New Modern Warfare 3 Engine Is ‘Counter Productive’

All around the interwebs the other day, the universe was abuzz about the new Battlefield 3 gameplay footage. People look like people in the game and DICE and the Frostbite Engine 2 make the game look absolutely amazing. All of the details are there: dust flying in your face, rock chips coming off of a building, new lighting effects, and I’m guessing a pretty beefy sound engine as well.

Something needs to be said for the advancing arts and innovation EA and the group behind the Battlefield series have brought to the table. They continue to expand and perfect a destructible video game engine to bring the war into your living room. This is what video games are about. Immersing the player into the game, moving forward, advancing, and giving gamers a new fresh jolt of gaming bliss.

Sadly, the same can’t be said about Infinity Ward and the Modern Warfare series.

Recently over on Twitter, @hQWeedEater posed the question to @fourzerotwo (Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward, the studio behind Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2):

@LoyalXPatriot @fourzerotwo Someone just needs to spend the $ and construct a new engine for the CoD franchise… Ground up…

Well hey! That might not be a bad idea. Hell, with the kind of money Activision is throwing out everywhere, but mostly at the Call of Duty series, they could speed up the creation of said gaming engine. They could create something really unique for their upcoming game Modern Warfare 3. Give it a new edge. A new coat of polish.

Robert Bowling (who is quite active on Twittter I might add), responded with this tweet:

@hQWeedEater @LoyalXPatriot That would be counter productive. An engine takes years and years to develop and get right.

Now while I hate posting news and shit from Twitter - after all it’s just a huge community forum and things said in jest could be taken out of proportion - I figured I need to show this to you guys.

The reason I don’t like pulling news from Twitter is it’s pretty much useless. You never can tell if someone is serious or is someone has flipped on the sarcastic switch. It’s almost as if your buddy said in a conversation one day out in public: “Hey, I fucked your mom.” And a person at another table really thought he fucked your mom. That’s just crazy talk! I fucked your mom.

Now while Mr. Bowling is correct - it does take years to develop and perfect a game engine - it still wouldn’t be too bad of an idea to try something new for the Modern Warfare series.

EA and DICE have been working and perfecting the Frostbite Engine since 2008′s Battlefield: Bad Company release. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came later in March of 2010 - 2 years after the creation of the Frostbite engine. Needless to say, you can definitely see where the differences between Bad Company 1 and Bad Company 2 are: in their detail and amount of destruction. Now in 2011, 3 years after Bad Company 1, we’ll get our hands on the next iteration of the Frostbite engine with Battlefield 3.

To me, it just seems that EA and the Battlefield series has had a plan all along. A 10-year plan if you will, for its franchise. Activision and Modern Warfare? They just seem to be riding their cash cow Call of Duty into the ground now with the same old release of DLC map packs, hurriedly struggling to come up with another cool action sequence to put into the next game. So wait that’s it? Instead of running and jumping off of a building I run and jump off of a snowy cliff? Wow. What’s the difference? Sadly, simple-minded gamers who live and die on the Call of Duty series will continue to eat it up. That’s what they do.

We wonder why Black Ops and Modern Warfare never get nominated for awards at places like the Interactive Achievement Awards. Maybe it’s time Activision stepped up to the plate and actually made something great again. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved the shit out of Modern Warfare for it’s innovative pacing and storytelling techniques. I applaud Infinity Ward for redefining how we look at multi-player tiering and game unlocks in the second game. But I think it’s about time to step up and take things to the next level, because right now I see the franchise as a fireball filled popcorn movie of the summer. Fun? Yes. Innovative? No. Sells a shit-ton? Yes. In the same boat as movies like “Drive Angry” with Nicolas Cage? Yes.

With all of the ups and downs, disbanding of most of the members at Infinity Ward, it’s time to get back on track, make a plan, and move forward with Call of Duty. Otherwise we’ll just keep throwing that grenade into the hastily put together shanty town and seeing it stand like it was made out of concrete blocks. No thanks. I want to see my buddies buried in a pile of rubble.

[via CVG and Twitter]