I know you realize this is WAY more of a stretch than you're making it out to be. That's the silliest part. I think everyone rightfully knows what CoD is going to be. There are so many sci-fi FPS games and most even control a lot like CoD and have progression systems and loadouts and all that. And the last couple CoD games are sci-fi themselves, just not this far sci-fi. There's one WWI FPS game out by an indie team, Verdun, and then nothing else remotely on the BF scale. Yeah, it isn't super revolutionary or something but going historical is a good and welcome change for many at this point.

I know what COD is going to be about as much as I know what Battlefield is going to be. Neither game seems to change all that dramatically. What I don't know is what their respective settings will mean for their multiplayer gameplay, which is the only thing I really care about, and which is the primary reason most people buy these games.

You do have a good point about WWI not exactly being a popular video game setting, though. I'll certainly give you that.

@artisanbreads: Whats the difference between going forward or backward in time though? You will get a rifle, point it at bad guys and shoot. The difference between BF1 and BF4 in terms of gameplay will be how often you reload and how fast the vehicles move, but the moment to moment action will remain identical. You will still shoot tanks in the back with RPG's and all that. WW1 may be neat for some people but let's not fool ourselves that this is anything more than a fresh coat of paint on a very familiar gameplay model. Future tech at least allows for some innovation like grapple hooks or space lazer doohickey whatevers. What sort of exciting new abilities will we be able to expect from WW1? What exciting weapons will we use? Single action rifles? An automatic machine gun if we are lucky?

Honestly there isn't that much difference between the two games in terms of innovation. They are two points moving in opposite directions on a line, but it's the same line they've been on for quite a number of years. To praise one and scorn the other seems a little silly.

@humanity: I guess we just have a disconnect in that for me setting is a giant factor in my enjoyment. I actually can really enjoy sci-fi shooters but anything in the vein of what CoD has done sci-fi wise (plausible, near future tech with dire seriousness about warfare) is just boring to me. It's the most boring type of sci-fi. Titanfall for example doesn't do a ton more for me, but the mechs at least inject a really interesting part (I'm hoping that game gets more wacky and fun with the sequel, hopefully showing that mechs have swords is a step that way).

I consider myself a big history fan and historical settings are a big boost in the attractiveness of a game. I have also always really liked in shooters in this time period the distinct differences between weapon classes and how that all plays out. I find it vastly more interesting than the weapon selection in modern set CoD or BF games. Dialing the weapons back (especially from almost all weapons being automatic weapons of some variety), plus vehicles and other elements, is really interesting to me. And yeah, there won't be perhaps innovative mobility options but to me that isn't something that makes a game better by default. There are pluses and minuses to that kind of thing.

BF 4 didn't do a ton for me because it was so repetitive from 3 (even though I think it was hands down better, after server issues). A game with improvements of a minor variety, better tech (which matters more for BF games with things like destruction and scale then it does in CoD games), and a historical setting is a really attractive package to me. And it's more of a switch up than either of the franchises are pulling, and there's no other historical shooters like it any more. Glad someone went this way. If it was CoD I would have been happy too.

Just wondering, but what are some examples of sci-fi shooters that you do like?

@artisanbreads: Well there is a big distinction between "I like this setting more" than "they are doing it better" which is what the overwhelming consensus seems to be when dogpiling on that Call of Duty trailer. I can't really comment on much of what you've said since it's all falls in the ethereal realm of personal opinion. I love everything sci-fi and think that more grounded "around the corner" sci-fi that Advanced Warfare was going for is vastly more interesting than Titanfall's robots. In fact I inherently don't find big mechs or robots all that interesting in games period. That said I played neither Advanced Warfare nor Titanfall but if I had to choose one I would probably get the former. You might say I'm at the other end of the spectrum as you since I avoid anything from "older" history. In fact anything beyond modern day is not something I'm incredibly interested in anymore, unless it's some weird alternate timeline sci-fi twist like Dishonored for example. My point was that if this sort of stuff speaks to you then thats awesome, but I would always argue that they aren't doing anything better or more interesting than CoD, they are simply doing something more interesting to you.

I just saw that the new CoD trailer is now at 1,014,690 dislikes. I assume this is the sort of news that's going to be talked about on the bombcast since it signals that people are either really pissed that they can't buy Cod4 remaster by itself or they are going to space. Either way it's the most negative video game thing in recent history. The last time we had this negative of a reaction to a video game thing it was the Xbox One reveal and we all know how that went.

@spaceinsomniac: Halo, Titanfall was pretty interesting (though not far off from the CoD type sci-fi), BF 2142 was cool looking, any of the Star Wars shooters have been fun to play in (most recently Battlefront), Mass Effect if we want to count that as a third person game, Destiny, Quake, Doom, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Half-Life etc. All those had something interesting to me in their sci-fi flavor. I actually like sci-fi quite a bit in general. I'm not saying what CoD is doing is absolute trash or anything but it's really boring to me, only slightly less boring than a straight up modern setting. I would describe it as the Aliens marines without any aliens for me to find interesting in the action.

@humanity: Well I think, even after years of iteration, what BF does gameplay wise (with scale, squad focus, vehicles, team play, destruction) is way more interesting than what CoD is doing and is still pretty unique after all this time (at least I think no one has done it remotely as well). They've kept improving it and it hasn't gotten old for me. CoD just keeps iterating on 4 and that is quite old to me because it's still mostly just a team death match shooter of the type that has been around forever. I have really liked CoD in the past.

With both, again this is a taste thing so you guys seem to not agree. I'm just putting my perspective out there though because there are definitely people that agree with me as far as setting being a huge factor in enjoyment of games. For me it is setting and CoD growing stale while I think the BF formula was way ahead of its time and still is unique and more compelling. I expect it to play like a BF game, but the improvements and changes from the early bits of coverage sound like ones I will appreciate a lot. If the roles were flipped and CoD was going back to a historical setting I would be excited for that, though less about the game mechanically. But that would do a lot for me.

@artisanbreads: Once again that is all a matter of personal taste. Battlefield has not evolved in any meaningful way since Battlefield 2. If that is what you prefer to play then sure, but it's not like they took the "open level" concept in any new or exciting directions since 1942 came out. Rush mode was the most interesting thing they ever did and most diehard Battlefield fans rather play conquest, which is still a big map with a fog of war around it. If thats what you like then thats awesome - both have pros and cons with the biggest con for Battlefield being that with all the possible chaos that has a chance to ensue there is also plenty of downtime as you run from one point to another without encountering any action whatsoever and then die from a sniper shot and do the whole run-up all over again.

Different strokes for different folks and all that. I personally cannot comprehend how anyone would be excited about a game going back to WW1 or even WW2. I want to see what crazy new mechanics and systems and abilities the developers will think of next. None of that is possible in a WW1 setting. I think Syndicate is probably the most innovative sci-fi shooter of the past ten years. All weapons had alternate fires, you could hack on the fly, while shooting, while popping off unique abilities. You could run, slide, mantle. That game had a ton going for it and it's a tragedy that it didn't sell better.

Sounds like "more lasers, fewer bullets." I can get behind that. The direction this thread has taken in the last several posts caused me to realize that I'd love to see a steampunk COD or Battlefield. I don't think that setting has ever been used in a AAA shooter.

@humanity: RPG's didn't exist in WWI ;)

What was that recent quote we heard? "Constraint breeds creativity." In adapting the Battlefield formula to the much more primitive battlefields of WWI with the different style of warfare, you're going to see some pretty significant design choices put in place unless this is some kind of alternate history thing. You're not going to be getting out there with your automatic assault rifle and pumping bullets to guys, you're going to take your bolt action Lee-Enfield and carefully aiming. Or blindly rushing forward with a bayonet. You're going to (hopefully) see futile cavalry charges that get mowed down by machine gun fire. There are serious difficulties with adapting a AAA shooter to the WWI setting (hence why it hasn't really been done before), and I'm echoing Drew's sentiment that it would be hard to do so.

Think about how different a FPS is going to play if your main weapon is a single shot long distance rifle, not an assault rifle. The balance will be greatly skewed from sniper gameplay being a smaller part of the battle to being a much greater part of it. Machine guns and artillery are going to be very defensive and dug in.

Again this is all speculation and we are going to get the Hollywood adaptation of WWI, but at least from my point of view being set in WWI (if they try and stick to history), if my default weapon is going to be a single shot bolt action battle rifle, instead of an M16 or an AK-47, the entire game is going to feel far different. Much more different for me personally than shooting that Ak-47 in space ;)

@belegorm: I don't really have to imagine my friend, I lived through years and years of those single action rifles. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Brothers in Arms, and many smaller games along the way. From experience I can tell you that snipers still don't factor into those engagements as strongly as you might think. In the case of a faithful WW1 game? Yah, maybe, if they will go all out trench warfare but I doubt they do that. I'm sure there will be trenches but they'd have to be insane to faithfully recreate the agonizingly slow tug of war between the trenches with a vast no-mans-land where nothing happens. They will probably put in side routes with mini arenas designed for close quarter engagements and a few open fields where snipers can have their fun too. This is how Battlefield Vietnam played out in a way - lots of jungle with close quarters combat and the occasional open expanse.

@spaceinsomniac: Bioshock Infinite kind of did that. It certainly had that steampunk vibe to it.

I dont like how they release a New cod every year. I bought BO3 deluxe after not buying a Cod since the original BlackOps. I have not put anywhere near the hours needed for me to say *Ill buy a new cod* as I am not very far into the current one. I have so many games to play I cant invest all my time into just 1 game, especially since its mostly a Multiplayer game anyways. It puts me off that they release the trailer and release when the current game still has DLC to be released. I honestly dont like cod much after seeing the new one being announced already. At least Battlefield gives their games a little more time in the customers hands before announcing and releasing their successors. Cod = 7months from last release to announcement to new version. WTF....

People have been hating on COD since, at least, Modern Warfare 2.

The anti COD circlejerk has been raging on the internet for years, I remember when Battlefield 3 came and everyone said RIP COD as well.

It turns out in the end, COD usually sells more anyway.

@humanity:

Bioshock definitely had a touch of steampunk to it, but the rest of the art direction kind of overpowered it, IMO. Not in a bad way or anything, though. Bioshock games look fantastic.

I've seen this said before. So the theory behind this is that traditional COD fans want a game that plays exactly like traditional COD, which is why they don't like the boost jumps, and which is why they'll eventually move to a different shooter that plays nothing like COD? That doesn't sound right. We're talking about people who can't even stand a little change to their established formula, so why would they ever want to play a completely different game?

I don't get the hate for the new CoD either. From my understanding of CoD most people play it for the multiplayer, which hasn't been shown. So unless it really is that they don't like sci-fi and just want another MMS game then I don't get why there's so much hate for it.

The trailer for IW was the first CoD that looked interesting to me in a long time, bad music cover and all.

@jesus_phish said:

@atwa said:

The anti COD circlejerk has been raging on the internet for years, I remember when Battlefield 3 came and everyone said RIP COD as well.

It turns out in the end, COD usually sells more anyway.

I don't get the hate for the new CoD either. From my understanding of CoD most people play it for the multiplayer, which hasn't been shown. So unless it really is that they don't like sci-fi and just want another MMS game then I don't get why there's so much hate for it.

The trailer for IW was the first CoD that looked interesting to me in a long time, bad music cover and all.

I forgot the argument that they made, but I remember hearing from someone who didn't even like COD that this often re-posted image is a logically flawed argument. I really wish I could remember, because it presented the issue in a new light, but I forgot. Anyone happen to know what I'm talking about?

Being totally honest its a very dull trailer cut, where as the Battlefield 1 trailer is super evocative, and you find yourself watching it filling in the backstory for the characters presented. WW1 is ironically, relatively new turf for video games."Space" on the other hand, is well worn territory, and reeks of a tiring franchise running low on creative juice. I am for the record, a fan of most of the COD entries, and I actually think their character development is what hooked me the most, as perhaps unbelievable as that sounds. The death of

In MW3 was for me the most impactful character moment of that year.

I suspect both games will both be jolly good, and sell millions of copies.

It's especially confusing since a "new" Modern Warfare is almost an oxymoron at this point. They've made those already. Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3 and to a lesser degree Ghosts and Black Ops 1 are all more or less gritty "realistic" CoD games without "floaty" gameplay whatever that might mean. I can only pity a developer where you're being called out for making the same game over and over again, yet the moment you start to deviate into new territory with ever so slight tweaks to the formula a-la double jumps and cyber implans you're called out for straying too far from the original - the good CoD, but also the CoD that needs to change, but it also can't change or it won't be the good CoD anymore. Good luck.

@spaceinsomniac: There's a hacked up way to get dedicated servers to work in the game, but it's not officially supported by IW or Activision. It also came - iirc - after that image was made. Even if it didn't, those players where boycotting MW2 because Activision said no dedicated servers. Activision never gave them dedicated servers and they still bought the game.

As usual, the Internet is blowing something out of proportion. IW looks cool.

It's an easy target. Video game communities are... well, they're cranky and easily stirred.

It seems popular to hate CoD, or at leats say you do. I can understand not liking. I cna understand wishing it were different here or there. That is normal we all get not not like what we don't like. But so many people go out of their way to TELL YOU they don't like CoD.


I'm all for people enjoying other things or enjoying what they like from games. Yet, it is easy to get into a mode where when a game comes up you just have to say something, I get that way about Destiny, it like a trigger word for me, seethe when I see that game mentioned positively. It must be the same for people who really dislike CoD, its a 'killing word' like some sort of DUNE Bene Gesserit incantation.

Personally I think Call of Duty games are pretty bad, and I've been totally done with them since Black Ops1. However, I don't go around on some weird attack campaign disliking trailers (or even watching them for that matter). Maybe people are pissed about them locking MW1 behind the new game?

the dislikes with COD and Battlefield come to a head when you consider that from the get go, both groups of fans are diametrically opposed. Both sets of fans desperately want the other set to suffer with bad experiences. So any perceived short coming just gets magnified way out of proportion.

the two drastically different settings of the games is also a factor that should be considered. The far away future setting has been done by COD for a few games now, it started with Black Ops II (sort of) and then kept going through Advanced Warfare and Black Ops III. In my opinion, people really liked near-to-far settings as they gave you more flexibility to make fun games, but then the problem came up of the games being too much of the same kind of fun. I think a lot of people saw how few abilities and new things to do there were in Black Ops III and asked themselves if they really wanted that again from a different studio. So when they saw this trailer, it was visceral reaction on the part of the fanbase perceiving this trailer as not being nearly a big enough leap forward.

A similar, yet different story is true for Battlefield's setting choice. Battlefield has been stuck in Modern Military since Battlefield 2 came out. So much so, that in my eyes, Battlefield may as well be called, "Modern-Military Shooter Simulator 2016" (Yes, I understand that other games are trying to actually be sims, but I think when you limit the scope of the comparison to COD and BF3/4, that description holds up. Save for the ridiculous youtube videos that Battlefield creates.). So when fans rightfully bemoaned how similar BF4 was to BF3, and how tone-def and creatively bankrupt Hardline was, Dice seemed to listen to their fans in a big way. But there is also the aspect of users not being able to relate the media they consume.

In terms of settings, the two are so far apart I can't begin to explain how different they are. Partially because I can't even begin to describe what being in space is like, much less what fighting another human in space is like. I could however, describe to you what being in WWI is like. There are enough primary sources and pop culture representations of the time period that I have a very realistic idea of how much of a human tragedy it is when the technology far out paces the strategies of the time. One thing I will say is that WWI was the second to last war where hand-to-hand combat was held with the same regard as marksmenship. What the trailer does show of dudes bludgeoning each other with hand-made weapons is actually quite accurate. The new weapons made trenches a necessity, so you're basically 100 yards away from each other at all times so when you go out into no mans land you're going to f*cking kill that other guy as hard as you can because he's the reason you've been sitting in a puddle getting trench foot for the last month. That kind of shift into an older and antiquated style of fighting is what the frustrated Battlefield fans wanted and you saw that pan out when they announced the game this last week. So when you compare the two and you look at what you're down with, I think most people subconsciously gravitate towards the game they can at least relate to.

General anecdotal consensus among my friends and clan is that they're not interested in playing another futuristic shooter. The jump between tech abilities/story in Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3 was too small and too little with the combined annual release date making it all too obvious they're buying the shooter equivalent of a Madden title. I guess it was sort of a "wake up call", spending-wise, and most have felt they've been vocal enough that Activision should have taken note and developed something else.

That, and the CoD fan base has never really been interested in future warfare. If you look back to its beginnings, what set it apart from other titles was that it wasn't in the future like Halo or Quake or Unreal Tournament. Now it's just one among many, with the only AAA-budget shooter that hasn't gone future tech being Battlefield.

You also have to understand that presently, for $80, you can get the remastered edition of CoD4 with Infinite Warfare. This is the only way you can presently get it, and players who greatly enjoyed CoD4 and have been asking for years for a remake feel like they're being metaphorically slapped in the face by Activision. Buy a game they don't want to get a game they do want is not something they're interested in.

People want to be angry ya'll.

Every new CoD game get a lot of hate. Add to this the choice of Bowie's song and CoD4 deal and you get to this level of hate storm.

I think the hate is coming because this new COD seems more like it was trying to grab the Halo audience. Where I work we jokingly call it "Call of Duty: Halo Edition"

I was never a big fan of the COD series. I did like the first black ops because of the time frame. I was real hyped for black ops 2 but when it was starting to slide more and more into the future tech/hint of space marines kind of thing I had a bad feeling for the third one. When that one came out and was all "ROBOTS!" I didnt even bother to pick it up or play it.

I think people who didnt like the whole space marine/halo model of FPS liked the COD/Battlefield series and now that the next COD is going full space marine well... people going to get mad!

I just dont come to cod for a game about space. thats what bums me out. I like the 8 hour dumb military action movie

Also as other people have said: cod hate is still big thing because people think it represents "bros" and infinite sequels of unique ideas forgetting that fact you can have both kinda games in the same space

@humanity: On the subject of Song Hate: I can only speak for myself but my dislike of both of those songs was mostly based on the fact they were both shitty covers. The Battlefield 1 trailer even fucks up the rhythm with its random cutting out between shots. This isn't because its disrespectful to the artists, beyond the fact that both trailers would have sounded better if they used the original versions.

i thought the hate was mostly cause of the announcement of modern warfare remake but no stand alone release

It's the internet.

Just so everybody's on the same page, that wasn't Seven Nation Army in the Battlefield trailer. That was the dubstep remix of Seven Nation Army, the same one from the Battleship movie trailer. Yeah.