There are rumors lately that Activision could be creating some kind of Call of Duty MMO. It probably won’t happen, but the idea caused beautiful images to spring forth from the darkest dungeons of my imagination, which house only the most terrible of musings, that I deem unfit to ever leave the confines of my own sinister mind.
But the truth is, a Call of Duty MMO would actually be pretty damn raw. Think about it – Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is by far one of the smoothest, most playable, most varied (yet very well balanced) FPS games available. And it looks god damn fantastic to boot.
It has an experience and leveling system already in place. It has all kinds of passive traits and abilities to unlock. It has a vast selection of short and long range weapons, projectile, melee, explosive, incendiary, grenades… And then extensions and improvements for those weapons, such as different scopes and sights, silencers, grenade launcher attachments, and grips, among other things.
It even has good and evil. You’ve got terrorists and counter-terrorists, sure. That much is obvious. But those broad groups can be broken down into factions. For the counter-terrorists you’ve got the British SAS, the American Marines. Those are the two forces present in COD4. But you could expand on it further. Every country has its force of elite badasses, and hell, you could just make up the terrorist groups.
Anybody who thinks this cannot work or simply isn’t possible is clearly wrong. This has all the building blocks of a very playable MMO. It has some serious potential. But if they do this, they absolutely cannot fuck it up. Just use the COD4 engine exactly as it is, so it looks the same, plays the same. Just give it the MMO twist. Give it a vast world, missions and side quests, make it non-linear and let players form their own squads to achieve certain goals. Terrorists could have to take some hostages and the SAS could be ordered to storm the building. I am merely scratching the surface. Something like this, done right, would be incredible. It would be intense. I sincerely hope something along these lines comes to fruition.
I definitely shouldn’t mention that the first thing I thought of when I imagined a Call of Duty MMO was calling in an air strike on a Basilisk, and the SAS having an epic fight against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Oh damn and the terrorists could like, release a Balrog in a crowded city and the SAS have to take it out. All wreckin’ up the streets of New York. All climbin’ the Chrysler building and spittin’ fire at the SAS while they snipe off of nearby buildings and rappel down things. Why would the SAS be in New York? Because they’re a lot fucking cooler than the Marines that’s why.