Two of the biggest first-person shooter franchises announced their latest entries this month. The first announcement came from Activision, as it revealed Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which will be the next Call of Duty title, developed by Infinity Ward.
EA didn’t take long either and followed up with its new Battlefield game titled Battlefield 1 just 5 days later. Both games are diverse in every way imaginable. Not only the time period during which both the games take place in are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, but the reception both received from the audience are equally varied.
Infinite Warfare was met with harsh criticism and fans were extremely vocal about how they weren’t pleased with the series going to space, and were looking forward to a more ‘boots on the ground’ experience with this year’s entry. It didn’t take long for fan sentiment to slip into the reactions its official reveal trailer.
It broke records, but not ones that either the publisher or developer would’ve liked to be credited for. The game now holds the record for being the most disliked video game trailer ever released on YouTube. The game’s trailer currently has over 1 million dislikes, something that no one could’ve anticipated.
Adding insult to injury was a job destined to be carried out by the soon-to-released Battlefield 1 trailer. Fast forward 5 days and it happened. DICE announced it was taking Battlefield to World War I and that its latest entry, Battlefield 1, would feature tanks, biplanes and take players across diverse locations and battles during the historical time period.
It made the Internet explode with the gaming community coming out in support of the move. The reveal trailer also managed to impress the masses and everything simply clicked.Aadd in the disappointment gamers faced with the recently revealed CoD trailer, and things just fell in place for Battlefield.
Battlefield 1’s reveal trailer is nearing 21 million views on YouTube and has received an overwhelmingly positive response with over 1 million likes on the video and merely 20,000 odd dislikes. A reaction that is a far cry from the one Infinite Warfare’s trailer was met with.
However, that’s not the only thing that the recently revealed Battlefield 1 can be proud of. It has now become the only Battlefield game ever to have surpassed the amount of views a Call of Duty game trailer being announced during the same year.
This means EA and DICE have finally managed to beat the recently revealed Call of Duty game in terms of how many people watched the announcement trailer with Battlefield 1. This is something that both the publisher and studio responsible for the game would be extremely proud of, as it’s taken them more than a decade to beat Call of Duty when it comes to the announcement of its respective shooter juggernauts.
It’s still early days since both games have months before they hit store shelves but Battlefield seems to have an upper hand over the world’s biggest first-person shooter franchise this year. Could this be the year when Battlefield finally topples Call of Duty in terms of commercial success and sales? The signs are strong but we can’t count out Call of Duty out of this battle yet.