During quarantine, there has been a noticeable strain on the internet in my house. A substantial part of this strain has been from my family’s consumption of Netflix, but more so from our collective rediscovery of online video games. Of particular interest to me is the game titled Call of Duty, which is an online shoot-em-up style video game that has dominated the gaming industry for the better half of two decades. This title, while keeping the core gameplay the same, has seen some variations throughout its lifespan, which has had positive and negative results. What I am particularly interested in is how the game tried to incorporate science fiction in the past and what the results ended up being.

First off, there are many different levels of science fiction incorporation that Call of Duty has undergone. For instance, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 had many science fiction pieces incorporated into it, but did not have the same level as Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. However, it is interesting to interpret that the futuristic sci-fi style was what most developers saw the game moving towards, as seen in the series of pictures above, which shows the oldest of the series, COD: Black Ops title image on the left, and the youngest COD: Black Ops 4 on the right.

Further, while the Black Ops series had heavy science fiction components, it seemed more grounded in fantasy than titles such as Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. What I mean by this is that the technology that was used in Black Ops was harder to imagine being developed, while in Advanced Warfare it felt a real possibility. There are examples of this everywhere in the games, but to help I have provided two pictures that compare score streaks from each game, but imagined in different ways. The Black Ops III score streak is on the right, while the Advanced Warfare score streak is on the left. Clearly one is a bit more realistic than the other, but both still deserve the title of being science fiction based designs.

I know this isn’t supposed to be an essay (but writing this is making me want to write one) so I will continue onto the popularity of each game. For this, we will turn to google trends.

Each November, a new Call of Duty game is released. The red circles (I know hard to see but the general size is what is important) represent Novembers of 2013 through 2016, moving from left to right. In 2013, there was Call of Duty: Ghosts. This game was largely grounded in reality and did not have much science fiction components. In 2014, there was Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. This title had a massive amount of science fiction, but was still grounded in reality, or believable technology. In 2015, there was Call of Duty: Black Ops III. This continued the trend of heavy science fiction incorporation. Finally, in 2016 there was Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Again, had lots of science fiction incorporated into it. What I would like to point out here is that people HATED this new style of game. As seen in the graph, the more and more the series went to the realm of science fiction, the more people turned away from the game.

I am not sure if this decline in popularity is due to new movement features from things like exo-suits, from the new sci-fi look of the games, or from something else entirely. However, what I am certain of is that science fiction played a role in devaluing a once dominate franchise.

*Disclaimer: I LOVED some of these more hated sci-fi titles, so I hope that it does not seem like I am biased either way.*