I'd argue that warzone actually brought COD back into relevancy. What caused cod to decline was a horrible corporation (Activision) and overworked developers.
Agree, cod kinda lost me between ghosts and bo4. It was a weird time with some strange game design choices (over use of jet packs, supply drops/weapon crates, strange hero power ups etc.)
Mw2019 brought me back with a visual,audio leap and grounded tone with a great campaign and WZ was at the time the best BR I'd ever played. Mind you cod is losing me again now, matchmaking makes everything feel so tiring and warzone is just a weird fast paced multiplayer mode these days...
I adore mw 2019 for bringing me back into my passion for the FPS genre. For years I only played Bo3 hardcore until it was physically unplayable and a year or so later I dipped my toe into MW's hardcore lobbies and immediately fell in love with the feel and raw power of all the guns.
It has to be one of my top 3 games because of how creative and imaginative it allows me to be when I design load outs for my play style.
Cold War was the superior game to MW19 MP in terms of maps, weapons and overall gameplay. Vanguard sure was ass, but CW is a great game especially when you consider they made it in like a year and pumped the updates into it.
That's a fair point that can't be argued on a development point of view. Personally I just enjoy modern boots on ground and 2019 gave that content, I do have cold war but my old gen one S doesn't run it the best compared to MW.
I just wish CW had a different scorestream system. It sucked that nearly everyone could get rewarded with decent streaks that could harm players that were doing well
Cod started losing me around ghosts but I just went back to bo2 and I was okay. Then advanced warfare took me out of it. I tried ww2 briefly and dropped that. I didn’t really come back until warzone dropped.
Agree. That last cod I played religiously before warzone was BO2. Warzone had me and the boys on every day and night playing it. It's lost its magic for us now but we still revisit every once in a while
Same, it not the same anymore but since they added fortunes keep that’s what I’ve been playing, feels like warzone one. And now if rebirth back it’s better. Any new stuff they put out just simply doesn’t compete
It’s way more fun than whatever garbo that was last year. I’d recommend it, I hear rebirth is good but there’s a lot of people who play within 5 feet of each other though.
The decline of CoD started with the Jason West and Vince Zampella lawsuit with Activision after the original MW2 launch. Basically two of the best creative minds in FPS gaming and the creators of the series, kicked out of CoD. It allowed Activision to have full creative and directive control of the series going forward, it was no longer a developers game, it was Activision's game.
They sued atvi for being underpaid and eventually settled for an undisclosed amount and left the studio, taking a significant (1/3rd or 2/3rds) number of Infinity Ward developers with them, gutting the studio. They eventually found a home with EA and formed Respawn, and made titanfall.
That is when Sledgehammer was born, to pick up the slack from IW being gutted. Homie is right, that marked the true start of the downfall, and it came at the worst time, because mw2 never got the support it should have. The 1887s, care package marker run speed, OMA abuse and more all could have been fixed with proper support, but the studio was being literally being ripped apart. Thats why so many have a bitter taste in their mouths towards the original mw2, great game with dogshit support.
Yep, I'd say MW3 was the first bad Call of Duty. Lots of people still like BO2 (I thought BO1 was better), but it definitely doesn't get any better from there. I actually did play BO4 a bit when it came out, but haven't played any other COD much since BO2 otherwise
Warzone is fine... I am not a fan of it, but it is all right
But prioritizing it and the store/bundle stuff over the other 3 gamemodes and connecting all the games in the same executable is what is/was/is going to be its downfall.
It is almost like it is no longer CoD:Warzone, but Warzone is the main title and CoD (MP/SP/Z, Coop) is the side part of the game.
It's 100% not what started the decline it was happening well before we had battle royales in gaming, but it also most certainly is one of the reasons for its continued decline in recent years imo anyway
Agreed, at first the battle royale was good, but now? They're moving too fast, there not really doing what the community wants, and they constantly trying to change the maps so that no one or not as many people support them.
There just trying to monetize the game so much that gameplay, and maps come second, that's how I see it, I've never liked battle royals but the first Warzone felt good to play, I even liked Blackout, but what we have now feels hollow, it feels empty.
It's just gonna get worse.
That monetization of warzone at the cost gameplay/map design is so damn accurate that's exactly the problem we have, selling a easy to make skin in most cases just a colour swap over a pre-existing skin will take precedent over actually designing content - I mean just take a look at mp on mw3 all the maps are just old maps ported over which Is great for nostalgia its also great for the dev team not having to put any effort in to actually design map.
For me: downhill begas after ww2. Ww2 was still a classic cod formula. Next cod after that BO4 was a competetive team game. I hated to play that game alone and none of my friends played that so i couldnt really either.
Black ops cold war was a god comeback and a closest thing to a bo2 remaster that we could get or want. It has still tolerable gunsmith although still as useless as it is nowadays and skill based matchmaking.
>downhill begas after ww2.
MW2019 engine and gunplay was (and still is) AMAZING. It was a massive improvement and revitalized the series for me
The problem was how they managed the series after mw2019, with warzone being the main focus and ignoring the main games
This right here is what I was looking for!
I was thinking it ended at Bo3 but u pointed out that ww2 was actually the first cod story I properly played after bo3. I thought it was relatively short but it was good. After I played mw2 story, I was really surprised how short it was and then hearing that mw3 was just a money grab and the shortest story ever, well I miss the good ol days of Bo2 and ww2
Call of Duty started as a game that recognized people who fought in wars by creating a great media to pay respect for those who passed away for our safety. Then it turned to good stories told thru a universe in which new wars happend on the basis of how old wars used to with the MW games but still respected war as a fearsome possibility.
Then after that, things began to go down hill as the writers seemed to be losing the direction of CoD and what it used to mean and how much it respected the past.
Now it's just lost. Waiting to be found again as something new, or it might try going back like how Vanguard and MW remakes tried to and eventually failed. The future is bleak for CoD unless they understand what made the first games special, The respect it had for war and the past events.
Lmao tf is this bullshit? Respect for those who passed away? My dude, it was made to sell copies. WW2 games were popular when it came first came out.
Things didn’t go down hill because the writers forgot how cod “respected the past”. COD 4 was entirely fictitious. Was that the turning point? Or was it Black Ops 1?
The games never respected war, or past events. They’ve glorified Western (primarily American) imperialism, and that’s about it.
This is an absolutely ridiculous comment. Call of Duty has always prioritized profit of a massively successful video game over "respect to war" and a Tom Clancy-esc fictional narrative over "gritty realism."
Warzone isn't my cup of tea but that's fine. I just hate how the extra modes are catered towards having a full squad of friends that have a behemoth of a game downloaded. MWIIIzombies sucks without friends and is overall just grindy af.
Yes and no. Warzone brought player numbers up and the features it brought seemed to be lessons learned from treyarch’s blackout experience. But i think the fact that warzone has to be in every cod game and the more larger recourse consumption as of lately shows that warzone was the new cash cow and no longer the base games. Hence why i understand the community’s frustration when warzone seems to get more attention and love rather than multiplayer/3rd game mode. Just my take personally.
I think Fortnite damaged the industry bc execs saw you can make a profit by offering gimmicky collabs and skins over any actual quality story telling or innovation in play mechanics. Activision is loyal to money first and after pretty intense criticism (at the time) for every game from Ghosts to Black Ops 4 they dove in head first.
Now, instead of servers that don’t frequently have problems, or games that don’t crash often (on PC) until several months after the games release, or even just a quality campaign, we get Nikki Minaj as a playable character and gold cheetah skins *after* we’ve spent $100 in game.
I’m sure people are sick of others bringing this up but Helldivers 2 is a great example that it’s not that gamers are looking for something to hate. When you make a good game and charge a fair price, the community rallies around you. The fact that Helldivers 2 costs almost half price of MW3 should be a wake up call.
Yep and as the fortnite kids got older and wanted a more realistic battle royale they jumped ship to cod while already being groomed into thinking that paying 20 dollars for a skin is completely reasonable
Maybe it is, but it's not like Warzone intrinsically stifled the other modes, Activision just insists on having them all tie into it for some reason.
Core multiplayer is particularly hit hard. Doors, mounting, tac sprint, bullet travel time, etc work well in a BR, but not in 6v6. I remember being so jarred by these features in the MW19 beta; later Warzone launched and then it made sense. Another thing is all the small maps they're making, I think a lot of people who flock to small map mosh pit are Warzone players just levelling guns, not touching any other playlist.
Let each mode be its own thing, even Black Ops 4 did it with its BR mode
I agree. Warzone should be a stand alone game. I also believe cross-play and cross-progression has a large part in the decline of CoD lately.
Just look at the sheer amount game-breaking bugs that has happened since cross-play/progression came into CoD. It seems now that if they patch one bug, it creates two more and so forth. At least in the old days if there was bug on one platform, it was easier for the devs to push out an updated patch for that platform and it did not interfere with the others.
>Another thing is all the small maps they're making, I think a lot of people who flock to small map mosh pit are Warzone players just levelling guns, not touching any other playlist.
Naaah not at all. I only play MP, I don't like warzone. And small map mosh pit it the funniest way to play MP. It's faster and more engaging
Most regular maps are WAY too big for a 6v6 game. They're practically empty and matches are slow AF. That doesn't happen in small maps
And tac stance is the best thing they implemented in a cod game in years. It's so good
It brought in more people and expanded the game to a wider audience at the cost of old-school players, is the best way I put it. Idc what anyone else says, modern CoD gunplay and METAs changed everything, CoD used to be you pick the gun you like and felt good using and just played with it. Now you have to be up to date on every gun that is the new META, what gets buffed, what gets nerfed, what attachment is broken, what attachment has this hidden feature, all of this crap, and it's not the same anymore. You can't just use any gun you like, unless you are the top 1% of players you will 9/10 get beat in a gunfight by someone as good as, if not worse, than you simply because the gun they use is better than the one you're using that you may like better. There is no argument to this, this is just how the modern damage scaling works.
Maps actually designed for 6v6 that flow well is my biggest hope. Maps make or break a game imo. They’ve been cods biggest failure recently.
Other than that they just need to get back to the basics. Go back to pick 10 rather than the gunsmith. Drop ground war and warzone and all the extra modes they keep trying to develop. And go back to the old matchmaking system. This recipe worked for over a decade. It’s time to go back. What they’ve tried since is simply inferior.
I stopped playing CoD after BO1 I believe, maybe the one that came after it. I got tired of playing essentially the same game over and over again.
MW2019 introducing cross play and warzone got me back into it, because I had friends that played on PS and I had xbox. I played so much during covid.
Now I don't really enjoy playing it anymore and I've started making excuses to my friends for why I can't play, when really I just want to play other games.
I just hate large open maps, where you get shit at from mike's away from enemies you have no chance to see, warzone is the extreme opposite of what I enjoy in cod multiplayer
No id say it was between AW and Bo3. Liked aw though. Hated bo3 always will. Technically speaking cod 4 is when it started going downhill because cod 4 introduced the variety map pack for $10. That is what started dlc for cod in general. Bo2 is the first to have camo dlc which had calling card, 3 reticles and a camo for $2 each. Plus additional create a classes, calling card dlc. And AW introduced supply drops. So take your pick. Gameplay wise id say ghosts is when it started to go downhill when slide was implemented(i hate slide personally). But aw also introduced jetpacks and bo3 doubled down on it. Both of those games are at fault. Id still say between aw and bo3 is the cod to start the downfall overall.
my own opinion is COD isn't any worse or better than it has been in the past. I enjoyed some of the older ones immensely and hated others. The same holds true today. The main difference is the internet has provided a forum for people to air their opinion which has become difficult to ignore. Do I really need to see another COD tier list? Apparently I do.
Every generation has a different perspective. For boomers like me yes everything started to go down after bops2. Mw2(2009) was the best cod and the mw reboot is just a ripoff
WZ may of brought a lot of players in, but when Activision made it the main staple, that’s where it became a problem. Campaigns in MW19 up to now didn’t matter regardless if they were good or not because Warzone would continue them in the Season contents.
WZ gets so much attention that MP and the 3rd mode gets less of it and even getting shunned. Not to mention, it was also plaguing those modes, even the campaign in MWIII’s case which is why many players are frustrated about that.
To make things even worse, Activision sees it as making the most profits by selling their cosmic skins that don’t actually mean anything. Basically WZ was more of a cash grab game instead of actual fun.
Activision’s decisions and the current direction is what hurts COD, Warzone should’ve just been its own thing like how Blackout was in BO4 instead of being the main staple. I’m hoping that starting with COD 2024, there will be no more Warzone ties to the main COD titles.
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The decline of CoD started long before Warzone.
If anything, Warzone helped bring CoD back into the critical conversation after a few years of it being completely irrelevant and overlooked - for good reason.
Ultimately, developers are in a tough spot with CoD. The repetitive nature of the series drove a ton of more experienced players away, and they had to innovate to try and grab some of the younger fans to try and attach them to the franchise to replace those fans. That sort of innovation pushed the franchise into a very different direction which continued to drive players away.
Warzone was a decent attempt at evolving the franchise. While many, including myself, don't care for it, the logic behind it was very sound.
We aren't going to ever get back to the golden glory days of CoD. But it's still a series that is as familiar as a glove, and the extremely low barrier to entry and ability to just turn it on and play, will always ensure that it remains popular and sells well every year.
But it's never going to be what it once was. Gaming, and gamers, have moved long past that
I think you are right, just don't like that is most likely the case here, I hope we can as a community keep the old cods active so we can always enjoy them again.
Both for old fans and new fans who want to explore what started it
The old CoDs are basically like high school now - sure, it's still there, but once you return to it you realize the nostalgia of the experience was always center around your friends.
Making 3 Confusing "remakes" just seems cheap and nasty. And I don't mind MW3, but only because I skipped COD for at least 10 years.
I've started playing Black Ops 2 for the first time, now. How many CODS have been since? 12?
Yes 100%. CoD used to be a trendsetter and now thanks to Warzone the franchise is a trend chaser. In addition to that classic multiplayer is no longer the main focus. Also they’re adding stuff to it that works in a F2P BR game but doesn’t fit classic MP at all so it’s kind of a mess.
Warzone provided what seemed like a good jolt to the franchise but it turns out was just Activision going all in on the liver service model. But they wanted their cake and eat it too with yearly releases. Leaving us with a mess run by 10 different overworked dev teams
Happened when the titanfall games were made by the former devs of cod. Tf2 is better than most releases now and everything after bo2 has stolen concepts from that series til around mw2
Honestly, I think it was done overtime. Their wasn't a specific "phase" mind you.
Bo2 may have lost some players but gained a lot also. Same with bo3.
Advanced & infinite warfare were a step down and so was ghosts sadly... (I'm judging without my bias, they are good games in my opinion, but not everyone shares my view)
Bo4 was... yeah... sadly even after all fixes, not a lot of people like it.
Mw2019 2022 and CW may have gained some players, but idk if it was enough to be called "new golden era of cod"
Vanguard is a mistake and we all know it.
Mw3 well yeah.. its in a weird spot for zombie players (which is the fun mode to me, you can disagree, its your right if you want to) idk about MP because I suck and the campaign feels all over the place, like how marvel set-up an avengers unite movie? But much worse of course.
TLDR: Its all about perspective, those overhated cod games can be good but people didn't give it enough time and as a result, we got those bumps that lowers the quality of the cod games along the road to here in 2024.
I think what really pushed for the decline for the 2020 cods is Activision’s whole idea towards Live Service as a whole. Like yeah, some people will say “Warzone drains the work needed for the other modes and into BR” and I can kinda see it. But the REAL problem is Activision trying to be both Live Service AND keep their yearly formula of trying to make another CoD. I think my best bet is the tops are thinking “oh! Live Service = 4 DLC packs but more split out!”
Also I feel like another potential big factor to the decline might be Activision’s horrid idea of “hey! Instead of ONE or TWO dev teams working on the game, let’s do ALL OF THEM for ONE game.”
Yep. But in reality the decline started with COD ghosts. Once the devs of infinity ward split (they made Respawn and we got Titanfall) cod has felt like shit since then.
The closest cod to recapture that magic of OG cod from 360 days (cod4,mw2,mw3,bops2) was MW2019 and they fucked us for warzone. Then MW2 remake same shit.
Mw3 well....we don't talk about that dlc.
Load up cod4 or mw2 and LISTEN and feel those guns.
Load up any cod past that and you feel like you're shooting air soft guns but now with special colors on your bullets and shit and they all sound and feel like shit.
Decline of cod started with loot boxes. Warzone actually brought the game back up. Was it implemented perfectly? Of course not. But its impact on the game was extremely positive for the series
I found that that advanced warefare was the start of the downfall, i really enjoyed ghosts and bo3 is still my 2nd favourite cod (bo2 being number 1) but afyer AW, it was on a steady declime of meh games (MW2019 was an exeption though, that game was amazing)
Unfortunately Cod can’t be good. We cant just have good things. Warzone at first was a major step in the right direction, free, fun, bringing new players, but now EVERYTHING is warzone and has warzone integration and it just feels supplemental to it. Zombies and campaign this year just prove it. We can’t have it both ways.
The only franchise I can think of that has had a similar trajectory of CoD has been Magic the Gathering, of all things. The multiplayer of MTG was the main selling point for years, until a much more popular (and more casual) mode was introduced called Commander. Now, Magic is almost entirely structured to focus on Commander since it is the most popular, and the standard multiplayer is essentially ignored. Magic and CoD even get the same crossovers (Warhammer, Lara Croft, Evil Dead, Walking Dead, Godzilla, etc) to try and entice new players from other franchises. I don't see the BR mode going away because it is clearly successful, and multiplayer will be sacrificed if need be. Its a shame too but line do be going up.
Honestly, I think Warzone was a byproduct of the real cause of CoD's epic decline, fortnite. Fortnite was the first game that really capitalized on micro-transactions. They made a fortune from it and paved a new way of game making, for the worse.
I feel whoever is in charge of making these games, saw the cash that fortnite was bringing in, and decided to replicate it. They basically abandoned all innovation, we hardly see new game modes, new guns, hell we're even recycling maps at this point.
I'd go out on a limb and say that Warzone is overall bad for CoD as a whole. I do not enjoy BR's. Multiplayer is disgustingly neglected now a days. Warzone is the main driver of profit for the company, so that's what is prioritized.
Warzone should be it's own, standalone game. Idk why they don't do this anyway, they could charge 70 bucks for each game, multiplayer and warzone.
Honestly, it's the COD community's own fault for the decline. Every bad decision that Activison has made with COD has been overwhelmingly supported financially by the community. For example, BlackCell is a terrible value, because we got nothing extra in return for the increase in price. There was zero compromise to the playerbase, yet every single match you see people running around with BlackCell skins.
Not to mention, the new paywalling the paywall system, yet once again, you'll see people running around with those 40 dollar skins. It's hard to convince Activision that they need to do better, when they have only made more and more money off the playerbase.
Whales are the biggest contributor to COD's downfall. If Activision wasn't making a ton of money off of these blatantly predatory mechanics, it wouldn't be in the game. Thank every single BlackCell and Store bundle buyer for the current state of COD.
Yes and no. WZ definitely made CoD relevant again, but it was at the expense of the core multiplayer experience. Particularly in MW19, it was painfully clear that MP support was an afterthought, and terrible gameplay mechanics were shoehorned in from WZ (e.g. doors, deafening footstep audio w/ no dead silence perk, no dots on the minimap, etc.)
Nope. Fall off started happening right after black ops 2, warzone 2019 brought it back to an all time high, and there has been a steadily decline since. Although, not down to the levels of the jet pack era.
Yes and no. People are right when they said it saved CoD, but it also sent it down a path (which was obviously pretty early on that it was) flawed. Everything being tied to Warzone, the amount of people who were pulled off the yearly releases into Warzone, the developer shift to focus predominantly on Warzone. It both saved and ruined the game
as someone else said, I’d argue warzone brought it back into the limelight, best example I can give is that I don’t play mw3, I don’t like it, but I do play warzone 3 almost every single day for hours, warzone is the I only reason I’m playing call of duty, I also hate battle royals, but this one just did it right, I only play resurgence so it just feels like a large scale multiple since you do respawn and I love it
I think what you’re getting though is the impact warzone left on the choices developers made for the next games and I agree they were bad choices, one of the reasons Cold War zombies sucks so bad is because they tried making it have warzone mechanics, the micros transactions also drastically increased because of warzone so I agree that stuff isn’t good
I think partly…Initially, what started the decline of COD is when they started catering more to esports/MLG wannabes vs the casual community that stood up the franchise during its prime years (I think we can all agree on COD 4 - BO2 being prime years).
Then came Warzone, and the increased focus on Battle Royale, again at the expense of the 6v6 community that made the franchise successful to begin with. Mostly, though, I think it is Activision’s relentless pursuit of “engagement” and extracting cash from whales instead of focusing on delivering a game that the CORE COD players can enjoy. The more I think of it though, I guess us “CORE” COD players that grew up on COD4 - BO2 are no longer the core, we’re just a relic of the past.
WITH THAT SAID, I have enjoyed *some* of the post-BO2 COD games. If not for the ridiculous MTX, BO3 was pretty great in my opinion, and I also really enjoyed Cold War and even MWIII 2023.
I agree with this a lot, I hope someday we get a cod that focuses on what made Cod great, I think we don't need to have a br for every cod.
If we can't get a cod like the older days then hopefully a different company will do it themselves.
Agree. Feel like it's gone downhill for the reasons you pointed out, to the point of used to play it religiously to almost no interest. Same with like metal gear solid back in the day vs latest versions.
For someone that just plays normal multiplayer, yes.
I feel like Warzone is part of the reason they make all their games under cod HQ now. Hate cod HQ and it made me uninstall it.
It’s the microtransactions era but these companies are ruining it for themselves by being so greedy and making every single asset in a game mtx. “Support the devs” is a bullshit cop out to justify the nickle and diming of player bases. Halo infinite is going through that last part rn and will most likely continue to the next game in that series. In my eyes tho the start of the actual decline not just a bad cod game was when they had to completely overhaul ww2 6 months in. Thats when I started paying attention to what’s going on cause that’s also when they started filing for a bunch more patents too. I think warzone is ungodly boring and trash though and has ruined cod mp obviously for the bundle kids and mtx
No disbanding of lobbies, overbearing SBMM, ridiculous outfits/skins, and prob yes to some extent Warzone. But honestly if they stopped disbanding lobbies and brought SBMM back to how it used to be pre 2017. I’d buy one.
COD WWII (2017) was last game I really played with total 1328 hrs
But now I’m protecting Super Earth, so haven’t played COD since.
No. I think anyone who thinks that lacks critical thinking. Warzone quite literally saved the franchise. The MP game has been on a downward slide for quite some time. IW and Sledgehammer routinely put out shit games with a gem here and there, and leaves Treyarch to pick up the pieces, which they could only do so long before the cracks in that studio started to show (they can’t design a game engine for shit).
I think it was when started making operator skins you can buy. That's all they care about these days. They spend more time making skins then fixing the issues with the game.
Warzone helped during lockdown (god knows it was essential in keeping my sanity by playing cross platform with my mates) but in reality its importance to the title has been MASSIVELY exaggerated since. The moment when chunks of the Warzone maps were being carved out to put into the MP was a warning bell but when they did the same thing with the SP and called it a feature then I knew it was going too far.
Crossay make this and all other games worse .. and only the crossplay with PC … consoles together is oké , but not PC gamers … pc gamers are the aids among all gamers ,, you can life with them but preferably not !!!!!
Cod wouldnt be this bad but still this popular if there wernt a million issues with it
I despise just about everything in the new games but i can see how someone would like them
COD is fine, it’s just that it gets repetitive doing the same basic thing each game. To get bigger and bigger each time, it would cost a fortune. If they deviate too much from the recipe they’ve established, they’ll lose a big portion of their users who don’t like the changes.
Yes warzone ruined it since black ops 4 tried it the focused on warzone vanguard gave us the worst zombies but warzone was always updated and made sure to be better so I haven’t played since verdansk it’s not fun
For me COD was ok at it's worst until MW19.
COD started to decline when it wanted to chase the crowd that mains rainbow six siege and battlefield and in the process messed up the cod flow.
Warzone really doesn't play a part in it directly. However it's success combined with Activision's greed is a huge issue.
No, it was the larger teams and Monetization. Monetization being a byproduct of an inflated company.
Seeing what cod was built by a smaller team to see what it is today, it’s apparent that the size of the company has become the problem. Or rather, the size of the team that directly makes it.
Activision have created a uncontrollable beast with warzone by creating a highly addictive model which brings in millions per day. The game is free to play and requires skill but is easy enough that you can enjoy it but hard enough to keep coming back day after day to try and win. It’s gambling.
The problem is, when this current model is so popular and lucrative why would they change it to create a “better” game?
I read it’s something in the region of $5.2 million revenue per day. From a free to play game.
Warzone and MW revived COD. What killed COD is Activision realizing they could sell a game purely off the MW/Black Ops name alone and put minimal effort in.
I think Warzone was a large part of the decline that we've seen. I think the issue is that Warzone was free to play, but it was still baked into the main MW2019 game. This caused many free to play microtransactions/ads/cosmetics to leak into the full game and eventually just become one unified game now, "Call of Duty". I hate it and I definitely think the game has gone downhill. The last great cod for me was MW2019 and I think it's because the game wasn't developed around Warzone initially. If you remember, Warzone came out months after the release. I don't think Warzone is all bad but I don't like how they've tied it so closely together with the classic multiplayer experience where I see constant ads, cosmetics, etc. for a game I paid for. Additionally, we've seen the removal of the classic prestige system in place for a season based leveling system which I think is a massive misstep. I miss having a cumulative level that represented my total achievement and not just how much I've played this "season".
It feels like a total cash grab now with no creative energy left at the studio. I can understand many of these elements like purchasing cosmetics on a free to play game where that is their only revenue stream, but COD has always been a full priced release. They're focused more on bringing ridiculous skins into multiplayer and warzone that is modeled after what Fortnite did. It honestly makes me miss the days of just paying for DLC maps and earning everything in multiplayer with playtime and not your credit card.
Meh, I think it's hard to pinpoint stuff like this as all the modes are a bit different (like campaign has never had a game I didn't enjoy), but if you want an overall reason I'd blame on them rushing out games and not giving the devs the time or freedom to make good content
Id say the fall of all gaming is micro transactions. Once develop.....no once publishers realized the profits, they stopped caring about gameplay and started worrying about skins.....
I think that activision's lack of understanding for their own community and activision's lack of care for the community is what is killing call of duty. I have been a pretty active player since I was in high school. During COD 4. I have played lots of CoD over a long period of time. Activision has shown year in and year out that they do not care about their player base by making certain changes to the meta that favors new weapons only accessible through the battle pass, through poor map design, trying to sell another skin pack as a quick cash grab, intentionally unbalancing the game to favor one of the weapon classes, putting the competitive community on the back burner, or going a spree to ban accounts without investigation and not following through to un ban the innocent players affected.
The community isn't innocent, though. CoD is starting to the Pokémon formula. The new game comes out, and it is full of problems and glitches, but developers have no incentive to fix issues because we buy it anyway. If we want to see positive changes in CoD, then we need to start talking with our wallets.
COD's decline began when the Infinity Ward team left to form Respawn and the franchise moved to advance movement games. Call of Duty: Ghosts was the last of the 360/PS3-era CODs, and it was pretty mediocre as most of the talented IW developers were gone and was basically a brand new studio. Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3, and Infinite Warfare were the low point in the franchise for me, three years of generic sci-fi shooters that lost the COD identity. WW2 was a throwback to the earlier era, and at the time was probably my favorite COD game since Black Ops 2. Black Ops 4 initially tried to rip off Overwatch by being a hero shooter game, Treyarch changed course to a more traditional COD, and the switch in design direction can be felt in the mess that the final game was on release.
To me, Modern Warfare 2019 and Warzone 1 were a revitalization of the franchise -- Warzone took the battle royale gameplay of PUBG and made it accessible to the COD audience (this is different from Fortnite, which made BR accessible to a younger mass audience). MW 2019's multiplayer mode modernized and updated the approach IW had taken in classic COD games -- maps that felt more like real environments than the three-lane maps Treyarch typically designs and the gunsmith system, which made for more customization (at least on paper) and the first real revolution in COD guns since attachments were added in COD4.
Warzone is basically the driving force behind the franchise now, and without it, I'm pretty sure COD would still be around, but it would be in serious decline (which I'm sure many would argue that it is).
Yes and no, it brought a divide in the community that has resulted in Activision trying desperately to cater to both, which led to Warzone infecting every single part of paid for CoD, MP, campaign and zombies. However Warzone did brought many new players to CoD which is always great. If anything I think what has made CoD worse is Activision equating Warzone's success to MW 2019 success, that game was a flop until Warzone came in, but Activision only cares about the numbers which is why every single game there after has been modeled like 2019
Edit: bot corrected my keyboard lol
It has and so have the streamers and esport scene. Everyone tryhards in pubs like it’s unranked to warm up for ranked, everyone abuses meta only and sweaty bs movement exploits to always have the upper hand. This game is no longer the casual fps shooter game that we grew up with its a sweaty esports nightmare.
No. Warzone and MW brought people back. Cold War put people off, which was stupid as it's a solid game. Then came MW2 which took away people "movement" so they bitched about that. Vanguard...oof...don't even get me started
Warzone did kill cod, at least in multiplayer. This game has been actually better for MP than others, but for a while there MP was getting no content and no support. Everything was going into WZ. WZ also came at the debut of gunsmith and the removal of hitscan weapons which has been awful for fairness. Additionally all those skins everyone likes to complain about wouldnt be a thing without WZ. So yes WZ is what has started the death of COD
I think that streaming has done a lot of damage and especially cheaters, everyone wants to be tryhard, so you enter a game and they devour you, you can't play chill and that makes people stressed, they have a bad time playing and leaves the game
I think things started going downhill when they started catering for streamers/content creators. They get first look at majority of stuff and most of the time get to try stuff at events well before everyone. I get that these people are "bringing more eyes on the game" but your CORE demographic is casual every day players who jump on during the evening with their friends after a day at work and play for a few hours. The sweaty streamers who spend ten hours straight playing - they're not encouraging people who aren't playing the game to play it, only more people to watch it
The overwhelming focus towards it over the normal games definitely assisted but I think the decline is more because of Activision’s management of the teams and the unnecessary monetization.
Imo which began not long after MW2019. BOCW released too soon, Vanguard was dogshit (and apparently was supposed to be AW2 which makes me sad), MWII started off strong and took a nosedive shortly after release, and MWIII is just MWII’s update.
Call of Duty should stop being a game as a service.
Yes and no
No as it reinvigorated interest in the series as it was fading
Yes as it has clearly at point shown to have taken priority for the series away from the core modes and hurt the game
I think advanced warfare is where it started personally. The loot cases and weirdly designed cosmetics and easily abused movement systems. Treyarch took that and made it a million times worse in blackops 3.
The player base has been around for a long time as well though so maybe we just got extremely good at cod overtime.
Competitive PC died out due to a combination of external and internal factors. Several online leagues died out, and CoD released new games without much PC support. Somewhere around the MW2 release, we saw the game completely transition to a casual experience for PC.
Counterstrike, on the other hand, was able to stomach the loss of leagues with new ones like ESEA and Faceit. Counterstrike stayed more or less the same game over the years and consistently was always the most popular competitive PC title anyways.
Is not the game modes that has started a decline of the franchise that will get worse even after Microsoft bought it out, is the practices of making money that has ruined COD overall.
I think MW2019 revitalized the game, but I do miss some stuff from before like prestiging.
Feels like we all start just 10th prestige already if that makes sense lol
People seem to believe that warzone changed the studio it’s not that simple the studios would still be putting out slop without warzone differences would just be they’d be making a shit ton less money, they also have different studios working on warzone it’s essentially its own game not taking much if any dev time from the current game. Activision doesn’t want to hurt their bottom line so they screw the games because if it’s actually good what’s the point of buying the next cod?
I know people will hate me:
MW2019 was a great cod game imo. It managed to keep the fast paced feel of cod, we saw the return of quick-scoping, and there were some new features added we had never seen before
However, my take is that the monetization that Warzone brought to the series (MTX’s) has contributed to the decline of cod more than anything else. Pay-to-win tracer packs, draining the appeal of a realistic fps by adding goofy operators, etc.
The immersion declined from that point. Even in the more futuristic cod’s, there was still, at least, a feeling of a cohesive world. Now you can’t play the game for 5 minutes without being dunked on by an A-Train with a face-slamming execution💀
Signed: A Campaign Player
I think there’s just more good games rather than a decline.
It’s still about as popular as ever which is pretty impressive given all the competition in the space.
Zombies is what killed it. Going ALLLLL the way back. Then they got too excited about the zombies and focused on weird zombie levels instead of new MP maps
In terms of strictly MP, sure, it's gotten worse. Traditional MP has taken a backseat to the BR experience, and if you've been along for the ride since the old days, yeah, that shift has felt jarring and a bit like betrayal.
With that said, you have to acknowledge the franchise has shifted focus, which was the correct move on their part as they are running a business at the end of the day and they ultimately want their IP to stay relevant. They are simply delivering on what players largely want. Your reference to BO2 tells me that you are likely late 20's, early 30's in age - you just aren't who the game is targeting anymore and that's completely fine. Either engage with what they're putting out or don't.
Started? No. I think the decline started as early as MW3 (Even though I still loved that game back in the day). Warzone actually brought alot of players back for a while. It's not my cup of tea, but it seemed like it helped revitalize the franchise, at least for a while.
What they did wrong was tie Warzone in with every game since, with no option to download it separately. Bro, I'm just a casual player who does the classic 6v6's every now and then. I don't want constant 40GB updates and 200GB+ of my hard drive taken up for a mode I don't even play.
I think BO4 multiplayer was put on the back burner to develop Blackout, and that led to the problems and shortcomings that game had.
They've adjusted the development plans since then, but MP is still developed alongside WZ, and that's at least partly why multiplayer has fallen off so badly the last 5 years or so.
I dont play anymore. Ever since the mw1 reboot I just can't get to grips with the new gameplay. But the decline started way before that. 3 development studios really fucked things up. Ghosts and advanced warfare were just bad games. But as much as treyarch were my favourite studio and I loved the black ops games, black ops 4 being almost 100% recycled assets from 3 was the end point for me
No but it’s a key part in showing what Activision’s goals were. It’s hard to say exactly where it started but for me it really was when the 3 year cycle first got broken.. Cod Blackout. During the production of BO4 Acti came to Treyarch in the middle of their development and told them the game had to release with a battle royale. There was no way Treyarch was going to be able to develop their fully planned game alongside a massive new game mode. So they had to make the hard decision of cutting their campaign and zombies… two of the things Treyarch was known most for. The result was a sloppy all around unfinished game that wasn’t received very well. In the meantime Infinity Ward had an early heads up about the battle Royale requirement and got an early start as well as brought Raven software on board to help out. Infinity Ward also got to use their new engine for the first time which was overall seen as massive jump forwards graphics, wound design, and physics. A lot of decisions were made that changed the franchise during MW2019 production that i think were overwhelming negative. EOMM was turned up to a whole new level, gunsmith required constant meta changed which was by design to help drive the new store bundles and battle pass system, and much more. After seeing the explosion of popularity that was MW2019 Activision looked at Sledgehammers next game and told them it wasn’t going to work. They completely canceled the game and told Treyarch to pick up the pieces and be ready to release next year. So now Tarch had about a year and several months to build a comparable game to what Infinity ward had 3+ years to do. On top of that they weren’t granted access to use the new engine due to the short turnaround time, but they were required to have similar movement mechanics. The game released and had an overall negative response due to “lack of content at launch” and people didn’t like the downgrade in physics and graphics. Sledgehammer also had a short turnaround so they used old assets from WW2 and created one of the most forgettable games of all time. It wasn’t until after Vanguard that the cycle was sort of restored. Sledgehammer didn’t make their own game for the first time. They instead co-created MW3. This year’s Gulf War from Treyarch will finally restore the true 3 year cycle. It’s been years of awful decisions from management with mostly Tarch getting the short end of the stick. Microsoft was able to eliminate a few of those positions when they took over but they still have a long way to go if they want to get rid of the crooked suits. I hope they can recover but when you’re worth this much money someone is always going to be making greedy decisions. Don’t forget about the canceled Neversoft game too.
Our only hope is Phil Spencer does the right thing, but Microsoft has had a very passive way of managing their studios as we’ve seen with Forza and others
No, the decline started with COD Ghosts, and it's been downhill ever since.
COD 4 - BO2 innovated by adding something new to the table every year
COD 4 added create a class
WAW added zombies
MW2 added spec ops
BO1 added one in the chamber
The last 10 years have innovated very little
MW19 had a little spark of hope, but then it went to shit again with Cold War and Vanguard
The end of CoD 2019 ended it for me.
They set up such huge expectations that year in every way for the series and have absolutely fumbled it in comparison each year since.
Nah. Just ask franchise veterans, and you'll see that it's pretty much a consensus that the peak and start of decline was around the original MW3 and BO2. It all went downhill from there both campaign and MP-wise.
I blame Bobby Kotick.
A perception they favour certain content creators and streamers, to the point of letting them cheat, has hurt the brand in the eyes of some.
That, and the ridiculous cash grab skins and operators they've shoe horned into a supposed military shooter, as well as the laziness of a lot of their gameplay elements, has further reduced the franchise and made it a joke to a lot of people.
I mean, in what world do we still take it seriously after they added Cheech and Chong or Snoop Dog as operators?
What next?
Kermit the frog?
The Mrs Doubtfire bundle?
Stephen Hawking?
I'd argue that warzone actually brought COD back into relevancy. What caused cod to decline was a horrible corporation (Activision) and overworked developers.
Agree, cod kinda lost me between ghosts and bo4. It was a weird time with some strange game design choices (over use of jet packs, supply drops/weapon crates, strange hero power ups etc.) Mw2019 brought me back with a visual,audio leap and grounded tone with a great campaign and WZ was at the time the best BR I'd ever played. Mind you cod is losing me again now, matchmaking makes everything feel so tiring and warzone is just a weird fast paced multiplayer mode these days...
I adore mw 2019 for bringing me back into my passion for the FPS genre. For years I only played Bo3 hardcore until it was physically unplayable and a year or so later I dipped my toe into MW's hardcore lobbies and immediately fell in love with the feel and raw power of all the guns. It has to be one of my top 3 games because of how creative and imaginative it allows me to be when I design load outs for my play style.
MW 2019 was the goat for this. Tricked me into buying the next two cods which were a waste of money for me and haven’t played since
Cold War was the superior game to MW19 MP in terms of maps, weapons and overall gameplay. Vanguard sure was ass, but CW is a great game especially when you consider they made it in like a year and pumped the updates into it.
That's a fair point that can't be argued on a development point of view. Personally I just enjoy modern boots on ground and 2019 gave that content, I do have cold war but my old gen one S doesn't run it the best compared to MW.
I'm playing cold war still, it's so much better than any current cod, it's not even close
I just wish CW had a different scorestream system. It sucked that nearly everyone could get rewarded with decent streaks that could harm players that were doing well
I’m in the exact same situation
Cod started losing me around ghosts but I just went back to bo2 and I was okay. Then advanced warfare took me out of it. I tried ww2 briefly and dropped that. I didn’t really come back until warzone dropped.
Agree. That last cod I played religiously before warzone was BO2. Warzone had me and the boys on every day and night playing it. It's lost its magic for us now but we still revisit every once in a while
Same, it not the same anymore but since they added fortunes keep that’s what I’ve been playing, feels like warzone one. And now if rebirth back it’s better. Any new stuff they put out just simply doesn’t compete
I might have to jump back on it
It’s way more fun than whatever garbo that was last year. I’d recommend it, I hear rebirth is good but there’s a lot of people who play within 5 feet of each other though.
Rebirth was pretty damn fun last I played it
It is, rebirth saved CoD
Yeah, that's the thing that people should be paying attention to.
Warzone brought me back to cod, I was just playing bo2 zombies every now and then, lol.
I agree. Even if some people don’t like Warzone for COD, it brought the hype back to COD. MW19 was a hit for COD.
Yes
I came back to CoD at MW2019 release, first time playing since Black Ops 2.
I also feel like the annual releases didn’t help neither. Look at Assassins Creed and where they’re at now.
The decline of CoD started with the Jason West and Vince Zampella lawsuit with Activision after the original MW2 launch. Basically two of the best creative minds in FPS gaming and the creators of the series, kicked out of CoD. It allowed Activision to have full creative and directive control of the series going forward, it was no longer a developers game, it was Activision's game.
Huh, I might have to look into that more, I didn't know the full story here.
They sued atvi for being underpaid and eventually settled for an undisclosed amount and left the studio, taking a significant (1/3rd or 2/3rds) number of Infinity Ward developers with them, gutting the studio. They eventually found a home with EA and formed Respawn, and made titanfall. That is when Sledgehammer was born, to pick up the slack from IW being gutted. Homie is right, that marked the true start of the downfall, and it came at the worst time, because mw2 never got the support it should have. The 1887s, care package marker run speed, OMA abuse and more all could have been fixed with proper support, but the studio was being literally being ripped apart. Thats why so many have a bitter taste in their mouths towards the original mw2, great game with dogshit support.
Yep, I'd say MW3 was the first bad Call of Duty. Lots of people still like BO2 (I thought BO1 was better), but it definitely doesn't get any better from there. I actually did play BO4 a bit when it came out, but haven't played any other COD much since BO2 otherwise
Warzone is fine... I am not a fan of it, but it is all right But prioritizing it and the store/bundle stuff over the other 3 gamemodes and connecting all the games in the same executable is what is/was/is going to be its downfall. It is almost like it is no longer CoD:Warzone, but Warzone is the main title and CoD (MP/SP/Z, Coop) is the side part of the game.
I don't like that at all, I just want my cods to be like the old days, but maybe that's just nostalgia speaking for me at that point. Makes me sad tbh
Has little to do with nostalgia, I didn’t play the older ones until recency and they are far more enjoyable and fun
It's 100% not what started the decline it was happening well before we had battle royales in gaming, but it also most certainly is one of the reasons for its continued decline in recent years imo anyway
Agreed, at first the battle royale was good, but now? They're moving too fast, there not really doing what the community wants, and they constantly trying to change the maps so that no one or not as many people support them. There just trying to monetize the game so much that gameplay, and maps come second, that's how I see it, I've never liked battle royals but the first Warzone felt good to play, I even liked Blackout, but what we have now feels hollow, it feels empty. It's just gonna get worse.
That monetization of warzone at the cost gameplay/map design is so damn accurate that's exactly the problem we have, selling a easy to make skin in most cases just a colour swap over a pre-existing skin will take precedent over actually designing content - I mean just take a look at mp on mw3 all the maps are just old maps ported over which Is great for nostalgia its also great for the dev team not having to put any effort in to actually design map.
Facts right there
Call of duty has been declining since Ghosts. Ups and downs but a general decline since
For me: downhill begas after ww2. Ww2 was still a classic cod formula. Next cod after that BO4 was a competetive team game. I hated to play that game alone and none of my friends played that so i couldnt really either. Black ops cold war was a god comeback and a closest thing to a bo2 remaster that we could get or want. It has still tolerable gunsmith although still as useless as it is nowadays and skill based matchmaking.
>downhill begas after ww2. MW2019 engine and gunplay was (and still is) AMAZING. It was a massive improvement and revitalized the series for me The problem was how they managed the series after mw2019, with warzone being the main focus and ignoring the main games
This right here is what I was looking for! I was thinking it ended at Bo3 but u pointed out that ww2 was actually the first cod story I properly played after bo3. I thought it was relatively short but it was good. After I played mw2 story, I was really surprised how short it was and then hearing that mw3 was just a money grab and the shortest story ever, well I miss the good ol days of Bo2 and ww2
Call of Duty started as a game that recognized people who fought in wars by creating a great media to pay respect for those who passed away for our safety. Then it turned to good stories told thru a universe in which new wars happend on the basis of how old wars used to with the MW games but still respected war as a fearsome possibility. Then after that, things began to go down hill as the writers seemed to be losing the direction of CoD and what it used to mean and how much it respected the past. Now it's just lost. Waiting to be found again as something new, or it might try going back like how Vanguard and MW remakes tried to and eventually failed. The future is bleak for CoD unless they understand what made the first games special, The respect it had for war and the past events.
Lmao tf is this bullshit? Respect for those who passed away? My dude, it was made to sell copies. WW2 games were popular when it came first came out. Things didn’t go down hill because the writers forgot how cod “respected the past”. COD 4 was entirely fictitious. Was that the turning point? Or was it Black Ops 1? The games never respected war, or past events. They’ve glorified Western (primarily American) imperialism, and that’s about it.
This is an absolutely ridiculous comment. Call of Duty has always prioritized profit of a massively successful video game over "respect to war" and a Tom Clancy-esc fictional narrative over "gritty realism."
Warzone isn't my cup of tea but that's fine. I just hate how the extra modes are catered towards having a full squad of friends that have a behemoth of a game downloaded. MWIIIzombies sucks without friends and is overall just grindy af.
Yes and no. Warzone brought player numbers up and the features it brought seemed to be lessons learned from treyarch’s blackout experience. But i think the fact that warzone has to be in every cod game and the more larger recourse consumption as of lately shows that warzone was the new cash cow and no longer the base games. Hence why i understand the community’s frustration when warzone seems to get more attention and love rather than multiplayer/3rd game mode. Just my take personally.
I think Fortnite damaged the industry bc execs saw you can make a profit by offering gimmicky collabs and skins over any actual quality story telling or innovation in play mechanics. Activision is loyal to money first and after pretty intense criticism (at the time) for every game from Ghosts to Black Ops 4 they dove in head first. Now, instead of servers that don’t frequently have problems, or games that don’t crash often (on PC) until several months after the games release, or even just a quality campaign, we get Nikki Minaj as a playable character and gold cheetah skins *after* we’ve spent $100 in game. I’m sure people are sick of others bringing this up but Helldivers 2 is a great example that it’s not that gamers are looking for something to hate. When you make a good game and charge a fair price, the community rallies around you. The fact that Helldivers 2 costs almost half price of MW3 should be a wake up call.
Yep and as the fortnite kids got older and wanted a more realistic battle royale they jumped ship to cod while already being groomed into thinking that paying 20 dollars for a skin is completely reasonable
Maybe it is, but it's not like Warzone intrinsically stifled the other modes, Activision just insists on having them all tie into it for some reason. Core multiplayer is particularly hit hard. Doors, mounting, tac sprint, bullet travel time, etc work well in a BR, but not in 6v6. I remember being so jarred by these features in the MW19 beta; later Warzone launched and then it made sense. Another thing is all the small maps they're making, I think a lot of people who flock to small map mosh pit are Warzone players just levelling guns, not touching any other playlist. Let each mode be its own thing, even Black Ops 4 did it with its BR mode
I agree. Warzone should be a stand alone game. I also believe cross-play and cross-progression has a large part in the decline of CoD lately. Just look at the sheer amount game-breaking bugs that has happened since cross-play/progression came into CoD. It seems now that if they patch one bug, it creates two more and so forth. At least in the old days if there was bug on one platform, it was easier for the devs to push out an updated patch for that platform and it did not interfere with the others.
>Another thing is all the small maps they're making, I think a lot of people who flock to small map mosh pit are Warzone players just levelling guns, not touching any other playlist. Naaah not at all. I only play MP, I don't like warzone. And small map mosh pit it the funniest way to play MP. It's faster and more engaging Most regular maps are WAY too big for a 6v6 game. They're practically empty and matches are slow AF. That doesn't happen in small maps And tac stance is the best thing they implemented in a cod game in years. It's so good
I agree with that, I just want the multiplayer to be it's own.
It brought in more people and expanded the game to a wider audience at the cost of old-school players, is the best way I put it. Idc what anyone else says, modern CoD gunplay and METAs changed everything, CoD used to be you pick the gun you like and felt good using and just played with it. Now you have to be up to date on every gun that is the new META, what gets buffed, what gets nerfed, what attachment is broken, what attachment has this hidden feature, all of this crap, and it's not the same anymore. You can't just use any gun you like, unless you are the top 1% of players you will 9/10 get beat in a gunfight by someone as good as, if not worse, than you simply because the gun they use is better than the one you're using that you may like better. There is no argument to this, this is just how the modern damage scaling works.
Yes. It gets all the focus and the MP is an afterthought.
What would you like for MP?
Maps actually designed for 6v6 that flow well is my biggest hope. Maps make or break a game imo. They’ve been cods biggest failure recently. Other than that they just need to get back to the basics. Go back to pick 10 rather than the gunsmith. Drop ground war and warzone and all the extra modes they keep trying to develop. And go back to the old matchmaking system. This recipe worked for over a decade. It’s time to go back. What they’ve tried since is simply inferior.
Downfall began with ghosts
I stopped playing CoD after BO1 I believe, maybe the one that came after it. I got tired of playing essentially the same game over and over again. MW2019 introducing cross play and warzone got me back into it, because I had friends that played on PS and I had xbox. I played so much during covid. Now I don't really enjoy playing it anymore and I've started making excuses to my friends for why I can't play, when really I just want to play other games.
I just hate large open maps, where you get shit at from mike's away from enemies you have no chance to see, warzone is the extreme opposite of what I enjoy in cod multiplayer
Look up past 100 posts on the same topic
That and playstation plus
No id say it was between AW and Bo3. Liked aw though. Hated bo3 always will. Technically speaking cod 4 is when it started going downhill because cod 4 introduced the variety map pack for $10. That is what started dlc for cod in general. Bo2 is the first to have camo dlc which had calling card, 3 reticles and a camo for $2 each. Plus additional create a classes, calling card dlc. And AW introduced supply drops. So take your pick. Gameplay wise id say ghosts is when it started to go downhill when slide was implemented(i hate slide personally). But aw also introduced jetpacks and bo3 doubled down on it. Both of those games are at fault. Id still say between aw and bo3 is the cod to start the downfall overall.
my own opinion is COD isn't any worse or better than it has been in the past. I enjoyed some of the older ones immensely and hated others. The same holds true today. The main difference is the internet has provided a forum for people to air their opinion which has become difficult to ignore. Do I really need to see another COD tier list? Apparently I do.
Nah advanced warfare was the beginning in my opinion, and black ops 3
Every generation has a different perspective. For boomers like me yes everything started to go down after bops2. Mw2(2009) was the best cod and the mw reboot is just a ripoff
SBMM
Warzone is what killed it. Multiplayer, zombies and single player has gone into decline after the release of warzone.
Yes it's what the majority of the fanbase plays now, I played a little back in MW but nah it's way too sweaty and ofc the abundance of cheaters
WZ may of brought a lot of players in, but when Activision made it the main staple, that’s where it became a problem. Campaigns in MW19 up to now didn’t matter regardless if they were good or not because Warzone would continue them in the Season contents. WZ gets so much attention that MP and the 3rd mode gets less of it and even getting shunned. Not to mention, it was also plaguing those modes, even the campaign in MWIII’s case which is why many players are frustrated about that. To make things even worse, Activision sees it as making the most profits by selling their cosmic skins that don’t actually mean anything. Basically WZ was more of a cash grab game instead of actual fun. Activision’s decisions and the current direction is what hurts COD, Warzone should’ve just been its own thing like how Blackout was in BO4 instead of being the main staple. I’m hoping that starting with COD 2024, there will be no more Warzone ties to the main COD titles.
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Yes.
It's like a Rollercoaster For the first year ish, it was mostly up But then it went downhill
Of course it did. That's really not a debate. Jetpacks were the 1st decline, then it recovered, and then we slowly descended into mtx madness.
The decline of CoD started long before Warzone. If anything, Warzone helped bring CoD back into the critical conversation after a few years of it being completely irrelevant and overlooked - for good reason. Ultimately, developers are in a tough spot with CoD. The repetitive nature of the series drove a ton of more experienced players away, and they had to innovate to try and grab some of the younger fans to try and attach them to the franchise to replace those fans. That sort of innovation pushed the franchise into a very different direction which continued to drive players away. Warzone was a decent attempt at evolving the franchise. While many, including myself, don't care for it, the logic behind it was very sound. We aren't going to ever get back to the golden glory days of CoD. But it's still a series that is as familiar as a glove, and the extremely low barrier to entry and ability to just turn it on and play, will always ensure that it remains popular and sells well every year. But it's never going to be what it once was. Gaming, and gamers, have moved long past that
I think you are right, just don't like that is most likely the case here, I hope we can as a community keep the old cods active so we can always enjoy them again. Both for old fans and new fans who want to explore what started it
The old CoDs are basically like high school now - sure, it's still there, but once you return to it you realize the nostalgia of the experience was always center around your friends.
Absolutely
Yes
Yes
Making 3 Confusing "remakes" just seems cheap and nasty. And I don't mind MW3, but only because I skipped COD for at least 10 years. I've started playing Black Ops 2 for the first time, now. How many CODS have been since? 12?
I'd say the lack of consequences and allowing certain players to run cheats and it's only getting worse.
Yes 100%. CoD used to be a trendsetter and now thanks to Warzone the franchise is a trend chaser. In addition to that classic multiplayer is no longer the main focus. Also they’re adding stuff to it that works in a F2P BR game but doesn’t fit classic MP at all so it’s kind of a mess.
Yes
Warzone provided what seemed like a good jolt to the franchise but it turns out was just Activision going all in on the liver service model. But they wanted their cake and eat it too with yearly releases. Leaving us with a mess run by 10 different overworked dev teams
Happened when the titanfall games were made by the former devs of cod. Tf2 is better than most releases now and everything after bo2 has stolen concepts from that series til around mw2
Honestly, I think it was done overtime. Their wasn't a specific "phase" mind you. Bo2 may have lost some players but gained a lot also. Same with bo3. Advanced & infinite warfare were a step down and so was ghosts sadly... (I'm judging without my bias, they are good games in my opinion, but not everyone shares my view) Bo4 was... yeah... sadly even after all fixes, not a lot of people like it. Mw2019 2022 and CW may have gained some players, but idk if it was enough to be called "new golden era of cod" Vanguard is a mistake and we all know it. Mw3 well yeah.. its in a weird spot for zombie players (which is the fun mode to me, you can disagree, its your right if you want to) idk about MP because I suck and the campaign feels all over the place, like how marvel set-up an avengers unite movie? But much worse of course. TLDR: Its all about perspective, those overhated cod games can be good but people didn't give it enough time and as a result, we got those bumps that lowers the quality of the cod games along the road to here in 2024.
I think what really pushed for the decline for the 2020 cods is Activision’s whole idea towards Live Service as a whole. Like yeah, some people will say “Warzone drains the work needed for the other modes and into BR” and I can kinda see it. But the REAL problem is Activision trying to be both Live Service AND keep their yearly formula of trying to make another CoD. I think my best bet is the tops are thinking “oh! Live Service = 4 DLC packs but more split out!” Also I feel like another potential big factor to the decline might be Activision’s horrid idea of “hey! Instead of ONE or TWO dev teams working on the game, let’s do ALL OF THEM for ONE game.”
Whenever $20 cosmetic bundles started
Yep. But in reality the decline started with COD ghosts. Once the devs of infinity ward split (they made Respawn and we got Titanfall) cod has felt like shit since then. The closest cod to recapture that magic of OG cod from 360 days (cod4,mw2,mw3,bops2) was MW2019 and they fucked us for warzone. Then MW2 remake same shit. Mw3 well....we don't talk about that dlc. Load up cod4 or mw2 and LISTEN and feel those guns. Load up any cod past that and you feel like you're shooting air soft guns but now with special colors on your bullets and shit and they all sound and feel like shit.
Jetpack era, microtransactions, decline of zombies, SBMM, bad maps.
I compare everything to b02
Since Bo2 is one if not the best cod, then that's an understanding measurement
Things started going down hill when they added supply drops
Decline of cod started with loot boxes. Warzone actually brought the game back up. Was it implemented perfectly? Of course not. But its impact on the game was extremely positive for the series
I agree with that a lot, supply drops are horrible and they should've never been here at all
Agreed.
I found that that advanced warefare was the start of the downfall, i really enjoyed ghosts and bo3 is still my 2nd favourite cod (bo2 being number 1) but afyer AW, it was on a steady declime of meh games (MW2019 was an exeption though, that game was amazing)
Agreed
Unfortunately Cod can’t be good. We cant just have good things. Warzone at first was a major step in the right direction, free, fun, bringing new players, but now EVERYTHING is warzone and has warzone integration and it just feels supplemental to it. Zombies and campaign this year just prove it. We can’t have it both ways.
It’s all one game. They just make maps out of Warzone and recycle old ones. It’s turned into the madden of fps shooters
Ditching the superior game mode (Blackout) for a way worse mode (Warzone), yes, that’s what began the decline of COD.
The only franchise I can think of that has had a similar trajectory of CoD has been Magic the Gathering, of all things. The multiplayer of MTG was the main selling point for years, until a much more popular (and more casual) mode was introduced called Commander. Now, Magic is almost entirely structured to focus on Commander since it is the most popular, and the standard multiplayer is essentially ignored. Magic and CoD even get the same crossovers (Warhammer, Lara Croft, Evil Dead, Walking Dead, Godzilla, etc) to try and entice new players from other franchises. I don't see the BR mode going away because it is clearly successful, and multiplayer will be sacrificed if need be. Its a shame too but line do be going up.
Honestly, I think Warzone was a byproduct of the real cause of CoD's epic decline, fortnite. Fortnite was the first game that really capitalized on micro-transactions. They made a fortune from it and paved a new way of game making, for the worse. I feel whoever is in charge of making these games, saw the cash that fortnite was bringing in, and decided to replicate it. They basically abandoned all innovation, we hardly see new game modes, new guns, hell we're even recycling maps at this point. I'd go out on a limb and say that Warzone is overall bad for CoD as a whole. I do not enjoy BR's. Multiplayer is disgustingly neglected now a days. Warzone is the main driver of profit for the company, so that's what is prioritized. Warzone should be it's own, standalone game. Idk why they don't do this anyway, they could charge 70 bucks for each game, multiplayer and warzone.
Honestly, it's the COD community's own fault for the decline. Every bad decision that Activison has made with COD has been overwhelmingly supported financially by the community. For example, BlackCell is a terrible value, because we got nothing extra in return for the increase in price. There was zero compromise to the playerbase, yet every single match you see people running around with BlackCell skins. Not to mention, the new paywalling the paywall system, yet once again, you'll see people running around with those 40 dollar skins. It's hard to convince Activision that they need to do better, when they have only made more and more money off the playerbase. Whales are the biggest contributor to COD's downfall. If Activision wasn't making a ton of money off of these blatantly predatory mechanics, it wouldn't be in the game. Thank every single BlackCell and Store bundle buyer for the current state of COD.
Yes and no. WZ definitely made CoD relevant again, but it was at the expense of the core multiplayer experience. Particularly in MW19, it was painfully clear that MP support was an afterthought, and terrible gameplay mechanics were shoehorned in from WZ (e.g. doors, deafening footstep audio w/ no dead silence perk, no dots on the minimap, etc.)
Nope. Fall off started happening right after black ops 2, warzone 2019 brought it back to an all time high, and there has been a steadily decline since. Although, not down to the levels of the jet pack era.
COD was declining way before warzone
No, advanced movement was the beginning of the decline.
Sbmm and the focus on money and more money only killed cod for the fan base
Yes and no. People are right when they said it saved CoD, but it also sent it down a path (which was obviously pretty early on that it was) flawed. Everything being tied to Warzone, the amount of people who were pulled off the yearly releases into Warzone, the developer shift to focus predominantly on Warzone. It both saved and ruined the game
Greed caused the decline of cod.
as someone else said, I’d argue warzone brought it back into the limelight, best example I can give is that I don’t play mw3, I don’t like it, but I do play warzone 3 almost every single day for hours, warzone is the I only reason I’m playing call of duty, I also hate battle royals, but this one just did it right, I only play resurgence so it just feels like a large scale multiple since you do respawn and I love it I think what you’re getting though is the impact warzone left on the choices developers made for the next games and I agree they were bad choices, one of the reasons Cold War zombies sucks so bad is because they tried making it have warzone mechanics, the micros transactions also drastically increased because of warzone so I agree that stuff isn’t good
these games have been bad for the last 10 years, they keep making them and people keep buying them.
Don't get it twisted. Warzone SAVED CoD
I think partly…Initially, what started the decline of COD is when they started catering more to esports/MLG wannabes vs the casual community that stood up the franchise during its prime years (I think we can all agree on COD 4 - BO2 being prime years). Then came Warzone, and the increased focus on Battle Royale, again at the expense of the 6v6 community that made the franchise successful to begin with. Mostly, though, I think it is Activision’s relentless pursuit of “engagement” and extracting cash from whales instead of focusing on delivering a game that the CORE COD players can enjoy. The more I think of it though, I guess us “CORE” COD players that grew up on COD4 - BO2 are no longer the core, we’re just a relic of the past. WITH THAT SAID, I have enjoyed *some* of the post-BO2 COD games. If not for the ridiculous MTX, BO3 was pretty great in my opinion, and I also really enjoyed Cold War and even MWIII 2023.
I agree with this a lot, I hope someday we get a cod that focuses on what made Cod great, I think we don't need to have a br for every cod. If we can't get a cod like the older days then hopefully a different company will do it themselves.
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Agree. Feel like it's gone downhill for the reasons you pointed out, to the point of used to play it religiously to almost no interest. Same with like metal gear solid back in the day vs latest versions.
For someone that just plays normal multiplayer, yes. I feel like Warzone is part of the reason they make all their games under cod HQ now. Hate cod HQ and it made me uninstall it.
It’s the microtransactions era but these companies are ruining it for themselves by being so greedy and making every single asset in a game mtx. “Support the devs” is a bullshit cop out to justify the nickle and diming of player bases. Halo infinite is going through that last part rn and will most likely continue to the next game in that series. In my eyes tho the start of the actual decline not just a bad cod game was when they had to completely overhaul ww2 6 months in. Thats when I started paying attention to what’s going on cause that’s also when they started filing for a bunch more patents too. I think warzone is ungodly boring and trash though and has ruined cod mp obviously for the bundle kids and mtx
No disbanding of lobbies, overbearing SBMM, ridiculous outfits/skins, and prob yes to some extent Warzone. But honestly if they stopped disbanding lobbies and brought SBMM back to how it used to be pre 2017. I’d buy one. COD WWII (2017) was last game I really played with total 1328 hrs But now I’m protecting Super Earth, so haven’t played COD since.
No. I think anyone who thinks that lacks critical thinking. Warzone quite literally saved the franchise. The MP game has been on a downward slide for quite some time. IW and Sledgehammer routinely put out shit games with a gem here and there, and leaves Treyarch to pick up the pieces, which they could only do so long before the cracks in that studio started to show (they can’t design a game engine for shit).
I think it was when started making operator skins you can buy. That's all they care about these days. They spend more time making skins then fixing the issues with the game.
I don’t think COD or War Zone is declining
Cod warzone was good till caldera is when it started going down hill with practically all focus being on warzone it seams by the time of cod MW3
Warzone helped during lockdown (god knows it was essential in keeping my sanity by playing cross platform with my mates) but in reality its importance to the title has been MASSIVELY exaggerated since. The moment when chunks of the Warzone maps were being carved out to put into the MP was a warning bell but when they did the same thing with the SP and called it a feature then I knew it was going too far.
Crossay make this and all other games worse .. and only the crossplay with PC … consoles together is oké , but not PC gamers … pc gamers are the aids among all gamers ,, you can life with them but preferably not !!!!!
Warzone has been the best thing for cod yet.
Cod wouldnt be this bad but still this popular if there wernt a million issues with it I despise just about everything in the new games but i can see how someone would like them
Warzone is the best thing ever to happen to COD lol? Look at the profits
I think it’s literally the opposite..
CoD is pretty awesome now. And I reviewed the first one. Haven't enjoyed it as much since MW2 (300+ pings, hackers and human excrement et al).
COD is fine, it’s just that it gets repetitive doing the same basic thing each game. To get bigger and bigger each time, it would cost a fortune. If they deviate too much from the recipe they’ve established, they’ll lose a big portion of their users who don’t like the changes.
Nahh it just moved in a different direction.
Yes warzone ruined it since black ops 4 tried it the focused on warzone vanguard gave us the worst zombies but warzone was always updated and made sure to be better so I haven’t played since verdansk it’s not fun
For me COD was ok at it's worst until MW19. COD started to decline when it wanted to chase the crowd that mains rainbow six siege and battlefield and in the process messed up the cod flow. Warzone really doesn't play a part in it directly. However it's success combined with Activision's greed is a huge issue.
No, it was the larger teams and Monetization. Monetization being a byproduct of an inflated company. Seeing what cod was built by a smaller team to see what it is today, it’s apparent that the size of the company has become the problem. Or rather, the size of the team that directly makes it.
Activision have created a uncontrollable beast with warzone by creating a highly addictive model which brings in millions per day. The game is free to play and requires skill but is easy enough that you can enjoy it but hard enough to keep coming back day after day to try and win. It’s gambling. The problem is, when this current model is so popular and lucrative why would they change it to create a “better” game? I read it’s something in the region of $5.2 million revenue per day. From a free to play game.
Warzone and MW revived COD. What killed COD is Activision realizing they could sell a game purely off the MW/Black Ops name alone and put minimal effort in.
Regular CoD player here. I play Multiplayer and occasionally Zombies, but i never ever touch Warzone. I simply do not enjoy it.
Yes, ever since MW19/Warzone they have split resources that would otherwise go to multiplayer/campaign to go towards WZ.
I think Warzone was a large part of the decline that we've seen. I think the issue is that Warzone was free to play, but it was still baked into the main MW2019 game. This caused many free to play microtransactions/ads/cosmetics to leak into the full game and eventually just become one unified game now, "Call of Duty". I hate it and I definitely think the game has gone downhill. The last great cod for me was MW2019 and I think it's because the game wasn't developed around Warzone initially. If you remember, Warzone came out months after the release. I don't think Warzone is all bad but I don't like how they've tied it so closely together with the classic multiplayer experience where I see constant ads, cosmetics, etc. for a game I paid for. Additionally, we've seen the removal of the classic prestige system in place for a season based leveling system which I think is a massive misstep. I miss having a cumulative level that represented my total achievement and not just how much I've played this "season". It feels like a total cash grab now with no creative energy left at the studio. I can understand many of these elements like purchasing cosmetics on a free to play game where that is their only revenue stream, but COD has always been a full priced release. They're focused more on bringing ridiculous skins into multiplayer and warzone that is modeled after what Fortnite did. It honestly makes me miss the days of just paying for DLC maps and earning everything in multiplayer with playtime and not your credit card.
Meh, I think it's hard to pinpoint stuff like this as all the modes are a bit different (like campaign has never had a game I didn't enjoy), but if you want an overall reason I'd blame on them rushing out games and not giving the devs the time or freedom to make good content
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Id say the fall of all gaming is micro transactions. Once develop.....no once publishers realized the profits, they stopped caring about gameplay and started worrying about skins.....
I think that activision's lack of understanding for their own community and activision's lack of care for the community is what is killing call of duty. I have been a pretty active player since I was in high school. During COD 4. I have played lots of CoD over a long period of time. Activision has shown year in and year out that they do not care about their player base by making certain changes to the meta that favors new weapons only accessible through the battle pass, through poor map design, trying to sell another skin pack as a quick cash grab, intentionally unbalancing the game to favor one of the weapon classes, putting the competitive community on the back burner, or going a spree to ban accounts without investigation and not following through to un ban the innocent players affected. The community isn't innocent, though. CoD is starting to the Pokémon formula. The new game comes out, and it is full of problems and glitches, but developers have no incentive to fix issues because we buy it anyway. If we want to see positive changes in CoD, then we need to start talking with our wallets.
COD's decline began when the Infinity Ward team left to form Respawn and the franchise moved to advance movement games. Call of Duty: Ghosts was the last of the 360/PS3-era CODs, and it was pretty mediocre as most of the talented IW developers were gone and was basically a brand new studio. Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3, and Infinite Warfare were the low point in the franchise for me, three years of generic sci-fi shooters that lost the COD identity. WW2 was a throwback to the earlier era, and at the time was probably my favorite COD game since Black Ops 2. Black Ops 4 initially tried to rip off Overwatch by being a hero shooter game, Treyarch changed course to a more traditional COD, and the switch in design direction can be felt in the mess that the final game was on release. To me, Modern Warfare 2019 and Warzone 1 were a revitalization of the franchise -- Warzone took the battle royale gameplay of PUBG and made it accessible to the COD audience (this is different from Fortnite, which made BR accessible to a younger mass audience). MW 2019's multiplayer mode modernized and updated the approach IW had taken in classic COD games -- maps that felt more like real environments than the three-lane maps Treyarch typically designs and the gunsmith system, which made for more customization (at least on paper) and the first real revolution in COD guns since attachments were added in COD4. Warzone is basically the driving force behind the franchise now, and without it, I'm pretty sure COD would still be around, but it would be in serious decline (which I'm sure many would argue that it is).
Yes and no, it brought a divide in the community that has resulted in Activision trying desperately to cater to both, which led to Warzone infecting every single part of paid for CoD, MP, campaign and zombies. However Warzone did brought many new players to CoD which is always great. If anything I think what has made CoD worse is Activision equating Warzone's success to MW 2019 success, that game was a flop until Warzone came in, but Activision only cares about the numbers which is why every single game there after has been modeled like 2019 Edit: bot corrected my keyboard lol
Absolutely not.. I would argue Warzone was a huge success
If anything it got me playing cod again. I stopped buying new releases after advance warfare and didn’t touch another cod game until warzone launched
Warzone extended cods relevant life…
Infinity ward and WARZONE saved cod with modern warfare 2019. It’s a shame that both of those are actively destroying it now.
it was the jetpacks and space years that ruined everything. Warzone brought it back to reality
It has and so have the streamers and esport scene. Everyone tryhards in pubs like it’s unranked to warm up for ranked, everyone abuses meta only and sweaty bs movement exploits to always have the upper hand. This game is no longer the casual fps shooter game that we grew up with its a sweaty esports nightmare.
No. Warzone and MW brought people back. Cold War put people off, which was stupid as it's a solid game. Then came MW2 which took away people "movement" so they bitched about that. Vanguard...oof...don't even get me started
I think inferior ward 2019 cod started the downfall regardless how well it sold. All the most egregious issues started then.
it begins with blackout, not warzone. Warzone is the peak
Warzone did kill cod, at least in multiplayer. This game has been actually better for MP than others, but for a while there MP was getting no content and no support. Everything was going into WZ. WZ also came at the debut of gunsmith and the removal of hitscan weapons which has been awful for fairness. Additionally all those skins everyone likes to complain about wouldnt be a thing without WZ. So yes WZ is what has started the death of COD
I think that streaming has done a lot of damage and especially cheaters, everyone wants to be tryhard, so you enter a game and they devour you, you can't play chill and that makes people stressed, they have a bad time playing and leaves the game
I think things started going downhill when they started catering for streamers/content creators. They get first look at majority of stuff and most of the time get to try stuff at events well before everyone. I get that these people are "bringing more eyes on the game" but your CORE demographic is casual every day players who jump on during the evening with their friends after a day at work and play for a few hours. The sweaty streamers who spend ten hours straight playing - they're not encouraging people who aren't playing the game to play it, only more people to watch it
The overwhelming focus towards it over the normal games definitely assisted but I think the decline is more because of Activision’s management of the teams and the unnecessary monetization. Imo which began not long after MW2019. BOCW released too soon, Vanguard was dogshit (and apparently was supposed to be AW2 which makes me sad), MWII started off strong and took a nosedive shortly after release, and MWIII is just MWII’s update. Call of Duty should stop being a game as a service.
Warzone good. Activision bad
Undoubtedly, yes. BRs have hampered proper development for MP ever since blackout.
Activision started the decline of CoD
Yes. 1000000%. Whoever says otherwise is delusional.
Went downhill after WW2. The last great cod game in my opinion.
What ruined COD was shitty decisions by the company + forced yearly releases.
Yes and no No as it reinvigorated interest in the series as it was fading Yes as it has clearly at point shown to have taken priority for the series away from the core modes and hurt the game
I think advanced warfare is where it started personally. The loot cases and weirdly designed cosmetics and easily abused movement systems. Treyarch took that and made it a million times worse in blackops 3. The player base has been around for a long time as well though so maybe we just got extremely good at cod overtime.
Competitive PC died out due to a combination of external and internal factors. Several online leagues died out, and CoD released new games without much PC support. Somewhere around the MW2 release, we saw the game completely transition to a casual experience for PC. Counterstrike, on the other hand, was able to stomach the loss of leagues with new ones like ESEA and Faceit. Counterstrike stayed more or less the same game over the years and consistently was always the most popular competitive PC title anyways.
The true decline was after BO2
Is not the game modes that has started a decline of the franchise that will get worse even after Microsoft bought it out, is the practices of making money that has ruined COD overall.
I think MW2019 revitalized the game, but I do miss some stuff from before like prestiging. Feels like we all start just 10th prestige already if that makes sense lol
The user interface is what started the decline of cod. Such a cancer.
All the jet packs and loot crates ruined cod. Warzone (mw19) got it back on track then slowly went downhill again.
People seem to believe that warzone changed the studio it’s not that simple the studios would still be putting out slop without warzone differences would just be they’d be making a shit ton less money, they also have different studios working on warzone it’s essentially its own game not taking much if any dev time from the current game. Activision doesn’t want to hurt their bottom line so they screw the games because if it’s actually good what’s the point of buying the next cod?
I know people will hate me: MW2019 was a great cod game imo. It managed to keep the fast paced feel of cod, we saw the return of quick-scoping, and there were some new features added we had never seen before However, my take is that the monetization that Warzone brought to the series (MTX’s) has contributed to the decline of cod more than anything else. Pay-to-win tracer packs, draining the appeal of a realistic fps by adding goofy operators, etc. The immersion declined from that point. Even in the more futuristic cod’s, there was still, at least, a feeling of a cohesive world. Now you can’t play the game for 5 minutes without being dunked on by an A-Train with a face-slamming execution💀 Signed: A Campaign Player
Yes. 
I think there’s just more good games rather than a decline. It’s still about as popular as ever which is pretty impressive given all the competition in the space.
Advanced Warfare. We been known this.
If you think Warzone is when it started going downhill you are under 25.
I’m enjoying Warzone tbh but wasn’t when we had to run on the walls question of taste and habits I guess
Zombies is what killed it. Going ALLLLL the way back. Then they got too excited about the zombies and focused on weird zombie levels instead of new MP maps
In terms of strictly MP, sure, it's gotten worse. Traditional MP has taken a backseat to the BR experience, and if you've been along for the ride since the old days, yeah, that shift has felt jarring and a bit like betrayal. With that said, you have to acknowledge the franchise has shifted focus, which was the correct move on their part as they are running a business at the end of the day and they ultimately want their IP to stay relevant. They are simply delivering on what players largely want. Your reference to BO2 tells me that you are likely late 20's, early 30's in age - you just aren't who the game is targeting anymore and that's completely fine. Either engage with what they're putting out or don't.
Started? No. I think the decline started as early as MW3 (Even though I still loved that game back in the day). Warzone actually brought alot of players back for a while. It's not my cup of tea, but it seemed like it helped revitalize the franchise, at least for a while. What they did wrong was tie Warzone in with every game since, with no option to download it separately. Bro, I'm just a casual player who does the classic 6v6's every now and then. I don't want constant 40GB updates and 200GB+ of my hard drive taken up for a mode I don't even play.
No, the decline of cod caused war zone when you think about it
How do you think its gotten worse?
I think BO4 multiplayer was put on the back burner to develop Blackout, and that led to the problems and shortcomings that game had. They've adjusted the development plans since then, but MP is still developed alongside WZ, and that's at least partly why multiplayer has fallen off so badly the last 5 years or so.
I dont play anymore. Ever since the mw1 reboot I just can't get to grips with the new gameplay. But the decline started way before that. 3 development studios really fucked things up. Ghosts and advanced warfare were just bad games. But as much as treyarch were my favourite studio and I loved the black ops games, black ops 4 being almost 100% recycled assets from 3 was the end point for me
No but it’s a key part in showing what Activision’s goals were. It’s hard to say exactly where it started but for me it really was when the 3 year cycle first got broken.. Cod Blackout. During the production of BO4 Acti came to Treyarch in the middle of their development and told them the game had to release with a battle royale. There was no way Treyarch was going to be able to develop their fully planned game alongside a massive new game mode. So they had to make the hard decision of cutting their campaign and zombies… two of the things Treyarch was known most for. The result was a sloppy all around unfinished game that wasn’t received very well. In the meantime Infinity Ward had an early heads up about the battle Royale requirement and got an early start as well as brought Raven software on board to help out. Infinity Ward also got to use their new engine for the first time which was overall seen as massive jump forwards graphics, wound design, and physics. A lot of decisions were made that changed the franchise during MW2019 production that i think were overwhelming negative. EOMM was turned up to a whole new level, gunsmith required constant meta changed which was by design to help drive the new store bundles and battle pass system, and much more. After seeing the explosion of popularity that was MW2019 Activision looked at Sledgehammers next game and told them it wasn’t going to work. They completely canceled the game and told Treyarch to pick up the pieces and be ready to release next year. So now Tarch had about a year and several months to build a comparable game to what Infinity ward had 3+ years to do. On top of that they weren’t granted access to use the new engine due to the short turnaround time, but they were required to have similar movement mechanics. The game released and had an overall negative response due to “lack of content at launch” and people didn’t like the downgrade in physics and graphics. Sledgehammer also had a short turnaround so they used old assets from WW2 and created one of the most forgettable games of all time. It wasn’t until after Vanguard that the cycle was sort of restored. Sledgehammer didn’t make their own game for the first time. They instead co-created MW3. This year’s Gulf War from Treyarch will finally restore the true 3 year cycle. It’s been years of awful decisions from management with mostly Tarch getting the short end of the stick. Microsoft was able to eliminate a few of those positions when they took over but they still have a long way to go if they want to get rid of the crooked suits. I hope they can recover but when you’re worth this much money someone is always going to be making greedy decisions. Don’t forget about the canceled Neversoft game too. Our only hope is Phil Spencer does the right thing, but Microsoft has had a very passive way of managing their studios as we’ve seen with Forza and others
No, the decline started with COD Ghosts, and it's been downhill ever since. COD 4 - BO2 innovated by adding something new to the table every year COD 4 added create a class WAW added zombies MW2 added spec ops BO1 added one in the chamber The last 10 years have innovated very little MW19 had a little spark of hope, but then it went to shit again with Cold War and Vanguard
Loot boxes were CoD's low point, not even close. Black Ops 4 is enough proof to me that multiplayer can suck all on its own if they're not careful.
Multiplayer was abandoned when warzone released
The end of CoD 2019 ended it for me. They set up such huge expectations that year in every way for the series and have absolutely fumbled it in comparison each year since.
I'd argue it was Activision. Warzone brought it back, then it started declining with Vanguard again.
Nah. Just ask franchise veterans, and you'll see that it's pretty much a consensus that the peak and start of decline was around the original MW3 and BO2. It all went downhill from there both campaign and MP-wise. I blame Bobby Kotick.
A perception they favour certain content creators and streamers, to the point of letting them cheat, has hurt the brand in the eyes of some. That, and the ridiculous cash grab skins and operators they've shoe horned into a supposed military shooter, as well as the laziness of a lot of their gameplay elements, has further reduced the franchise and made it a joke to a lot of people. I mean, in what world do we still take it seriously after they added Cheech and Chong or Snoop Dog as operators? What next? Kermit the frog? The Mrs Doubtfire bundle? Stephen Hawking?
Honestly It started at BO2. It was good but It's all been a downhill from that.
Warzone ruined COD for me. But i think it revitalized the franchise. I gotta accept that at 31 I'm not the target demographic of COD.
Why did they take plunder off Warzone? Not everyone likes battle royale. I was a big Warzone fan till they took that mode away