Call of Duty games have been trending in one direction, correlating very closely with profits, as Infinite Warfare outselling every game in 2016 despite the lowest review scores in the series since Call of Duty: Ghosts.
But the Call of Duty series once had both sky-high profits and victories in the court of public opinion, where as Infinite Warfare only had the latter. Lots of the negative reception of the game was angled toward the series' continued trip down the rabbit hole of rapid technology expansion, which culminated in the game literally traveling to space.
If their quarterly earnings report is anything by which to judge, Activision/Blizzard wants to have it all once more. While not officially announced yet, Sledgehammer games' 2017 Call of Duty is taking a different approach than the direction of the series would seem to demand. In the earnings report, Activision announced clearly that 2017's entry "will take Call of Duty back to its roots."
During the earnings report, Activision confirmed that Sledgehammer games would be developing the game and that the currently untitled sequel would bring "traditional combat" back to the franchise. According to CharlieIntel, it was said on an earnings report call that Infinite Warfare "was not the success we planned," and that "it's clear the space setting just didn't resonate."
All signs point to the next Call of Duty getting the Battlefield 1 treatment. BF1 notoriously zigged while the rest of the FPS market zagged, going back to World War 1 while Infinite Warfare, Overwatch and Titanfall 2 all went with more exotic, sci-fi focused gameplay, and it worked wonders for EA, which produced the best Battlefield game since Bad Company 2 hands down.
Call of Duty will not be following that model. This news was pre-empted by conflicting rumors that the next Call of Duty would go back to either Vietnam or World War 2 London. Regardless of which one you believe at this point, there is no room for exo suits in either of those settings.
It's amazing to think that, despite Infinite Warfare's incredible earnings in 2016, it could have been even higher. The next Call of Duty will try just that by taking their gameplay back to the ground.
