By now, you’ve probably seen the trailers for this year’s big shooters, Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. As I’m sure you are also aware, these 2 different franchises are going in 2 different directions, even down to the concept of combat itself. It’s certainly a breath of fresh air that we aren’t going to end up with 2 World War 2 shooters or anything like that. Unfortunately, with 1 of these games taking place in an alternate-history World War 1 while the other is a space-aged fight for life as we know it.
Here where things, at least to me, get a little weird. I really think that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is going to end up being to go-to shooter for this holiday season and end up beating out Battlefield 1 for supremacy. Before you jump down to the comment section to angrily lob some insults at me, I want to be very clear. The idea of a World War 1 shooter is really cool, the concept of real trench warfare and traditional melee weapons sounds awesome. Finally, biplane-based combat with dirigibles could be amazing. Unfortunately, Battlefield 1 just isn’t go to succeed in a way Infinite Warfare will.
Let’s start with brand recognition here, Call of Duty is still the go-to game when it comes to competitive FPS titles. Overwatch may take a chuck out of the pie this year, but after Hardline’s limited success and all the complaints about Battlefront, Battlefield is appearing to be the odd man out. Unfortunately, Battlefield’s latest entries were lukewarm at best and while the latest Call of Duty wasn’t received super well, it’s primary opposition is still trying to overcome a 3 game slump. There’s simply no momentum for EA and Battlefield, that isn’t good. It also doesn’t end there.
When it comes to multiplayer, if Battlefield follows its current trends, Call of Duty gets a gimmie when the topic of multiplayer comes up too. EA has already confirmed that the web-based matchmaking will return on PC, which was absolutely garbage. If you haven’t experienced it yet, you have to actually open up the matchmaking launcher on your browser to play a game from Battlefield. Also, if squad-based combat, which is a Battlefield staple, returns it will concede the pick-up and play market to Infinite Warfare. There are just too many people that want to jump into a game, play a round and call it a day.
Next, we have the settings of each game. Battlefield 1 is touting trench warfare and biplane dogfights, which there is nothing wrong with. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is putting combat on earth, in space and in spaceships as well. If there ends up being a game mode where you can fly ships around and fight each other, Infinite Warfare will do what even Star Wars Battlefront could not. Call of Duty simply will be offering my variety for your setup in both single player and multiplayer. It also fills a void that was left with the general disappointment from Halo. This is a huge departure from their norm, though.
Finally, with the topic of single player, I don’t think that there is anyone out there that would argue that Call of Duty has, as a whole, consistently offered the better single player experience between the 2 franchises. Battlefield has offered a silly, cliched, story that usually follows one or two primary protagonists through a storyline that shows off a few multiplayer locales. Call of Duty usually tells a better story that is filled with drama, action and enough twists that you will get caught off guard by at least one of them. Match point, Call of Duty.
I really do want to reiterate here that I don’t expect Battlefield 1 to fail, as a matter of fact I really do hope this is EA’s best release to date. When there is competition, the games are better for it. What I am saying here is that at the end of the day, Battlefield 1 will be a safer game that is just giving up far too much ground to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare out of the gate. It’s still early, so there may still be a few surprises out there, but as of right now it is looking like Holiday ’16 is Call of Duty season.
Yeah, I explained all this without mentioning that you can get Call of Duity: Infinite Warfare with a remastered version of potentially one of the greatest FPS games of all time, Modern Warfare.
Gupho70
I bought the Original CoD day one when West and Zampella left 2015 to create IW (Allied Assault still one of my fave’s). Loved it since up until AW. It’s the MP, too many kids want to buy the latest hacks and bully. Activision, Steam, whoever.. hardly does anything. I just get tired it. I’m so tired of it. Free weekend of BLOPSIII today, annnnd of course hackers. Expected on free weekends always. I love the SP stories. But nowadays, nobody cares about that. I’m in a minority. I will buy BLOPSIII when on Steam sale for total cheap for the SP only. I tweeted and emailed Activision for a single player only pack like they did for MP only Starter pack for BLOPSIII, fell on deaf ears. I play the BF series too. While there is some hackers every now and again, not as bad as CoD. I’m actually looking forward to BF1, I will buy day one. As for CoD: IW, I’ll buy for SP a few years down the road when Steam has it 75% off. Maybe some free weekends until I get sick of the of the hackers. But seriously, if I want space wars, It’s Star Wars!
Jack
Well… to each their own opinion. Not that I disagree completely with the points, but honestly… Call of Duty used to be a title with warfare at the core of realism and epic experiences. Personally, I’ve fallen off the CoD wagon long ago, many moons ago.
Battlefield, since Bad Company, has been my go to warfare game that hasn’t disappointed, not once. Yea sure, a hiccup here and there, but the developer backs their product and supports it 1000Xs over.
For me: Battlefield 1 Day 1 ?????
Triumfent
BF1 is NOT set in alternate history. Dice is on record saying this. Please don’t spread FUD and misinformation. The author is also underestimating BF1’s outreach to the general population. BF1 will get all the mainstream media attention this year due to how unique it is relative to the other shooters. Its also going to get a lot more people in the general population to try the game than a COD Space Marines. COD is not dying. But COD IW will have a stigma attached to it at launch that will make it lame and uncool to all the little kids who usually want COD. COD is a game built on marketing and right now the negativity is doing more damage than you think. This isn’t a bias from living in an online bubble, its reality. BF1 is going to be a transcendent game. Its going to get the attention of all kinds of people as its rooted in a historical setting and is going against the trend of futuristic shooters. Its unique in *this moment*. COD IW will not get the same media attention as its very similar to Titanfall 1/2, Star Wars, AW/BO3, Halo and more. BF1 will stand alone this fall and for the first time in modern history, COD will be the underdog as the stigma attached to IW will be too great to overcome.
Kryptonite42O
OP Josh…. Is English your second language? That’s the only plausible explanation for the garbage article you’ve posted. Did you even proof read it? It’s riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Not something we should see from someone who claims they’re a “7 year veteran of the video game journalism industry”.
andy
Because the usual COD crowd are little hypocrites. It doesn’t matter how much they were terrified of the the single player reveal, once they see the multiplayer reveal and realise its still tiny little maps and nothing has changed whatsoever, they will all sigh a breath of relief and buy it day one.
Brennan Torres
I just saw the first 10 mins of single layer and nearly started crying when I saw the horror of trench warfare those men went through irl. COD is becoming more like a crappy version of destiny, now I play cod and don’t care about single player or multyplayer. Sure bf hardline was ass, but they learned that people didn’t respond to bullshit. COD thinks they can quarter ass, yes not even half ass, their fan base. Bo3 was advanced warfare done right, and we all knew it would be in the future. We have been begging since cod ghosts for a game in the past but they decided to make the game for the kids, and then just remaster an already dead classic. I guarantee the only reason cod preorders are higher than bf’s is because of MW remastered. They had to pick the cash grabbing route to make money. Battlefield said ” hmm Mabye we should make a game set in the real-life past using this realistic graphics technology”, cod said no lets copy and paste and fill over 100 gb of storage with stupid dab emotes. Please let’s kill cod so they know what it’s like to truly lose for once. And yes I am a former cod fan switching to bf, at least they gave us what we asked for.