Call of Duty’s Reliance on Captain Price Since 2003 Should Have Showed Us The Franchise Was Never Going to Take Too Many Risks

When it comes to characters one can count on, Call of Duty‘s Captain John Price will be someone to look up to. Since the beginning of the series, he has been one of the most pivotal characters to appear. From the World War days to modern combat, the name appears everywhere.

Considering all the campaigns in Activision’s games, Captain Price has appeared in eight of them. Are they three different characters or the same? Many series enthusiasts can still hold a nightlong conversation if they want.

Call of Duty Rescued Him in The Future Video Games

Whether there’s a need to blow up a dam or an arm of a terrorist, Captain John Price is the man—well, not exactly the same man. Since the first Call of Duty game arrived, the name has remained a constant in the series’ storylines.

We first saw him in 2003 confined in a prisoner of war cell, where he accompanied the playable character and the company in rescuing Major Ingram. We lost him later in the game when he decided to stay behind in the Eder Dam to buy some time for the squad.

The critically acclaimed video game sold almost 800,000 copies in the United States itself, bringing in around $30 million in revenue by August 2006. By 2013, it had sold 4.5 million units globally.

Later, Captain Price appears in the second instalment of the game released in 2005. This time, the character is first seen leading the 7th Armored Division, again, in the British campaign. Thankfully, Price is saved in this story by the fellow soldiers.

And another Call of Duty game with Price in it became a hit. The first week of its release saw it sell 200,000 units globally. By 2013, the numbers surpassed what the first game attained, as the video game had sold 5.9 million units.

New Mechanics New Animation and a New Captain Price

2007 saw the acclaimed military shooter break away from the World War II setting to enter modern times. This is where Captain Price became one pivotal character. Maybe “We are leaving!” was a bid adieu for the time being. Again, the character is saved in the franchise, but in style, as Soap rescues him from the Gulag.

Modern Warfare marked the new era for the series, as the first game became the Game of the Year in 2007. In the final game of the trilogy, users get to play the character for the first time as he embarks on a revengeful journey to kill the game’s antagonist, Vladimir Makarov.

Recently, Activision decided to do a soft reboot of the acclaimed franchise. By the looks of it, Call of Duty was going to change forever. New mechanics, new animations, and, of course, a new Captain Price, played by English actor Barry Sloane. Again, he is rescued in the new Modern Warfare 3.

By September 2020, the first game in the reboot had sold over 30 million copies, raking in more than a billion dollars for Activision. Though the latest entry wasn’t praised by the fans, it did manage to become the second-best seller in the US for 2023.

Maybe the name, or to that matter, the character, does have a charm when it comes to success. Call of Duty fans have this theory where they believe that the original and the reboot are nothing but alternate timelines. Maybe we’ll get to know about it in the future video games.

Regarding Price, former senior artist at Infinity Ward Sami Onur said in one interview that the one from original Modern Warfare is his grandson. However, this has never been confirmed.

Activision has already planned out video games in the popular military shooter till 2027, with Black Ops 6 being the next in line. Activision has maintained silence over the next games that are to come after this. A few hope that one of them will be a Modern Warfare game.

If that is the case, there’s really a small possibility that it won’t include Captain Price. They’ve got rid of Ghost once and Soap twice; maybe it’s time for Gaz, but Captain Price isn’t likely to be going on that stairway to heaven.

What do you think about the future of Captain Price? We would like to know your thoughts in the comments section below.