With the explosive debut of the Black Ops 2 reveal trailer now firmly behind us, the next few months will be testing for those of us who’re left analysis the video and information closely to figure out what exactly the next installment in the Call of Duty franchise will hold for us. As we all known, Activision and Treyarch will be holding off fully revealing the game until Call of Duty XP 2012(rumored to be in London), so for now, we’re simply left with the reveal trailer and the information that’s slowly surfaced around the Internet. Black Ops 2 has already came under fire from multiple skeptics who strongly believe that moving into the future is a massive mistake for the franchise, and whilst it may be called Call of Duty, it looks more like Ghost Recon! Putting aside all the negativity, we feel that it’s necessary to mention some vital reasons as to why this move is the correct one.
First and foremost, a leap in time was absolutely necessary to freshen up the dying franchise. As we’ve mentioned in previous articles, Call of Duty needed to evolve somehow to keep its place firmly on the FPS throne, and the future was literally the only way forward. If Activision threw out a title that we all deemed as yet another CoD, we’d see a massive revolt. Change was/is needed. If we look at last years release of MW3, many gamers and critics quickly scrutinized it as a ‘copy and paste’ of MW2 due to its resounding similarities to its predecessor, and this was something that Treyarch wanted to avoid for obvious reasons. With the mounting pressure to revolutionize the franchise and to stick to the Black Ops routes, Treyarch have made the risky choice of doing both.
Many naysayers have been quick to claim that Black Ops 2 looks far too Sci-Fi to be considered Call of Duty, this video however, suggests the exact opposite; it stresses that the majority of the technology you seen in the trailer is highly probable in the next 10-15 years! Early indications show that Treyarch have devised a rich blend of fantasy (the plot of the game) and future probability to forge one of the most realistic future-set games in history. Only time will tell if their risky move will pay off.
In truth, Call of Duty has jumped off the predictable bandwagon and surprised us for once, and this must be commended. It’s been no secret that the franchise has begun to dry up and stagnate in the past couple of years and as we’ve mentioned before, one of the most irritating trends in Call of Duty was that you’re always fighting Russians one way or another. It seems like Treyarch may have actually listened to us and took the new directive of introducing one psychotic (non-Russian) antagonist and China as our enemy this time. If they did get that idea from us, we’d like to request 10% of the profits!
Of course, there’s the argument that Black Ops 2 is sneakily plucking ideas from other futuristic shooters and combining them into their game, and that’s something you can’t argue against, however, is it a bad thing? With such an established franchise and 25+ million dependents, Treyarch have already took a massive risk with the games setting, one place they can install some familiarity in, is the games features. By taking multiple successful features from the likes of Ghost Recon and tweaking them to seem more realistic, they’re simply smoothing the edges and ensuring that the game is as plausible as it can be. From an outside perspective, it seems like Treyarch have cast a sponge into the sea of futuristic shooters, let’s just hope what they soak up is idealistic.
In the end, we’re all going to be left to ravel in the mystery of Black Ops 2 until, presumably, September. It’s refreshing to see the franchise move out of its predictable routes and branch out into a new horizon, the game can only really go one of two ways; it’ll either be great or awful, and whilst that’s worrying it’s also an exciting new feeling that we’ve never truly experienced with past Call of Duty titles. Finally we’re waving goodbye to the Russian armada and welcoming a new enemy that we’re going to blast to oblivion whilst we try to save the world from oppression! The most important factor of this games reveal, is that we’ve finally been able produced the question that we’ve all been waiting to ask: Is this the apex of the Call of Duty franchise, or is there light at the end of the tunnel?