Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised since Modern Warfare III is made by Sledgehammer Games, but 2023’s Call Of Duty looks way too much like Vanguard with a Modern Warfare coat of paint.
Sure, there are some exciting things coming to the game: The traditional mini-map, map-voting, the Dead Silence perk, 16 remade Modern Warfare 2 (2009) maps, slide-cancelling, and plenty more. (Actually, I don’t care about any of those except map-voting and the classic maps but I know lots of gamers in the CoD community do).
The new Cutthroat Mode—a 3v3v3 spin on Gunfight—looks pretty cool also, and I’m looking forward to taking it for a spin. (Then again, another part of me thinks this is just a way to skip Gunfight by double-dipping 6v6 maps).
I’m also happy that War Mode is returning, which was the highlight of WWII back in 2017.
But none of that matters to me as much as gunplay. Gunplay—which includes how guns feel, shoot and sound—is the most important factor in any Call Of Duty game. Movement is a close second, and the movement here looks . . . stupid fast, just like Vanguard. I don’t mind some speed, but I prefer Modern Warfare / Modern Warfare II to Vanguard’s overly arcadey feel. It’s just too frenetic.
But it’s the gunplay that worries me, because it looks and sounds just like Vanguard. That game’s gunplay was, for lack of a better word, piddly. Guns feel floaty, the sounds they make sound soft and fluttery, there’s very little heft or impact to actually shooting. Both Modern Warfare (2019) and Modern Warfare II got gunplay just right, with guns that have weight to them. Gunshots are impactful.
I often liken this to the way FromSoftware gets melee combat right. There is a feel of connection to every hit in Dark Souls. You can feel and hear each attack connect. That’s what Call Of Duty gets right—when it gets it right. There is something enormously satisfying about getting kills in Modern Warfare II, which is largely thanks to sound design, which is perhaps the best I’ve ever encountered in a FPS.
In today’s #CODNext livestream, that’s missing entirely. Gunplay looks and sounds like Vanguard. Some of the guns even have optics taken directly out of that game, which is weird since that was ostensibly a WWII game. In this game—just like in Vanguard—it sounds like the guns are shooting paintballs instead of bullets.
I could be wrong, of course. I hope I’m wrong. I play Call Of Duty almost every day. I want nothing more than a great new game. I was actually excited when I heard this would be little more than a MWII clone. That doesn’t appear to be the case.
I’ll find out a lot more tomorrow when the beta drops. But gunplay (then movement, then maps) is the most important factor for me in a Call Of Duty game and good maps, modes, etc. won’t make up for bad gunplay. This looks like a cross of MWII and Vanguard.
For now, I’m super worried. If this plays like Vanguard, I’ll be sticking with Modern Warfare II and Warzone until Treyarch’s next game comes out in 2024.
Update:
Another quick thought. Originally, Activision wasn’t going to release a new game in 2023 and support MWII for another year. When I learned the new game was MWIII and that it would (ostensibly) be like a very expensive DLC, I wasn’t that concerned. Maybe that’s just how they would keep supporting MWII, by releasing a bunch of new maps and a campaign that effectively continued that game. Since all the guns and skins and whatnot are transferring over, that made sense.
Now, I’m actually upset that they decided to release a new premium game because it just looks nothing at all like MWII and I can’t see how this is supposed to seamlessly integrate with that game. We’re just going to lose support for a game that’s become, since its rocky launch, truly excellent. I’d much rather get the 16 new maps and have them added to MWII than a brand new game that plays like Vanguard.
And in Warzone we have the same issue the first Warzone faced, integrating a bunch of guns from MWIII that will play and feel very different. This is a mess. Why do they keep making unforced errors like this?
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