The first Call of Duty (CoD) game appeared in 2003 and proved to be a crucial foundation for the long-running franchise we’ve enjoyed for decades. Activision’s multi-million dollar series had attained success, which was unimaginable for any game when it was released. With Black Ops 6 right around the corner, there’s no way any other FPS title can even think of snatching CoD‘s throne.
However, the ride for the Call of Duty series hasn’t been smooth. Over the years, the series has attracted its fair share of controversy. The CoD games have faced many issues and received a lot of fair criticism about various problems that have plagued the franchise for a while now. What’s worse is that Activision’s clear ignorance of these problems has led to community outrages, even among hardcore fans.
Let’s take a look at five reasons why hardcore fans are now starting to hate the Call of Duty franchise.
Reason 1#: Horrdenous Single-Player Campaigns
Let’s be real; one of the main selling points of classic Call of Duty games was their incredible campaigns. Activision brought some pretty amazing and memorable campaigns, with characters and elements that have now become staples of the series. The rise of the series was initially due to the single-player content.
However, in recent years, with the release of titles such as MW3, it’s clear that Activision’s main focus is now the multiplayer aspect of the games. This is quite sad for the many fans of the franchise, who miss the rich history, quality, and stories that the series once brought. Let’s hope Black Ops 6 delivers a single-player campaign that reigns supreme once again.
Reason 2#: Microtransactions and DLCs Plague Everything
There’s a reason why the recent Call of Duty games have been failures: the content in the final game is simply not worth the price. Many in the community feel that Activision is moving towards the industry trend of locking crucial content and features behind the mich-despised Season Passes and DLCs.
While it might be Activision’s attempt to soften the blow of massive game developments, these decisions have certainly upset the fans to the point they’ve dropped CoD titles in favor of other shooters. Now that Activision is under Microsoft’s umbrella, it needs to take a serious look at this issue and make indentations to gain the community’s trust again.
Reason 3#: Same Old Boring Recycled Multiplayer
It’s mind-boggling how Activision focuses on the multiplayer aspect of new Call of Duty titles but still fails to deliver. At this point, fans are used to seeing a new CoD game dropped every year that brings the same old multiplayer with a few basic changes that add nothing to the experience and, in some cases, make it even worse than the previous iteration.
Sure, Activision wants to play safe and keep the sales up, but it’s necessary to innovate the gameplay to keep the player base satisfied. It’s time for Activision to stop pulling strings and allow developers of these games to innovate in the multiplayer aspect, which can truly pay off if it works.
Reason 4#: Frustrating Unbalanced Gameplay
It’s not only the same recycled multiplayer aspect; there are several issues plaguing recent CoD games that, for some reason, still haven’t been fixed by Activision. Every iteration has guns that simply outshine others, and most of these weapons take many hours in multiplayer to obtain. This makes the early stages of multiplayer an absolute nightmare to grind.
That’s not all. Since the addition of microtransactions, players with extra money can easily gain advantages in games over other players. All these questionable changes have made the gameplay of CoD games extremely horrendous and unfair. It’s not only the hardcore players; even newcomers find this system quite broken.
Reason 5#: Annual Releases Made the Series Stale
We’ve seen many popular gaming franchises lose their appeal over time because they’re milked to death by the sheer volume of content that they release. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed had the same issue, but the developers eventually made a smart decision to take a break from the franchise to figure out what they were doing wrong.
Hardcore fans of the franchise feel that Activision should take notes from Ubisoft and let the Call of Duty series sit out for a while to figure out new ideas that will innovate the games in the future. It feels like a digital soul-search is what might help this series get back to where it was once.
