Did the E3 gameplay trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 seem a bit... off to everyone? While the multiplayer offering seemed to provide the same sense of pulsating, exciting competitive shooting the series has always boasted, the single player demo looked like it was from an entirely different game. While the trailer wasn't terrible by any means, the problem was that every single thing Black Ops 3 showed off had been seen before. Be it in Titanfall, Halo or Battlefield, every new feature - from jet-packs to four player coop to the mini-boss mechs - can be found in just about every other first person shooter coming out this holiday season. And that's a major problem, because it feels like Call of Duty is playing catch-up when it used to lead the pack itself. Every game is heading to the future now, and with the series' inability to keep ahead of the curve in that setting, the franchise's relevance in the current market is only beginning to degrade faster and faster with every new release. So what better way to keep CoD distinct than for the series to head back to the setting it perfected? While World War 2 first person shooters were once an over-saturated video game sub-genre, that's no longer the case, and one more trip to the place that made Call of Duty famous to start with could do wonders to help the series find its roots once again.
Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.