this older Shepard does.

It's a shame that they never gave him anything past S5, shit give me a maskless version of his shadow company skin it'd sell like hot cakes.
Shit I'd love a Rafe Adler referencing outfit for Graves as well.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Isn't the OG MW timeline in a different timeline from the BO games? Also, don't the BO games (WaW, BO1-4, Cold War) all take place in the same timeline with the MW Reboot and Vanguard? Or am I missing something?

Oh, that was presumed in the early years. Activision confirmed that's not the case and that everything is connected recently( I am proud to say I was a believer even in the early days, when conspiracies about the zombies canon were wild and little was proven in the games). The reason for that is simple, Activision wants more money and to do that, they need to sell bundles. They want every facet of the community to buy these bundles, but nobody is going to buy zombies bundles unless they know what it's referencing, therefore zombies is being pushed towards the multiplayer and warzone crowd, even the single player crowd, into one big ecosystem. Pretty stupid, but I don't really care, I just assumed that everything was connected from the start: MW OG trilogy, BO1-2, WAW and old WW2 games, all of these don't really have a reason why they can't be in one single timeline. Treyarch even went out of their way not to make any contemporary games so that Infinity Ward could do their own thing(altho BO2 will technically be contemporary next year too, time flies fast).

As for the reboot and the newer games, no they take place in a new continuity. Old one was literally erased from existence in the BO4 map "Tag Der Toten", the finale to the 10 year ongoing at that point saga that started with the very first zombies map in WaW(Nacht Der Untonten is roughly "Night of the Undead", Tag Der Toten is "Dawn/Day of the Dead", it took us 10 years to make it thru the night). What remains of the old timeline is now called "The Dark Aether" and it's a chaotic wasteland filled with eldritch abominations(and zombies, of course), filled with ruins of the old COD universe. Dark Aether is confirmed to be canon with the reboots as of Cold War, therefore everything is connected(OG Price was also an unlockable operator in Cold War as well, putting a lock on that whole debate).

 

[ZMOT]

tbh that sounds as autistic as FNAF "lore"...

 

[30+GameOvers]

tbh that sounds as autistic as FNAF "lore"...

I can assure you it's even more autistic than that. Danny Trejo, Sarah Michelle Gellar and George Romero are part of the Zombies canon, and therefore the COD canon, a throwaway joke about a Mexican getting his spleen ripped off gets turned into an actual main quest objective years later when you have to give him his frozen spleen back so he can pee on all the snowballs on the map and make them more lethal(this is not a joke), one of the big plot points is a batshit crazy nazi scientist traveling thru space and time so he can get inside a little girl(literally, as in switch souls with her and be in her body) and there is so much more. Zombies lore and it's community/main quests are one huge puzzle piece, end result of the story being made up as it went along. Devs never expected the mode to take off like it did so they treated it like a shitpost tabletop campaign that just getting more ridiculous, until it got depressing at the very end(both due to the in-game tone and with the situation surrounding the devs at the time). Activision never knew what to make of the mode so they let the devs do their own thing, right until now that is. FNAF and other mascot horror is slop aimed to fuel "theories" and therefore engagement with the content, where as Zombies did whatever it felt like doing organically, because the devs could. I remember some of the older interviews for BO1 and BO2 where the devs said that the multiplayer and single player devs also came to them from time to time, if anybody was tired of their work and wanted to be creative they just dropped by into the zombies studio and contributed, that's why there is so many crazy ideas during it's runtime. Say what you want about the rest of the franchise, but Zombies was something special, shame it was shackled to the rest of the brand that influenced everything they tried to do.

 

[Tepes Thot]

If they made a game with Frank Woods, Russell Adler, and Alex Mason where they’re just based Vietnam grandpas roasting the cringe additions and current era, I would buy the most expensive Temu knick-knacks special edition.

All would be forgiven.

 

[The Last Stand]

People rightfully say World at War is a realistic, no-holds barred depiction of warfare, but I think the honor should go to Modern Warfare 2 as well. Specifically, the levels where you are fighting Russians in your home turf: the US of A. Two levels stick out to me to this day: Wolverines! and Of Their Own Accord.

Wolverines! takes place in a Virginia suburb nearby I-95. You see restaurants, homes, businesses reduced into battlegrounds, uncertain if any civilians managed to survive or evacuate from the onslaught. Imagine being a family in their home, then suddenly, Russians come in with airstrikes just bombing your neighborhood to rumble. The show, don't tell atmosphere of a neighborhood under siege gets frightening once you use your imagination.

Of Their Own Accord takes it to 11. Now, you see your nation's capital engulfed in flames. Moreover, those civilians caught in the crossfire have been evacuated into a bunker or a major stadium. Russians are advancing, now the army's mission is to regroup and retreat themselves AND those civilians before it's too late. Your playable character isn't even PART of THAT mission; your objective is to secure the White House.

The radio chatter and ominous music REALLY sells the stakes of a foreign invasion. Quite haunting, but so realistic in its portrayal.

 

[30+GameOvers]

That DC level was pure kino. I remember MW2 and Fallout 3 came out at the same time, playing the latter with the MW2 armor mod felt so right(so much so that I modded in MW2 music and it strangely fit the game)

Fallout 4 is full of Tarkov and nu-COD mods but it just isn't the same. MW2 was a fantastic title, zoomies might not remember how much of a big deal it was. I know combining two of the hottest games at the time was a really cool concept, so much so in fact I got my ropes with Bethesda game modding around that time by splicing together mods I wanted to work together, then eventually creating new content.
Oh, and a shoutout goes to the actual music itself, still the best in the franchise along with COD4.

 

[Autistic Gunspergings]

I never understood the hate MW2019's campaign got when it first released.
Its nothing groundbreaking but it felt like the first CoD campaign in a while that actually had some balls for once, was the first campaign in a while that I felt invested in and wanted more of when it ended.
on the contrary everyone was raving about how good MW2022's campaign was and I felt like I was going insane. It was aggressively mediocre. The gameplay segments weren't too bad, but The characters felt like caricatures riding off nostalgia, and the original ones were aggressively generic. Not that MW2019's characters were leagues better, but atleast they actually had some development to them, Farah and Hadir are just way more memorable characters to me than Graves.
Not to mention the story; I just felt so disconnected from it. Picadilly and Embassy alone left way more of a mark on me than the entirety of MW2022, it just had nothing going for it, in my opinion.

Cold War's Campaign was also kinda meh. the plot twist was neat, but I feel like the script needed a lot more time in the oven. I know the game got hit by the lockdowns so I guess I cant be too harsh on it but some shit in there was particularly cringy for a game whose advertising was super centered around its campaign.
The onions, Mason. What do they mean?????

 

[Bill Kilgore]

Vanguard, Black Ops 1, Cold War and the first Modern Warfare reboot all roughly took place in the same timeline through Warzone. (I guess you could argue WWII as well since I think there were character crossovers with Vanguard?)

But it honestly doesn't matter. Activision stopped giving a shit halfway through Vanguard (mostly because the player base didn't give a shit).

The "connected Warzone universe" or whatever they were going for added nothing to each games individual stories, even within Warzone itself. So it's not worth trying to figure out.

"Connected Warzone Universe" so does that mean that Nicki Minaj fought alongside with Homelander at some point in the CoDverse?

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

"Connected Warzone Universe" so does that mean that Nicki Minaj fought alongside with Homelander at some point in the CoDverse?

Sure?

I think that was the whole point of them abandoning any sort of "story" with Warzone and Multiplayer (unless they brought it back recently, I haven't been following or playing since probably March) was specifically because nobody cared AND they wanted to start featuring celebs and pop culture characters in the promo material more.

I feel like the Warzone "story" was being abandoned around the time of Snoop Dogg in Vanguard and the Godzilla vs Kong event.

 

[The Ugly One]

I never understood the hate MW2019's campaign got when it first released.

Because COD4's campaign was a cynical take on foreverwar, while MW2019 was transparent propaganda for the State Department's desire to invade Syria. You had the moderate rebels, Le Ebil Ruzzians, the dictator who gassed his people for no reason at all, and, of course, the plucky young girl that somehow was leading an Islamic militia for no discernible reason whatsoever.

on the contrary everyone was raving about how good MW2022's campaign was

It was terrible.

 

[iceteayo]

People rightfully say World at War is a realistic, no-holds barred depiction of warfare, but I think the honor should go to Modern Warfare 2 as well. Specifically, the levels where you are fighting Russians in your home turf: the US of A. Two levels stick out to me to this day: Wolverines! and Of Their Own Accord.

Wolverines! takes place in a Virginia suburb nearby I-95. You see restaurants, homes, businesses reduced into battlegrounds, uncertain if any civilians managed to survive or evacuate from the onslaught. Imagine being a family in their home, then suddenly, Russians come in with airstrikes just bombing your neighborhood to rumble. The show, don't tell atmosphere of a neighborhood under siege gets frightening once you use your imagination.

Of Their Own Accord takes it to 11. Now, you see your nation's capital engulfed in flames. Moreover, those civilians caught in the crossfire have been evacuated into a bunker or a major stadium. Russians are advancing, now the army's mission is to regroup and retreat themselves AND those civilians before it's too late. Your playable character isn't even PART of THAT mission; your objective is to secure the White House.

The radio chatter and ominous music REALLY sells the stakes of a foreign invasion. Quite haunting, but so realistic in its portrayal.

Russians using aa12s, p90s, and modern AKs and being able to successfully invade over a body of water.

Totally realistic

I never understood the hate MW2019's campaign got when it first released.
Its nothing groundbreaking but it felt like the first CoD campaign in a while that actually had some balls for once, was the first campaign in a while that I felt invested in and wanted more of when it ended.
on the contrary everyone was raving about how good MW2022's campaign was and I felt like I was going insane. It was aggressively mediocre. The gameplay segments weren't too bad, but The characters felt like caricatures riding off nostalgia, and the original ones were aggressively generic. Not that MW2019's characters were leagues better, but atleast they actually had some development to them, Farah and Hadir are just way more memorable characters to me than Graves.
Not to mention the story; I just felt so disconnected from it. Picadilly and Embassy alone left way more of a mark on me than the entirety of MW2022, it just had nothing going for it, in my opinion.

Cold War's Campaign was also kinda meh. the plot twist was neat, but I feel like the script needed a lot more time in the oven. I know the game got hit by the lockdowns so I guess I cant be too harsh on it but some shit in there was particularly cringy for a game whose advertising was super centered around its campaign.
The onions, Mason. What do they mean?????

People just didn’t like Farah and Alex, they were the writers OCs and they shoved price and Gaz in because they had too.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

People rightfully say World at War is a realistic, no-holds barred depiction of warfare, but I think the honor should go to Modern Warfare 2

Lol, and even lmao.
MW2 was just the "Hey kids, this is so mature" version of a Superior Russia invades USA scenario:

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Because COD4's campaign was a cynical take on foreverwar, while MW2019 was transparent propaganda for the State Department's desire to invade Syria. You had the moderate rebels, Le Ebil Ruzzians, the dictator who gassed his people for no reason at all, and, of course, the plucky young girl that somehow was leading an Islamic militia for no discernible reason whatsoever.



It was terrible.

You probably know more about it than me, but whenever I see an Islamic Warrior Womyn I assume that they're supposed to be a stand-in for Peshmerga which did have women soldiers. Probably nowhere near as much as people make it out (like with Vikings and shieldmaidens or Cherokees and beloved women), but did exist to my knowledge.

I hate that the West are such pussies that every Middle East game has to be set in some generic Qurac.

 

[iceteayo]

You probably know more about it than me, but whenever I see an Islamic Warrior Womyn I assume that they're supposed to be a stand-in for Peshmerga which did have women soldiers. Probably nowhere near as much as people make it out (like with Vikings and shieldmaidens or Cherokees and beloved women), but did exist to my knowledge.

I hate that the West are such pussies that every Middle East game has to be set in some generic Qurac.

To be fair when you play a mission when she’s first starting to use a gun her aim is messy, she can barely reload as she’s shaking, and she can’t run that well.

 

[The Ugly One]

whenever I see an Islamic Warrior Womyn I assume that they're supposed to be a stand-in for Peshmerga which did have women soldiers

No, they're shitlib wish-fulfillment more based on fantasy novels like the Hunger Games than anything real. And no, the Peshmerga are not led by 25-year-old women. They managed to hit every shitlib fantasy in that game:

• Male leadership is a social construct that would cease existing if society broke down (she says something like "nobody has time for discrimination in war" or something like that, when the reality is nobody has time to play "pretend women are strong" in war).
• Who is the best leader is just based on who girlbosses the hardest, it has nothing to do with practical experience or social standing
• Girls rock, boys are stupid and impulsive.
• Muslims are, if you scratch the surface, quite progressive and tolerant

 

[Miller]

They managed to hit every shitlib fantasy in that game:

even the CIA guy simps so hard for her.

 

[The Last Stand]

I never understood the hate MW2019's campaign got when it first released.
Its nothing groundbreaking but it felt like the first CoD campaign in a while that actually had some balls for once, was the first campaign in a while that I felt invested in and wanted more of when it ended.

I think the marketing of "ripped straight from the headlines" blew the remake out of proportion. It didn't help that video game journalists were "traumatized" of what was depicted before launch. It felt more like a movie than a video game. Don't get me wrong, it's not short of memorable setpieces, that mission where you're breaching a house comes to mind, its "straight from the headlines" tagline feels forced in execution.

Example: MW's general motif is "we get dirty and the world stays clean" is underutilized within its missions. It feels like shock value than saying something meaningful. That Piccadilly opening level feels like MW2019 is trying to do MW2's No Russian by having civilians in the crossfire during its invasion. Or having Price "let you decide" to torture the Butcher's family for information, if you decline, it just boots you back to the previous checkpoint. What was the point of having the player "decide?"