The Call of Duty Effect

I'm generally wary of the fanboy-ish objection of 'consolification'. It's a knee-jerk reaction to change that often doesn't take into account the sound underlying reasons for simplifying, refining or changing a particular mechanic when a game makes it's way onto a console. And I have sympathy for studios trying to churn out 3 SKUs to the same deadline, leading to perhaps a little more UI conformity between PC and console than is strictly sensible.

That said, I've definitely noticed a trend in big budget games over recent years, that I'll call the 'Call of Duty Effect'. It's not, strictly speaking, consolification; rather, it's the trend for ever more flagship franchises to ape the Call of Duty series in terms of blockbuster set pieces, to the detriment of core game play.

I recently finished the single player of Black Ops - prior to this I'd not played a CoD game since CoD 2 way back at the 360 release in 2005/6. The thing that really struck me about Black Ops was the sheer number and pervasiveness of scripted sequences. Almost nothing in this game is emergent; the game is characterised by the constant intervention of hands-off, scripted events, as well as tightly directed, highly linear game play sequences. Impressive, yes, and undoubtedly fun. And there's certainly a place for it in the industry. But the effect of the success of the CoD franchise is that other developers are looking to replicate it's success. And they seem to be doing this by trying to give their games a big budget, blockbuster feel through enormous 'set piece' events in the game.

Now, why is this a problem?

The reason it's a problem (for me) is that designers often struggle to turn the script / story into meaningful and consistent mechanics. So they inevitably resort to cutscenes, or specialised 'one-off' game mechanics (Star Destroyer battle in Force Unleashed, for instance) in order to achieve these set pieces. To give an example of game that suffers from this effect - Splinter Cell: Conviction. The game has numerous set pieces that break the stated selling point of the series - namely, stealth. There are fights with boss helicopters, foot chases, forced combat sequences. All in the name of big set piece showdowns. All good fun. For me, however, it breaks the implicit contract with the player who buys a Splinter Cell game on the basis of certain mechanics, and on the expectation that the game will achieve immersion by sticking to this core set of mechanics. Chaos Theory was the ultimate realisation of this style of play. Of course, designers have the right to take a franchise onto new ground, and to attempt to keep things fresh by adding new elements. But equally, consumers have their expectations of a franchise, and if they are not being met then the franchise can fail.

Halo is an example of a game that achieves a blockbuster feel without sacrificing emergent gameplay. It does by retaining player control through the majority of the game, having fewer cutscenes, and fewer novelty game play sections. The God of War series is another game that does things right. By introducing quick-time battles early and often, and by establishing them as a core mechanic, their repeated use for the incredible boss battles does not jar - there is no broken contract between designer and player. Expectations are met. Half Life 2 and Bioshock are another two fantastic examples of games that achieve blockbuster feel without sacrificing core mechanics.