While Call of Duty continues to stand as a multiplayer juggernaut in the video game industry, one of my favorite modes has yet to return to the series since Modern Warfare 2 and that may be because publisher Activision and developer Sledgehammer Games were working on a full third-person Call of Duty title.
The game has been canceled, but this third-person Call of Duty would have been set heavily in Vietnam. Studio boss Glen Schofield told Game Informer that the game was under development for about half a year before production was halted.
"We were definitely getting some Dead Space moments," Schofield said. As the former head of Dead Space developers Visceral Games, that's not surprising considering the technical similarities between what would have been a third-person shooter and EA's space horror franchise. "I don't mean that from sci-fi, I mean [Vietnam] was scary… they didn't know if in the jungle there was a booby trap, or what was in those tunnels. And there were thousands of miles of tunnel underground. It was a hidden war."
Instead of finishing the product and releasing something new in the franchise, Sledgehammer had to shelve it and help Infinity Ward finish Modern Warfare 3. If I had to choose, I'd have gone with the third-person game and here's why:
Call of Duty's animations usually look buttery smooth. Playing in third-person allowed players to get a great view of their character and how well the soldier interacted with the environment. It did look a little silly strafing back and forth around cover, but the mode proved highly playable and I hope it returns some day, either in this unfinished project from Sledgehammer or in a multiplayer option.
