Why is Call of Duty the “Jesus Christ” of shooters?

First off, it needs to be clarified what it is meant by the “Jesus Christ” of shooters. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is the figure of rebirth, immortality, and overall the creator and the most powerful. Jesus Christ came back from the dead to become the central figure of the largest religion in the world today. That being said, how do those traits apply to the franchise Call of Duty? The very first installment of the series, Call of Duty, introduced a realistic style of combat that was not very popular, and hardly available in any first person war game shooter, the second installment, Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360 introduced a fresh idea in story telling of WWII, and the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series, specifically Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, introduced a modern, realistic standard which eventually led to today’s day first person shooters.

Since the first installment in the series, Call of Duty had very innovative ideas in the sense that the player is joined by computer controlled players to bring a more war-like, realistic feel. This style of game play had not been seen in other popular shooters of its time. Big name shooters such as Medal of Honor mostly focused on solo missions. Wars are obviously not fought by conducting solo missions, so Call of Duty introduced the realistic feel of relying on computer controlled players to deliver the gamer an experience like no other shooter had done before. Other shooters such as Halo had already introduced computer controlled players to aid in combat, but compared to the abilities of Master Chief, the marines at your aid do not provide you with the reliability, and in turn, do not deliver the same effect as the first installment of the Call of Duty series did.

 
Following with Call of Duty 2, Activision set the standard for WWII shooters. The campaign was divided into three different stories, each depicting the side of the major countries that were part of the allied forces during WWII. This kind of storytelling brought out the feeling of seeing WWII from every standpoint. The game also reenacted battles from WWII, such as D-day, hill 400, and the assault of Pointe du Hoc. By doing this, and combining it with one of the best graphics of the day, along with extremely similar sounds for weapon firing, explosion, and movement, Activision was able to put the player right into the battle zone of WWII.

Years later Call of Duty delivered another game that set the standards for shooters with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The developers of Call of Duty 4: Modern attended live fire exercises at training facilities in California in order to simulate the sound effects of weapons and tanks firing. The developers also interviewed US Marines who had been in combat in order to get a closer feel for the emotions and attitudes of what it feels to be in combat. Combat veterans where also interviewed in and recruited to supervise motion capture sessions. This gave Call of Duty 4 the best and closest experience of being in an actual battle field to date, and made Call of Duty 4 arguably the best modern day shooter.

Finally, the franchise released arguably the most successful video game to the current date in which it was released. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold a grand total of 4.7 million copies in its first 24 hours of release. Of course, numbers is not what is being argued, content is. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 inspired other video game developers in such a way that it had not been seen before. It’s multi-player was so successful and extremely crowded that it pushed other videogames such as Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood to release an online multi-player version to the game, Bioshock 2 also released an online multi-player, as well as Ninja Gaiden 3. Franchises that had never released games with interactive online multi-player’s started experimenting in the face of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s multi-player success. This extreme success pushed future game developing to strive towards a better online multi-player experience, whether in the shooting genre or outside of it.

Overall, it can be seen that since it’s first installment, the Call of Duty franchise has introduced more innovative and realistic ways of war game shooters. Introducing computer controlled players to aid the gamer in missions gave it a realistic feel since wars are not fought alone. Call of Duty 2 allowed the player to experience WWII from three different standpoints, and allowed the player to relive major battles of the most intense war in human history. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare introduced an extremely realistic feel to the game since the US Marines cooperated with the developers in order to deliver the closest experience to a modern battle field. Finally, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 introduced arguably the most successful and inspiring multiplayer shooter, which paved the way and set the standard for future online multiplayer games in general. This makes Call of Duty the most powerful, and the most successful shooter franchise to date.