If you’ve dealt with the ongoing COVID pandemic in a similar way to me then Call of Duty’s fictional land of ‘Verdansk‘ has been a bit of a sanctuary for you over the last year.
I have spent some 2000+ hours there (yes, really) since ‘Warzone’ launched on the 10th of March 2020, just two weeks before the UK went into its first lockdown. And while the Call of Duty franchise has always been a staple of my yearly purchases and a household name in it’s own right, previous titles have never managed to grip me as much or amass the player base and global audience that Warzone has (100 million players worldwide)
There are three key reasons for this in my opinion. Firstly, its free. Usually there’s a ‘Call Of Duty’ released every year that retails at around £60 and has multiple different gamemodes (campaign, cooperative, multiplayer etc). ‘Warzone’ however, piggybacked on the monumental success of Fortnite, and its business model, and was released, effectively, as a demo for the 2019 game, Modern Warfare. Anyone can play the fully fledged Battle Royale mode without paying a penny or dime…
The second reason is, put simply, it’s a whole load of fun. The action packed, realistic and hard to master gameplay cocktails beautifully with the need to work together with your teammates, meaning at times it can feel more like a military training exercise than a frolic with your friends, with call signs, instructions and constant communication needed to succeed. The ‘COD sweats’ have become an in-joke with my mates, but it does genuinely invoke a level of stress and adrenaline only comparable when playing virtual reality games.
Thirdly, and most importantly, there has been absolutely zero, zilch and nada competition since it came out… Coronavirus has caused mass delays and even full cancellations of games that were scheduled to release over the last year, leaving Warzone to sit comfortably atop the current video game hierarchy completely unchallenged since it launched.
Well, after a biennium hiatus, and several months of viral marketing led teasing, DICE has finally unveiled their next Call of Duty conquering game – Battlefield 2042 – to the world in a superb five-minute trailer.
While Call of Duty have decided to ground the future of their franchise in realism and utilise celebrities for their TV ads (Jack Grealish being a worthy and prominent mention), Battlefield, which was once THE military warfare simulator, has embraced it’s communities’ intentions for the franchise, creating a trailer that pays homage to all the wacky and wild shit its fans have done in the game in the past!
A digital panegyric referencing well established community memes, wacky, iconic vehicles, famous maps, and the popular mechanics that have made Battlefield one of the more unique First Person Shooters on the market (quadbikes flying off buildings, HUGE explosions, the iconic “Levolution”, Rocket launcher jet fighter dog fights and hundreds of players in the same game!)
An incredibly self-aware move, and one that has resulted in nearly 10 million views in 24 hours… A phenomenal achievement that beautifully hypes the upcoming game, attacks it’s competitors, and addresses previous community complaints of its more recent releases (they were ToO SeRiOuS apparently).
So, will 2042, which comes out in October, be the much-anticipated game to knock Call of Duty off its rusty, complacent, and somewhat overbearing throne? I believe so. It’s not free. It has no single player campaign, and it doesn’t have a guaranteed Battle Royale mode at launch, but it’s done enough to signify to millions that it will have its players enjoyment at the forefront, which is considerably more that can be said about Warzone, which has suffered dramatically from complacency without competition.
Announcing a new game using a recreation of the player moments that could ONLY happen in Battlefield was a truly genius move, and one that shouldn’t go unnoticed to industries and marketers outside the sphere of gaming.
Brands should do more to understand what direction their fans and community want their product to go in, and not always simply think they know what’s best for them….
Congrats DICE, the hype train has now fully left the station!
Matt Adkin 