There have been a lot of World War II influenced shooters since the time the original Medal of Honor was released. In 1999, outside of Wolfenstein and Doom clones; Medal of Honor was the real next evolutional step for the FPS genre. With its engaging storytelling, the non-stop action of a Hollywood blockbuster war movie and a soundtrack that was cleverly constructed by none other than Michael Giacchino (he scored soundtracks such as television’s Lost and Pixar’s 2009 hit Up); Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks Interactive studio (who Spielberg later sold to EA and went on to become EA Los Angeles) crafted a masterpiece that truly comes once a generation. Can the classic franchise regain some of its honor?
The success based off of the first game would spawn sequels such as Underground, Allied Assault, Frontline and Rising Sun that were all quality titles that took the player to the different theaters of the war. Unfortunately, gameplay of the last batch of Medal of Honor titles have grown somewhat stale coupled with last year’s disappointing re-boot of the series; it seems that the 10th anniversary of Medal of Honor has come and gone without so much as a whimper (though it did give birth to an anniversary bundle of past titles for PC). Sad news for a once great franchise and maybe EA needs to re-think its strategy for future installments of the franchise.
EA also publishes the Battlefield series, and with the upcoming Battlefield 3 (view the launch trailer here) which is based on modernized combat, I’d like the Medal of Honor series to go back and tell the stories from World War II; most importantly, I want to play as Jimmy Patterson again. I want the Nazis to be terrifying again like they were in the first handful of Medal of Honor titles, I want to run for cover when a Panzer Tank busts through a pile of debris or a hidden level filled with Panzerknackers. I want to once again fight in the ravaged ghettos of Germany but this time alongside other players. What I’m talking about is a co-operative experience that people can share maybe much like Borderlands and a lot less like anything that is remotely close to Activision’s Call of Duty. Honestly the aforementioned franchises already do modernized combat very well and there really is no more room for anyone else to enter that fray. By setting the game back in World War II, this would answer the question: how do you make a compelling campaign and have engaging multiplayer while giving Medal of Honor its own personality? There is any number of ways that you could save the franchise, and I really feel that an idea like this could possibly do it.
A lot of titles pulled out of the World War II setting after the genre had been swamped for so long. Activision started the trend with the release of 2007′s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is ironically the last year Medal of Honor released WWII titles, Airborne and Heroes 2. Notably, Airborne was the first in the series to focus solely on paratrooper activities during the war. The developer of the title; EA Los Angeles, did away with linear gameplay as now players could drop from the sky anywhere on a battlefield. The only series still set in that era is Brothers in Arms, and the next title from that particular franchise is looking very “Quentin Tarantino ‘Inglorious Basterds’ like”. A move like this wouldn’t really fit what Medal of Honor is all about, at least not in my mind. Medal of Honor has always had this kind of respect laden drive to it, maybe because it handled warfare in such away where it didn’t have to rely on gore, over the top violence or stupid gimmicks to get its message across. The World War II era games also offered something that the modern combat ones don’t, a sense of romanticism surrounding events of the second Great War. Running through destroyed European cities, parts of Africa or storming the beaches of Normandy and France. Middle Eastern Desert settings cannot offer as much color and level depth as these games do, you can only see so much of the color brown. Anyone that says World War II games are over saturated, I have news for you: the modern combat ones are going that same route.
In the original games, between every level you would be briefed on mission objectives and what you will be facing in the upcoming level by Col. Hargrove (voiced by William Morgan Sheppard). I’d like to see this return as you really can’t have a World War II based Medal of Honor without the OSS getting involved. In a new iteration, they could totally use this during loading screens; telling the player about some fantastically dangerous mission that they are being sent on. This added such a nice touch in the past and really pushed the story forward. Whenever I fondly look back at the first few Medal of Honor games, that feature is always one thing that pops into mind and the modern combat games really don’t have it.
I think this could work and trust me; I’d love to be excited about a new Medal of Honor release again. It’s honestly been too long, and when I either hear a song from its soundtrack or see old gameplay footage; it’s like an old friend that you haven’t seen in a long time. I can say that I honestly miss the franchise, but I don’t miss the stale gameplay mechanics that started to plague it. I understand that in business, if you want to succeed you have to roll with the changes and I’m convinced that these changes would make for a compelling game. The franchise started life as an innovator, so it changing up the game again shouldn’t be news to the old girl. I know that there are plenty of talented people out there that could pull this off, and I’m sure I can’t be the only person who thinks this way. I think if EA would really get behind the idea and get the right individuals (maybe even reach out to Steven Spielberg himself) to do the story and got one of the many talented studios that they work with to develop the game (I’m looking at you EA Los Angeles); it would be unstoppable. Like the old EA tagline; EA you have to challenge everything.
