Friday, May 6, 2016

Battlefield 1 vs. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare--World War I vs. "Totally Not Halo"--who will win?

When Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's trailer was released a few days back I was mildly interested but surprised they were about to take their franchise into territory for which, among other things:

1. Their base was not interested (people who want a space shooter are playing Destiny or Halo 5)
2. Breaks far away from the thematics of "what-if-quasi-realisitc warfare in past or near future" the series has been enmeshed in for the last decade
3. Is using an engine poorly suited to representing realistic space combat (they could fix this, but I've been playing CoD games long enough to doubt it will, plus one word: Ghosts)

People seem to be hating it. I'll probably still get it because I am on the venn diagram of gamers who like Destiny, Halo and CoD, but here's the video anyway:



It looks fun. Just not maybe like Call of Duty as I envision it. This looks like their answer to Titanfall 2 and Destiny (again). But look at all those dislikes! CoD hate runs strong every year.

Today EA and DICE revealed their new Battlefield title. Contrary to some expectations that it might be a reveal for a sequel to Battlefield 2142, the new edition in the series is titled "Battlefield 1" and it is about a war I've dearly wanted to see a game focus on for a long time now: The Great War, alias World War I. Look at this amazing trailer:



Battlefield 1 is suddenly a serious contender this year for "game I am most interested in," lemme tell you. I am impressed that Battlefield is sticking to its guns as the shooter focused on "more realistc" historical combat experiences, and treading new ground to boot. This is very exciting.

So this year we get to watch CoD take on a genre it's never scratched before (although Black Ops III certainly nails the cyberpunk warfare element well) and Battlefield 1 bring us a glorious Triple AAA release focused on The Great War. I'm interested in seeing if the former pulls it off in some manner, but for the latter? That's an actual attempt at something both fresh and interesting.

Maybe we'll see Ubisoft announce an Assassin's Creed: Verdun next! Could WWI be the next historical period to get over-saturated video game attention?


5 comments:

  1. Is CoD jumping the shark a bit now? I preferred it when it was historical, which is why Battlefield is more interesting to me. Either way, I won't buy either unless one was cheap.

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    1. Yep, I think there's a good argument to be made that they have officially jumped the shark now with Infinite Warfare. I think some could argue they did that with Advanced Warfare or Black Ops III, but both of those were (somewhat) reasonable excursions into imagining near future warfare. The new entry is clearly aiming for the same turf as Halo 5 and Destiny.

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  2. Battlefield made a smart move here, I would get this game if time and money weren't things I had to compete with in a death match every day.

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    1. If you make it to Albuquerque and don't mind working in an office I'm hiring!

      The great thing about AAA games is that behind every release date is a Steam or Origin $5 sale one year later.

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    2. Interesting, I sent you a blurp in email in regards to this.

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