Love it or hate it, the money train that is Call of Duty is back on top of the gaming world for a seventh straight year. The franchise has dominated the current console generation and half of the last. Even with not so great critic scores and often abysmal user reviews, the franchise has continued to dominate the gaming landscape. That’s left many people wondering, what has Call of Duty done that has allowed them to stay on top for so long and what can other games learn from them?
According to Activision, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was easily the bestselling game of 2015. That’s even with games like Battlefront and Fallout 4 dominating gaming news and hype around the time when Black Ops 3 came out. The franchise’s massive popularity stands firmly, even as gamers everywhere talk about how bad it is. Each year, Activision is left laughing all the way to the bank.
More than anything else, the series has thrived thanks to its massive community of players. It’s the one game that you can buy knowing that you’re never going to run out of people to play with. Plenty of people that don’t even like the game buy it so they can play it with others, but it’s taken more than a decade for Call of Duty to build such a lucrative fanbase. Any game that wants to permanently take down Call of Duty probably isn’t going to do it in one year.
Many gamers dislike Call of Duty because they feel as if Activision has regurgitating largely old stuff for the past few installments. The thing is, none of the franchise’s games have been truly dreadful yet. Treyarch, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer have all made games that are at least acceptably good even if they are unoriginal. That might not seem like that big of a deal, but just look at what happened to Medal of Honor. Warfighter performed so poorly that it essentially killed the series.
Still, even though Call of Duty might not be as bad as some people preach, it’s past beginning to feel tired and moving towards desperately needing something new in the next year or two. And if Call of Duty finds itself becoming too stale, there are a few games that might just be primed to take over the crown.
Blizzard’s Overwatch for example is a game with a lot of hype that is playing into several current gaming trends. It’s a shooter that is heavily influenced by the world of eSports, that has big name developer pedigree behind it. That being said, it’s a Blizzard game that’s likely to see regular updates, not yearly sequels. It also lacks a story mode and might turn both more traditional and more casual gamers for various reasons, so it probably isn’t the game to take over COD.
While it is an exclusive game and won’t be the game to take the crown, Gears of War 4 could certainly cut into COD’s Xbox One sales. The game is scheduled to release around the same time as Call of Duty usually does and Microsoft is definitely going to be pushing hard for it. Gears is an established title that at one point had very strong story and multiplayer modes with a large following. If Gears 4 can bring the series back to its glory days, it could take a significant chunk of sales away from COD. If Gears does do its part and Uncharted 4 does the similar for the PS4, that could make room for a non-exclusive franchise to swoop in.
At this point, it seems like The Division is best suited for that role. It’s got all the things going for it that helped Call of Duty 4 launch the franchise. The Division has innovative gameplay, with new and interesting modes and ways to play. It is a near future shooter with a strong focus on multiplayer and customization that has a strong potential for yearly sequels. To top it all off, it’s a Tom Clancy game so it’s already recognizable even though it’s a brand new game.
The Division probably won’t be this year’s best game, but if it can captivate enough gamers early on and continually build its fanbase throughout the year, it might not need to be. With games like Gears, No Man’s Sky, and half a dozen other hotly anticipated titles taking attention away from Call of Duty, it might just be the perfect storm for The Division to end the reign of Call of Duty, and if not this year, then maybe next.