Infinite Warfare could be Activision’s Mass Effect
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was a game ruined by horrible timing and disastrous marketing. Its reveal trailer is one of the most disliked videos in YouTube history, with 3.9 million dislikes at time of writing.
It came out at a time when people were complaining about the overall direction of the series becoming increasingly sci-fi. So when Infinite Warfare came out with full-on space battles and zero-g gunfights, fans had had enough. They took to the internet and let Activision know that this game was proof that they were actively ignoring their own fans.
To compound this, it was revealed that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered was going to be bundled with Infinite Warfare, and would NOT be sold separately. However, in order to get the bundle with the game you actually wanted you had to buy the “Legacy Edition”, which meant that you were spending $80 for a decade-old game. COD4 was essentially being held hostage, and the ransom was Infinite Warfare.
No matter how big or small, Infinite Warfare represented everything people hated about Call of Duty, and became the punching bag of the franchise before it was even released.
But to be fair, Infinite Warfare was a great game, it's just not the game that people wanted.
As a side-note, I firmly believe that if Infinite Warfare had come out several years earlier, it would've been accepted with open arms. If the introduction of a science fiction Call of Duty had been more immediate, rather than a gradual change, it would’ve been hailed as bold and innovative, and praised as a refreshing change of pace.
A Buried Treasure
The best part of a Call of Duty game is the campaign, and you’ll never convince me otherwise.
On top of its well realized, but barely explored, universe, Infinite Warfare unwittingly gave us the best character to ever come out of COD: E3N, a.k.a. Ethan. From the moment I first met this smart aleck robot, I loved him. He’s funny but not comedic, witty but not insulting, informative but not annoying, and a savior but not an ex machina. No other character in any COD has made a lasting impression like Ethan has. Yeah, Price and Soap are cool, but they’re remembered more for their legacy rather than their personality. Black Ops has no memorable characters because they’re all the same shade of duty-bound gray. And as far as the other games go, I honesty don’t remember a single name from those games other than Kevin Spacey, and that’s not even the characters name.
The point is, Ethan, combined with the tough as nails but empathetic Lt. Salter and a main protagonist that’s actually driving the story, instead of just being a run-of-the-mill soldier along to the ride, I finally had a team of comrades that I was willing to go to war for. And with a story that is arguably the most emotional in COD’s history, I actually cared if they lived or died. Unlike in other COD games, where I would happily watch my comrades die just so they would get the hell out of my way.
But it doesn’t just have better characters, it also has better overall structure and a more sound endgame. Going rogue from other COD campaigns, Infinite Warfare doesn’t have a climactic fight with the big bad, and the game really didn’t need it because it did something so much better: it saw the big picture. Big bad rulers of evil empires are not super human (except when they are, but you know what I mean), they may be harder to get to behind all their bulletproof walls and armed guards, but they’re just as easy to kill as any other human. Real life admirals and generals will even tell you that 90% of their job is command decisions and issuing orders, and unless they rescind those orders, it’s now in the hands of the men and women who will be carrying them out. Whether or not the person who gave the order is still alive becomes irrelevant. So even though you killed Admiral Kotch, you still had to win the war.
Lastly, I just want to mention those vehicle levels where you got to pilot fighter jets with surprisingly great controls, and the irony of how they were better than some actual flight games.
Removing & Expanding
The trick to truly enjoying Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is to ignore the fact that it’s a Call of Duty game. Just think of it as a sci-fi action FPS, and it’s actually an amazing game, too amazing for the likes of Call of Duty, which I believe is where this game’s true potential lies. What I’m suggesting isn’t to just bring back Infinite Warfare, but to remove it from the Call of Duty lineup and make it its own series in vein of Mass Effect.
Playing through the campaign, it’s very easy to pick up on the Mass Effect vibes that it’s giving off. Most notably the galaxy map that’s used to travel from mission to mission. And while not in Infinite Warfare, the Black Ops games have featured a certain level of branching storylines and dialogue options.
Infinite Warfare has an extraordinarily dense campaign for a Call of Duty game. Lore elements like The Secession War could be fleshed out a lot more, as well as other origin stories such as how the SDF came to be. More emphasis could be put on the bounty board and Kotch’s high ranking officials, giving them purpose in terms of what their role in the military is, and perhaps providing rewards and upgrades for taking them out. The Retribution itself could be greatly expanded to allowing you to travel around the entire ship, not just the bridge.
I know it sounds like I’m just pitching a Mass Effect clone, but imagine if Mass Effect had the gameplay of Call of Duty, and then try telling yourself you wouldn’t play that.
ACTIVISION: You already have the foundation and gameplay of Call of Duty, an already realized universe, and a blueprint curtesy of Mass Effect. And considering the current state of Mass Effect, why not dive in and give it a run for its money with your own sci-fi epic?
