Will DICE support Danger Close when it comes to Battlefield and Medal of Honor?
Not long ago, I heard EA would do an all out offense against Activision’s Call of Duty. First, let me refresh your memory on Call of Duty’s development history.
Call of Duty has been releasing a game every year since Call of Duty 2 in 2005. The original Call of Duty released in 2003. Two developers have been switching off every year to give two years development time. Those developers are Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Infinity Ward was the developer that created the Call of Duty series, originally made up of ex Medal of Honor developers. When I say Medal of Honor, I mean the original from 1999, not the version from 2010. These days, Infinity Ward is a shell of its former self, and Activision has brought in two more developers to create even more Call of Duty titles. Once Activision gets a big name, they try to milk it for all it’s worth. I’m all for getting the most out of your product, but they’ve been doing it in the wrong way for a long time now.
As for Battlefield, the first game (Battlefield 1942) was released back in 2002. You can never say Battlefield copied anything from Call of Duty. If anything, Call of Duty could have copied Battlefield, but I wouldn’t say that either. Later came Battlefield Vietnam, Battlefield 2, Battlefield: Bad Company, the more popular Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and now Battlefield 3. All of these were made from the development team known as DICE (Digital Illusions CE). Battlefield 2142 and 1943 were released somewhere in there as well. Back in 2010, DICE helped the new development team Danger Close work on the Medal of Honor reboot.
DICE worked on multiplayer while Danger Close worked on single player. Believe it or not, the two halves of the game were very different from each other. It received mixed reviews from fans and critics, but there were a lot of rumors that MOH was a bit of a training ground for BF3, which released the following year.
Now we’re at the present day. Medal of Honor Warfighter will be releasing a the end of this year, and another Call of Duty will be releasing two weeks after. This time, Danger Close worked on MOHW all alone. Now I don’t know if another Battlefield game will release next year, whether it’s Battlefield 4, Battlefield 2143, or Battlefield: Bad Company 3, but there has been a lot of rumors that EA will rotate these two franchises to take on Call of Duty, and it looks like the fans have been moving to EA. Before I get into that, I’d like to guess on Battlefield’s next game. I did hear rumors of a 2143 game for Battlefield, but many people thought it’d be an expansion pack to Battlefield 3. I don’t know if 2143 is a hoax all together, but I can tell you 2143 will not be an expansion pack to BF3. I would guess Battlefield: Bad Company 3 would be next on the list for DICE. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ended on a bit of a cliff hanger three years ago. It’d be a bit weird if they never returned to that.
As for the overall question, “Will Battlefield be supporting Medal of Honor?” Financially, I’d say no. They may support them in spirit by hoping they kick Call of Duty Black Ops 2’s ass, but they will continue to bring out content for Battlefield 3 all this year and some next year! Two expansion packs have been released for Battlefield 3 so far. Three more are set to release in September, December, and March. As you can see, there won’t be an expansion pack on October since that’s the month Medal of Honor Warfighter releases, but they will be releasing content around the game. Honestly, I thought they’d back off and allow Medal of Honor to dominate the area. I’m not sure if I like this move or not, but at least they’re not abandoning their game so easily.
Is this aggressive marketing working? Is EA overtaking Activision? My honest opinion is yes! Battlefield 3 sold a massive amount of copies, and they grabbed a big chunk of Call of Duty’s crowd. Yes, Call of Duty is still selling a lot of game, but people are quickly becoming dissatisfied with what they are putting out there. Just look at any YouTube video Call of Duty releases on their official channel. It’s amazing how many dislikes to likes there are. If you want a comparison, go look at Medal of Honor’s or Battlefields videos on their official channel. I also made a comparison of the amount of units Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 sold in my Dedicated Servers (BF3 vs MW3) post. They’re not exact figures, but you can’t blame that on me.