Before we begin, I’d like to make it clear I have nothing againstCall of Dutyplayers. For the most part. However, the period during which I was all in on the series is one I look back on with frustration. For a chunk of my gaming life, I played nothing butFIFAand Call of Duty, and I’m still catching up with some of the fantastic games I missed all these years later.
The game that pulled me into the Call of Duty universe was the originalModern Warfare 2, specifically its fantastic multiplayer. I don’t think I touched the campaign at all. I spent more time than I care to remember playing Modern Warfare 2 and am thankful there weren’t end-of-year wrap-ups back then. My numbers would have made for grim reading. My K/D was also decidedly average for someone who had sunk that many hours into the game.
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I stuck with Call of Duty for a little while longer after the series moved on to Black Ops, but nothing after Modern Warfare 2 grabbed me in quite the same way. So much so that I reverted back to Modern Warfare 2 after a couple of weeks with Black Ops. I played Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer for as long as possible and vividly remember sitting in an empty lobby, struggling to come to terms with it being over.
Little did I know, Modern Warfare 2’s servers would eventually be brought back from the dead. Well over a decade later, my interest in Call of Duty long over (outside of a brief two-week period during which I dabbled withWarzone),Xboxwent and resurrected it. Fixing servers for multiple dormant Call of Duty games, I and so many others were sucked back in asvarious titles from the series' past shot to the top of the charts.
Arguably even better than the remastered version of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer that had been rumored on and off for years, Xbox giving us the servers back hit a nostalgic note that a remaster or a remake simply can’t achieve. There was no explanation as to why Xbox decided to fix the servers either. Just an unspoken, ‘Hey, enjoy yourselves’ and well, we’ve been doing just that. However, as news about this year’s Call of Duty title,Modern Warfare 3, has begun to surface, the thought process behind turning the old servers back on has become clearer.
Turns out we are sort of getting a remaster of the OG Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer mode after all.Modern-day versions of the game’s maps will be included in Modern Warfare 3. After having reacquainted myself with Favela, Skidow, and, of course, Rust,Activisionhas dropped the bomb that 2023 versions of those maps will be playable in its next game. Had that been announced without the server reawakening, I’m not sure I’d have been interested. However, now I’m back on the Call of Duty train, the odds of me buying a new title in the series for the first time in 13 years are extremely high.
After I had finished messaging my old Modern Warfare 2 squad about the servers, and then again about the remastered maps, I started to think about the state of Call of Duty. As far as I’m aware, the series isn’t exactly struggling. Every installment sells like gangbusters. Activison’s actions as we move closer to the launch of Modern Warfare 3 suggest one of two things. Either my assumptions about Call of Duty sales are incorrect, or Activision simply wants more.
Let’s be honest, it’s probably the latter. Having one of the best-selling games every single year isn’t enough anymore, nor is moving through different generations of gamers as Call of Duty is now mostly played by people who were still in primary school during my Modern Warfare heyday. Activision wants me and the rest of the old guard back, and if mine and my close friends' reactions are anything to go by, it’s achieving that.
That this year’s Call of Duty game was rumored to have started life as an expansion for the newer version of Modern Warfare 2, which would have marked the first year without a mainline Call of Duty title since 2004, also suggests Activision simply isn’t willing to pass up on any sales whatsoever. My only real question is, why now? 2023 has already been one of the busiest and best years for video games in recent history, and even more massive titles will have launched by the time Modern Warfare 3 arrives on November 10. Okay Activison, I admit it, you’ve got me, but did you have to hook me back in when I’m going to be busy playingMarvel’s Spider-Man 2andSuper Mario Wonder?
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