We got our first glimpse of the next Call of Duty today, but you’d be forgiven if some parts of it felt a bit familiar to you.
Sure, it’s easy to knock Call of Duty, a series that has released yearly installments since 2006, for being unoriginal. But to be fair, video games have riffed off each other and other popular media for years. In fact, Sledgehammer Games general manager Glen Schofield talked at last year’s DICE Summit about how he finds inspiration in books and movies.
Now his studio is working on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and it’s clear that Sledgehammer is finding plenty of inspiration. Here are just some of the recognizable elements we noticed in Activision’s reveal.
The glue gloves
In the trailer, we see a soldier scaling a building thanks to extra-sticky gloves. That concept will sound familiar to anyone who saw Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. In that movie, Tom Cruise’s character scales the tallest building in the world, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
It looks like the gloves in Advanced Warfare will work pretty similar to those in Ghost Protocol, which effectively turns anyone wearing them into Spider-Man. Unless they run out of glue. Then you’ll find yourself in a sticky situation.
Yeah, I’m sorry about that incredibly lame joke.
Stealth camo
It seems like becoming entirely invisible is always a popular choice for warriors in the future. In the trailer, we see a soldier activate stealth camouflage, which perfectly blends him into his environment. I imagine being invisible is a pretty big advantage during a battle. Not sure why anyone wouldn’t just keep it on all the time, unless it consumes a lot of battery power.
Of course, gamers likely think of the first Metal Gear Solid when they think of stealth camo. One of Solid Snake’s foes, the Cybrog Ninja, equipped himself with the useful device. You could also wear the stealth camo yourself if you beat the game under certain conditions.
Of course, seeing the Call of Duty soldier turn invisible in a forest reminds me of Predator more than anything. Being invisible worked out great for that alien until he pissed off Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Costumes
We’ve seen a lot variations on futuristic army uniforms. Hell, the whole space marine thing became a gaming cliché years ago thanks to series like Halo and Gears of War. And while Advanced Warfare doesn’t go into space (at least as far as we know), some of the costumes do seem a bit familiar.
Specifically, the outfit in the picture above looks a lot like Isaac’s gear from the Dead Space series, especially with the exposed spine. Later in the trailer, a soldier wears a pointy helmet that also bears a bit of a resemblance to Isaac (as seen in the picture at the top of this story). This is especially interesting considering that a number of people at Sledgehammer Games formerly worked on Dead Space.
A game about private military companies (PMCs)
We know that Advanced Warfare’s plot is largely about private military companies trying to take over the world. That’s a cool concept. So cool, in fact, that someone already made an entire game about it.
I’m talking about Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which saw Solid Snake fight a bunch of PMCs in a not-too-distant future. Sound familiar? Is anyone else getting the feeling that Sledgehammer Games has a few Metal Gear fans?
Speeder bikes
We see a few soldiers speed off in hovering motorcycles in the trailer, because everyone knows that wheels are totally out of style in the future.
Of course, most nerds will first think of Return of the Jedi, the Star Wars film that had an extended sequence featuring speeder bikes hovering off the ground and crashing into trees. Of course, other futuristic game series like Halo and Unreal have also featured plenty of gravity-defying vehicles.
Did you notice anything else familiar in the trailer? Do you think these similarities are coincidental or intentional riffs? Let us know!