Thread: Can Noobs Play Modern Warfare 3?

How can Call of Duty remain a long-running blockbuster franchise if it doesn’t acquire new customers as the years go by? It’s been eight years since the series debuted and four since the Modern Warfare spinoffs started. A new crop of gamers has grown up in that time, while some fans have surely grown tired of the series after eight installments. Sure, Activision can count on millions of gamers grabbing Modern Warfare 3 as soon as it hits shelves this Fall, and the same will be true of Call Of Duty 2012, but what about people who’ve never played Call Of Duty, and try to jump into the series with the latest game? For them, MW3 will be a terrifying, confusing place where new players are shot, stabbed, blown up and utterly humiliated by the unstoppable killing machines they encounter in multiplayer.

The features that make the Modern Warfare franchise so popular with long-time fans can also be a deterrence to new players. One of the things that makes CoD (And most modern shooters) so addictive is the online prestige system that provides an endless series of unlockables. For the skilled and dedicated, this means a constant stream of rewards for their efforts as more guns and perks become available over time. Hardcore fans will certainly be hard at work ranking up right from launch. Less dedicated players who spend a few days completing the single-player campaign in order to familiarize themselves with the game will be utterly outgunned by the time they venture into multiplayer.

Even if a new player buys the game on their way home from work on launch day, the hardcore crowd will have been playing since midnight the night before, and will have already jumped ahead in rank. It’s no fun running around with a muzzle-loading flintlock rifle while everyone else has laser guided fifty-caliber bullet hoses with automatic grenade launchers. This can be discouraging to those who try the game out with a rental, and even console gamers who buy it at full price might be prompted to quickly trade the game back in after a demoralizing attempt at multiplayer.

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Compounding this problem is that more-experienced players will know exactly how to combine equipment and perks. Even if a newbie to the series grabs Modern Warfare 3 at the midnight launch, they aren’t going to understand the cool tricks and tactics like QuickScoping that long-time Call of Duty fans have already mastered. They will be easily overwhelmed by seemingly super-human opponents with amazing powers used in clever combinations. Newbloods who are so proud of their quick reload Perk, will be cut down by ninjas who stack superspeed with enhanced melee and stealth. A disheartening introduction to the series for sure.

The developers might be removing these specific Perks from MW3, but gamers already familiar with these sort of shenaninagans will quickly adapt to whatever balancing system the new game uses, and will find out how to stack unlocks so that they can reflect bullets back at their attackers like Wonder Woman, or something equally frustrating. However, rookies will have a much rougher time creating these hyper-specialized builds do to a less refined understanding of the series’ subtleties.

The new Call Of Duty Elite service sounds like a great way to help the younglings learn how to play, but the only people who’ll sign up for a subscription-based service dedicated entirely to Call Of Duty are the existing hardcore fans.

While anyone who puts in the effort can learn these things, Activision’s emphasis on The-Same-But-More is likely to further divide gamers into the categories of “Long Time Call Of Duty Fans” and “Everyone Else”. No one wants to see the series dumbed down or streamlined for the masses, so it might be up to the Modern Warfare fans to help train up a new generation of virtual soldiers, instead of crushing them like worms.

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