14 DAY TRIAL // Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a big video game for fans of the series, the first which is entirely created by the new studio Sledgehammer Games, and the development team might need all those interested in it to support it on launch day because it does face powerful competition from other important titles.
VentureBeat quotes Doug Creutz, an analyst working for Cowen and Company, as saying that the fall season is busier than ever and that overall sales for the first-person shooter might be severely affected by the big games that will arrive on both the PC and home consoles all through November.
He states, “Call of Duty faces a very competitive slate following its launch on Nov. 4, with Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Dragon Age all scheduled for release between the Nov. 11 and Nov. 18. With light competition pre-release and heavy competition post-release, we think a slow start for CoD could be difficult to overcome.”
At the same time, many fans of the genre are at the moment engaged with the Bungie-made Destiny and they might find it hard to abandon the game, which includes plenty of social hooks, in order to switch to a new experience.
The other Activision shooter is set to get a major expansion called The Dark Below before the end of the year on all platforms, and the developers are saying that more events and updates are planned in order to keep them occupied in the meantime.
Shooters need to change
The shooter genre has seen some big transformations this year, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare might not be exciting enough for the fan base to engage with.
Titanfall, which arrived in the spring, introduced the dual mechanics of Pilots and Titans and changed the way maps are designed to accommodate both and their unique abilities.
Destiny is a social title in which interactions with other players are important and the progression system is linked to the items that a gamer uses.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare aims to introduce the exo-skeleton as the core new feature, a powered suit which allows the characters to move in new ways and use abilities that will transform the field of battle.
Sledgehammer Games claims that the gameplay will be familiar to long-term fans, while also including enough innovation to open the series up to an entire new segment of players.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be out on November 4 on the PC, the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and last-gen consoles.
