Games

Call of Duty vs Battlefield: Which is better?

A feud between legendary forces of the FPS world is revived with the arrival of Advanced Warfare.
Written by Joshua Nino De Guzman
8 min readPublished on
Call of Duty vs Battlefield: Which is better?

Call of Duty vs Battlefield: Which is better?

© EA

This fall, two divided communities will take to the frontline in support of their favourite video games series, Call of Duty and Battlefield. The next generation of consoles breathe new life into the debate, with both Activision and EA enlisting for another campaign to consolidate demanding fans, hijack rivals’ devotees and to lure those swaying on the fence. As the war rages on, we take a look at some of the most prominent features as both publishers aim to coax your recruitment.

The story so far

Activision, entrusting their baby to the hands of Californian studio Sledgehammer for the first time, will be looking to renew their lease on the world’s most popular first-person shooter. Their opposing corner will ironically be vacant from the battlefield for some time. Indeed, Dice’s first mission is to guide upcoming Battlefield Hardline away from the unacceptable mistakes of a predecessor that failed to restore the wounds of its own prequel.
Battlefield 3 and 4 represented fallen heroes of a franchise that had earned incredible loyalty from its golden era of Battlefield 1942. Now, Swedish studio DICE will be forced to watch from the sidelines while Call of Duty’s latest member stamps its authority until early 2015.
Call of Duty hasn't flawlessly delivered either and although Activision has managed to hold their sparring partner at arm's length, the latest release at least has seen them give up ground. Not only did Ghosts underwhelm, but AW’s sales forecast is slightly lower. Lower expectations could do the series a favour. After all, there is no better merit than being measured against your own high market expectations, though the numbers mean far from everything.

Horsepower

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3

© EA

Upgraded graphics naturally provide the first glimpse of annual development. Battlefield 4, armed with EA’s Frostbite 3 engine, strikes first blood against Call of Duty: Ghosts. BF4’s transition to consoles was far from flawless, but, at its peak, the depth of textures, crisp details and sharper lighting effects combine to emulate one of the most realistic virtual war zones of its time. It almost puts you on the ground, engaging you in an immersive environment that, particularly in the campaign mode, commands your attention and appreciation.
Ghosts, on the ageing IW engine, would have a hard time when faced with its late 2014 competition. The single player was dull and multiplayer a corpse. It lacked a vibrancy that often served to break the momentum of illusion. Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare series improved on each occasion, but progress confusingly derailed on their most recent title. Advanced Warfare looks promising despite being built on an upgraded IW engine. BF4 still compares well even to that, meaning Hardline looks set to capture the visual plaudits, at least until Activision can issue yet another release.

The frontline experience

Call of Duty multiplayer

Call of Duty multiplayer

© Activision

Since the original Modern Warfare, Call of Duty largely thrived on its accessibility; quick kill times, plenty of aiming assistance (on consoles) and a wide array of effortless indirect weaponry rewarded for avoiding death.
Activision’s ethos is to give lower skilled players the chance to kill relatively frequently, retaining their attention by facilitating faster results, a sense of self-improvement and greater satisfaction.
Their approach has worked spectacularly. Of course, competent long-range sniping on BF is a quality that any FPS connoisseur should appreciate. Less auto-aim, higher kill times and strategising for 30- to 40-minute matches requires a calculated game plan and a consistent shot.
Hardcore Battlefield enthusiasts consider these to stand for better gameplay in direct comparisons, believing that cheap deaths on CoD from a smorgasbord of explosives and air support by non-playable characters should speak for themselves. Battlefield’s equivalents are manned vehicles that require lots of practice. No one can deny the number and depth of skills there are to master on the series.
But Call of Duty brought us Perks. Combinations of attributes, such as faster reloads, longer sprinting, and silenced movement to name a fraction, that distinguish your own solider in a multitude of ways. Your creation becomes a mirror of your own style of play, able to adapt to all sorts of environments by switching to other custom load outs mid-game. The concept has since been quietly imitated by other games. You’ll never guess which series that list includes…
In the advent of the next generation super soldier, first seen on Titanfall, later Destiny and now in the shape of Advanced Warfare’s Exoskeleton, we may be undergoing another evolution in the genre. If not that, then a branch that could grow in parallel with the market for traditional shooters. People want a fresh and more dynamic experience. Can Hardline keep up the pace?
Either side of the divide vehemently defends what they love. 64 player maps on Battlefield’s multiplayer is an entirely different experience to the typically faster-paced and more intimate encounters on Call of Duty. Neither can provide what the other offers.

HQ Support Command

Speaking of which, Battlefield’s multiplayer support is shallow at best. Battlefield 1942 and its Conquest game mode was a triumph. The ability to make mods, which was unfavourably removed from subsequent titles, led to the hugely popular Desert Combat. DICE even bought the studio responsible to aid their development of BF2.
Today, Call of Duty casts an overwhelming shadow. Ghosts took a slight step back, but Black Ops 2 introduced several new features, including a league system, to bolster an already generous selection of online modes and private lobby options that has been expanded annually.
On BF4, you have to rent a server to customise settings and play anywhere near how you want to play. Ranking does unlock new equipment and attributes, but the opportunity for individualism lacks scale and appeal; a huge pulling factor on Call of Duty. Battlefield 4 is also inundated with bugs and glitches that have stagnated and begun to destroy its community. Players have lost patience with EA and DICE’s lack of attention or ability to solve issues that were swept under the rug on BF3, only to resurface on its successor.
Activision, and their in-house developers of CoD, put EA to shame here. While fixes and bugs don’t just arrive on demand, they regularly interact with all corners of the community to take a balanced approach in their updates. Feedback is everything and despite a few hiccups, you have to award them the highest honour for effort. It can’t be easy when everybody thinks that they know best.
Battlefield fans know that the raw material is there to make their beloved franchise great again. All the more infuriating, then, that resolving game-breaking issues and fine-tuning a few details has been a bridge too far in recent years.

For the lone rangers

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

© Activision

It seems strange to think that the Campaign mode may no longer be the most important factor when developing a blockbuster shooter. While some publishers continue to push the boundaries of storytelling, others view it almost like washing the dishes; they'll do it because they have to. Increasingly this has felt like the case with Battlefield and Call of Duty. Sure, they have a dedicated fanbase to appease and flat out removal of a mode that for many years has been considered almost as essential as an instruction manual would probably flare tensions. Yet you only have to search Battlefield campaign to see how lowly regarded some of the latest iterations have been. As one Battlefield 4 campaign reviewer titles his piece, "No, Seriously, Skip the Campaign." A damning conclusion for what will have been an expensive and time-consuming development process. The general consensus is, besides the beautiful veneer of the graphics, the Battlefield campaign is a wounded soldier on the frontline.
The cries for no more Call of Duty campaign were just as widespread after the release of Ghosts, despite the Academy-award winning screenwriter roped in to pen it. In the past, the series grabbed the headlines for being so outrageous in their approach to the campaign mode that they bordered on the offensive, yet never failed to deliver an entertaining story throughout. Ghosts, on the other hand, achieved another level of outrageousness; a game so ludicrous it defied all sense and logic. If you want to just shoot some bad guys, you may as well hit up a public lobby online. In the most recent battle for campaign supremacy, there’s no clear winner between the two titan franchises. They’re almost like the last two finishers in the 100m Sprint finals; one may have slightly edged the other but no one is going to remember that a few days later.
Titanfall helped pave the way for franchises to do away with a conventional campaign mode and both EA and Activsion could indeed follow suit. The inclusion of a campaign is unlikely to be a pivotal selling point for much of the franchises’ fleets of fans anyway and largely serves to direct resources away from the main event; the multiplayer mode. Activision have refused to call it a day on storytelling though and gone all Hollywood for the next installment in the series. Cue Kevin Spacey; an A-lister among A-listers and two time Oscar recipient. The actor, most recently recognised for his role as ruthless politician Frank Underwood, is expected to play a similar role to his House of Cards anti-hero as part of the Advanced Warfare campaign. Certainly a tantalising prospect for campaign diehards. The curtain is yet to fall on Campaign mode and although EA are yet to deliver a clear retort, a fascinating new battle may now be emerging in this ongoing feud.
Does EA have the tools to take down Keyser Söze? We’ll have to wait until March to find out. In the meantime, tell us which side you’re on in the comments below.
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