Okay, I’ll be the first to say it: Call of Duty’s glory days are far behind us. The classic Call of Duty is gone. We’ve played all the good campaigns already, we’ve experienced the best multiplayer already, we’ve had our fun and it’ll never be the same again.
What started as a simple, successful attempt at foraying out of the classic World War’s in Modern Warfare, eventually turned into a game of “how far into the future can we go until this starts getting ridiculous,” which unfortunately, was a question answered all too soon. Modern Warfare was great. Modern Warfare 2 was excellent. Modern Warfare 3 was uh, good too— and then it all went downhill from there.
However, there’s a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon. Call of Duty: WWII will be hitting shelves this November with a mission to recapture some of what was lost along the way. And if it’s good, and I really hope it is, Call of Duty is going to wonder where it can go next after “returning to its roots.” In order to save them some trouble, I have compiled this list of terrible ideas for Call of Duty settings in hopes that they’ll read it… and follow my advice. No one is asking for these. No one wants to play these. Please don’t do it.
15 War Of 1812
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we’ve seen a “historic” Call of Duty set on American soil. It’s probably for a reason though. While the War of 1812 was set in a variety of American and Canadian old-world locales, I’m sure the actual combat mechanics would make for a pretty boring Call of Duty.
What’s the reload time on a musket? Let’s do some era-accurate formations and stand in a line while firing in unison. Oh, we missed? Is it because we’re standing more than 10 feet away? Seems legit. I think my favorite part would be when you take a single bullet to the thigh and the medic comes around to amputate it on the battlefield.
14 Spanish-American War
Did you know that during the Spanish-American War less than 400 American soldiers were killed in action, but over 2,500 were killed of disease? On the Spanish side, about 10,000 died of disease!
I’m no history buff, but unless this hypothetical Call of Duty campaign includes a part where the American government scientifically shrinks soldiers to microscopic levels and then has them enter the bodies of sick people in order to fight off viruses and bacteria… there won’t be much action. The likelihood of such a campaign is very low, but if the Call of Duty developers actually decide to make a game out of the Spanish-American War, I really hope they include my idea – it’s not half bad.
13 The American Civil War
Oh, here’s a great idea. Let’s make a Call of Duty game set in one of the darkest periods of American history and hope people don’t get offended. While I think a lot of the reality of this time period shouldn’t be forgotten, it’s probably a terrible idea to put them in a video game. I don’t think anyone in the American market for Call of Duty wants to be reminded that half the country was once occupied by extremely violent racists.
While I’m sure there would be some interesting battles, I think the whole of the game would end up completely and utterly depressing, even despite the Union victory. I’m also more than confident that the trailer on YouTube would way more downvotes than the Infinite Warfare trailer. But they have to be smart enough not to do that, right? Right?!?!
12 World War I
If after Call of Duty: WWII they decide to just keep going back in time, war by war, I’ll probably give up on the entire Call of Duty franchise entirely. There is absolutely no reason to do a WWI game, especially when the folks at Battlefield already made a near-perfect one. Also, Call of Duty is known for making games that don’t explore the entirety of the wars their based on, usually just concentrating on popular fronts with the more well-known countries of the time– there’s no way they could stack up Battlefield 1’s extremely comprehensive campaign.
However, it would be funny to compare the two. In Battlefield we have, what seems like in comparison, a more realistic approach to gun-play of the time, and then in Call of Duty: WWI we’d have people calling in, probably, dog-related kill streaks again. Oh boy.
11 The Cold War
I don’t think I could honestly believe that Call of Duty would actually attempt to make a Cold War-era video game, but you never know with these people. There’s a reason why it’s called the “Cold” war: nothing really happened! It was mostly a bunch of countries sitting around making threats of nuclear warfare. There was a lot of spy and espionage stuff going on, but not anything even remotely suitable for a Call of Duty game.
The game would probably feel like one of those EA Sports Management simulators. You don’t see any actual warfare but you set a whole bunch of stuff up and sign treaties with other countries. Call of Duty: War Manager 2018.
10 War On Terror
This is another one of those “terrible and offensive” ideas but with a little bit of “too soon” sprinkled in there. I’m also pretty sure that the Medal of Honor series briefly forayed into this territory and look what happened to them.
Remember that mission in Modern Warfare 2 where you played as Russian terrorists and committed a mass shooting at a public airport? That went over really well for the developers and I’m sure they’d love to do something like that again. Besides, it would play exactly like Modern Warfare 2 and there’s no reason to go back to that period again – we’ve already had the best versions of it!
9 Anything Involving Native Americans
You’d think this would go without saying but you never know with video game developers. Even from a place of “we need to acknowledge Native American history in video games,” this time period would still manage to be offensive, sad, and embarrassing.
Even though there were a few great Native American victories against the U-S-of-A, the ending result would paint a dark portrait of suffering and genocide. If that’s obvious to the developers (and I sincerely hope it is), I’d hope they wouldn’t then do some alternative history thing instead where the Native Americans end up succeeding against the colonists and taking back their land as their own. I don’t know which is a worse idea. Please don’t do either.
8 Near Future
If the Call of Duty developers don’t know it already, I’ll say it one more time, on behalf of everybody in the universe, just to make sure it’s loud and clear:
Nobody wants to play another Call of Duty that involves jet pack exo-skeleton stuff. We have a dozen of them already and they just keep getting worse.
The fans don’t want it. I’m sure the developers are sick of making it. I don’t see any reason for doing it again after Call of Duty: WWII. I think the only thing that could possibly work is if they went into the DISTANT future. Like Titanfall type stuff. Spaceships, big robots. It would have to be so far removed from the Call of Duty formula to have even a chance of working.
7 American Revolution
I’m imagining a Boston Tea Party mission. I am imagining throwing boxes of tea off a boat and into the Boston Harbor. I am imagining the worst mission idea ever in Call of Duty history.
What if Call of Duty eventually decides to develop a virtual reality title? What if the first one is the American Revolution? What if the first mission is the Boston Tea Party, in virtual reality. I’m literally rolling in my seat, laughing hysterically at the thought. I want to talk about other reasons why this would make for a terrible Call of Duty game, but I just can’t stop thinking about the VR Boston Tea Party experience. I want to talk about how the guns would even be worse than those in the War of 1812. I want to talk about how it’d sell terribly in the British market. But I just can’t stop thinking about playing as a character, dressed up as a Native American, and throwing boxes of tea into a harbor. In Virtual Reality. Hilarious.
6 Mongol Invasion Of China
So when Call of Duty eventually decides to come out with five different games a year, instead of the usual one per year nowadays, they’re going to run out of ideas. What will happen is they will start to experiment and they will take us to places that make no sense for a Call of Duty video game.
The first will be the Mongol Invasion of China. It will have some sort of tie-in to the Matt Damon movie, The Great Wall, and will probably involve giant lizard people. And just like the movie, no one will care to experience it. This is the future of Call of Duty if they continue to venture down this cursed path before them. It’s inevitable.
5 Viking Invasion Of Ireland And England
The one after the Mongol Invasion of China will be about the Viking Invasion of Ireland and England. It will have boats and no guns. There will be spears and bow and arrows. The kill streaks will involve summoning the Norse Gods to do your bidding on the battlefield. It will be awful.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals in Old English that describe the history of these great viking warriors: at the battle of Lindisfarne in the year 793, there was excessive lightning, whirlwinds, and DRAGONS present on the battlefield. While a crossover of Call of Duty and Skyrim might sound like an interesting idea at first… it ultimately would be beyond terrible.
4 Cavemen
Okay, so then, inevitably, Call of Duty will start copying other successful franchises’ one-off experimental games. The first they will copy is Far Cry: Primal and they will make a game set in pre-historic caveman times.
Instead of calling in dogs on kill-streaks, you will call in a Tyrannosaurs Rex to obliterate the other tribes in your strange stick and rock warfare. It won’t even make an attempt to make any sense historically. Granted, it would take a lot for Call of Duty to get to this point of making games this disjointed, but who’s to say the other games on this list won’t get made? If that happens, this is the logical next step. Don’t believe me? Just you wait.
3 The Crusades
For Honor is either a good or bad video game, depending on who you talk to. I’m pretty sure the sales numbers were great, so it’s not hard to imagine that Call of Duty would copy a little bit of what they’ve managed to do also. They’re only making Call of Duty: WWII because of Battlefield 1’s success. C’mon, it’s obvious.
Nothing says “Call of Duty time period we don’t want to go to” like involving a religious war. There’d be no guns, just Catholicism and swords, and most people would just die of the Black Plague anyway. I can’t even begin to imagine what this game would look like, it just sounds so terrible. Don’t.. just don’t.
2 Some Terrible Alternate History
When Call of Duty really runs out of ideas, they’ll start to consider doing games set in alternate histories. It’s worked for movies, TV, novels, and comic books, but I promise you, it would never work for a Call of Duty game.
Why? Because they first thing they would do is probably a version of WWII where the Germans win. It’s obvious and there’s no way to argue that they won’t. However, there’s plenty of reasons to argue why it’s an abysmal idea. Nobody wants to play in that world, it does not sound fun at all.
1 World War II (again, again)
So now that Call of Duty is returning to World War II, it’s entirely possible that the next game in the series will be Call of Duty: WWII II– as in a sequel, still set in WWII, but, you know, again. They’ve done it a million times before, they’ll probably just do it again.
As much as I keep bashing hypothetical scenarios where Call of Duty gets a little bit experimental, I would honestly rather see any other game on this list than another WWII game after the upcoming Call of Duty: WWII. I don’t want to keep experiencing the same war games over and over again. I’m sure with a little bit of careful thought, the Call of Duty developers could come up with some new wars or time periods that would really make the fans happy.
All we want is something fresh and exciting at the end of the day. Just not too fresh and exciting.
