EA May Be the Copy and Paste Sports Machine Now, But Without One of Its Standout Franchises, We Never Would Have Had Call of Duty

When it comes to successful video games with a team-based approach to their single player campaign, Call of Duty would be the first name to be popped on a gamer’s tongue. But if it wasn’t for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, we might’ve gotten a different product.

So many instances in the game as we know them today may not even come to fruition in the first place. Maybe we could’ve been left to our own devices in those lonely alleyways to kill soldiers asking for an identity.

Medal of Honor Didn’t Have Any Fight Left in it

“That was a real close tight-knit group of people,” the founder of Infinity Ward told North Nugget Bay in 2005 when Call of Duty‘s success sparked growth for the company. It prompted them to triple their staff. As of now, there are over 600 members working in the studio spread across the globe.

Infinity Ward was founded by Grant Collier, Jason West, and Vince Zampella a year before the first Call of Duty game finally hit the shelves. At the time of the game’s launch, the studio had about 25 employees; most of them had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault during their time at 2015, Inc.

Just like the developers who worked on the first Call of Duty‘s research for the game, these people were too researched and picked by Tom Kudrika, founder of 2015, Inc. Allied Assault was developed thanks to id Tech 3. The studio appointed Steven Spielberg to write the game.

Looking at that, we should actually thank Steven Spielberg. Or the price Activision would’ve paid for Call of Duty would be, well, maybe ‘Price’ Sadly, Spielberg’s game failed to sustain in the market.

A couple of reasons that led to the downfall of the then-acclaimed video game series would be the irrelevancy and EA’s emphasis on the Battlefield games. Though 2010 saw a reboot that pulled the game from World War II to a modern-day setting, 2012’s Warfighter showed it doesn’t have any fight left.

Call of Duty Needs to Return to Its Former Glory

Infinity Ward had its fair share of ups and downs throughout their journey but there appears to be a lot of fight left in it. When the studio began working on their first game, they literally called the project “Medal of Honor Killer“.

The team was leveraging a better version of id Tech 3, a game engine used to develop Quake III Arena. They wanted this project to be a different military shooter in contrast to the ones that came before it.

Artificial intelligence is something that is a subject of criticism by many creators. However, Infinity Ward’s use of the technology is simply praiseworthy. They used it to give brains so that fellow soldiers don’t act dumb.

One can’t simply say it’s the AI that we are executing a mission in the game with. And it doesn’t stop there only. As new games were made, developers began emphasizing on enemy AI altogether. Black Ops is one game with when it comes to one of the best enemy AIs in military shooters.

All in all, the Activision game is one whole package as far as military shooters are concerned. Modern Warfare and Black Ops are basically two subseries in the popular military shooter franchise. The next in line is the sixth instalment for the latter one.

Activision’s game is indeed a ‘team-based‘ success, both when the campaigns and the employees who worked on it are concerned. But it’s slowly going down now.

While Modern Warfare‘s soft reboot in 2019 gave us the impression that the game was about to bring another revolution, the third game in the series shattered what hopes were building. But fans are still hopeful that Black Ops 6 will bring the franchise back.

Other than Black Ops 6, Activision has already planned more games in the franchise until 2027. Only if it revives Modern Warfare again would fans be truly delighted.

Personally, I would really love to see the title I enjoyed playing back in the day returning to its glory. If EA can do that with Medal of Honor too, I would love to give it a go again.

What do you think about the Medal of Honor days? Do you think the video game should be revived? We would like to know your thoughts on this in the comments section below.