The title of this piece is very direct and curt but it really focuses my opinion like a laser beam. First person shooters, or FPS, games have taken a wide range of settings and plots over the years. Doom, in 1993, had us going to hell with a double-barreled shotgun. In 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved had players explore a derelict ring world that would potentially obliterate all life in existence. And Bioshock sunk us below the sea in 2007 and let us explore an art-deco city run by an objectivist business magnate. But with the profitable success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare released in 2007, FPS have consistently settled on the setting and game play of modern warfare.
My gripe with modern military shooters is that common old adage, “if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” The settings and the plots resemble each other so similarly that it is almost frightening and they do little to differentiate themselves. Urban environments, destruction, people shouting at you, a two-dimensional villain and plot, etc, can be found in nearly every modern warfare shooter. On the eve of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and the fallout from Battlefield 3, I look to the future and to the games that will push the first person shooter genre in a new and better direction, in terms of setting and game play. Prey 2 is the story of a U.S. Marshall who was abducted by aliens and tasked with hunting down bounties in a Blade Runner-esque environment. Bioshock: Infinite takes place in the mid 1900s and the player exists in a floating city connected by a personal rollercoaster system. The plot shares similarities with the storybook tale of Rapunzel. The aforementioned games sound more interesting to me than just another military shooter. I would be shocked if either of them made even a fraction of Call of Duty’s sales.
However, the people have spoken in the numbers; Call of Duty is one of the most lucrative franchises in the video game industry. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, released in 2009, earned $550 million worldwide and sold 4.2 million units on the Xbox 360 alone making it one of the largest entertainment releases in history. And then Call of Duty: Black Ops broke that record in 2010. Six weeks after the release of Black Ops, it hit the $1 Billion milestone. As time passes on, I wonder if these productive sales are a result of the Iraq War and will cease or slow down due to its conclusion. It’s a stretch to assume that one event directly affects the other but only time will tell how the general consumer reacts to the annual releases of Call of Duty, going on its fourth year since 2007.
Leave a comment below or shout-out some of your most anticipated first-person shooters releasing next year.
