Infinity Ward revealed their latest game, Call of Duty - Modern Warfare, with a trailer offering a first glimpse at the setting of the game. First though, there is already another Modern Warfare game and this one is a reboot, not a sequel. But are reboots a good thing for the industry, or do they end creativity and further innovation?
The absence of a number or subtitle in the marketing of Call of Duty - Modern Warfare signals an approach other studios have taken to softly reboot their games this generation.
A reboot offers developers the chance to use the key elements from their original game to tell and explore interesting stories in an updated context. Reboots help developers reach a new generation of gamers by resetting the timeline or telling an entirely different story set in the same world.
Back to the past
As a kid, I enjoyed playing video games for hours at a time. Personally, I like going back to the places of my youth, even revisiting the realm of gaming. Nostalgia is a strange thing. You probably suffer from it too.
In 2016, id Software resurrected Doom, a classic franchise that laid the foundation of the modern first-person shooter genre. The reboot is a delightfully violent game in which you fight a dozen of demons with an emphasis on noteworthy weapons and an constant movement.
How would a game look today?
Everything that made Doom such a great game in the past is part of the reboot. Better graphics, level design, sound make this game look as good as other recent games. Not all reboots are made equally, though. Implementing better graphics and technologies is not enough to help a game with a weak storyline or terrible gameplay.
Before bringing Doom back from the past, the developers had to think about how to translate the classic gameplay to the common gameplay mechanics of our modern era. Developers need to be creative to bring back older concepts because technology and other games changed quite a bit over the last ten years.
We, the older gamers, can educate the next generation of players about the best titles on both this and previous console generations, but many older games are not available to them. The platforms these games were designed for are obsolete, or not playable anymore on the current ones due to backwards compatibility issues. Reboots are their best option.
A change for the better
Since the return of the Call of Duty series to the Second World War era, there is a greater emphasis on realism. For their latest title in the long-running military shooter series, the developers promise to bring the contemporary combat in recognisable environments.
The world around us is more complex than the one ten years ago. Enemies often do not wear uniforms and use civilians as their cover. Civilian casualties and collateral damage is a problem in contemporary conflicts. This modern setting feels uncomfortable and realistic. It contradicts the futuristic military first-person shooters of recent years and is refreshing.
Back to its roots
It is not often you see a first-person shooter have players kill what look like everyday civilians. Call of Duty - Modern Warfare is an authentic and realistic first-person shooter telling an intense and mature storyline. The series returns back to its roots and emphasises the human side of soldiers in a large scale conflict.
The Call of Duty - Modern Warfare reboot tries to recreate this authentic feeling the series lost over the last years. Hopefully, a new generation of gamers is finally able to experience the danger of a modern conflict set in a tough and grey world in which black and white does not exist.
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Disclaimer. This post contains copyrighted images from Call of Duty – Modern Warfare, a video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The fair use of copyrighted works for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting or research is not considered as an infringement of copyright.
A reboot gives new players the opportunity to experience the game for the first time on the platforms of their own preference.
This is the type of information that should be shared around the internet.