I can't believe the love this video is getting. I put so much time and effort into scripting, recording, and editing. I'm so thankful you all have enjoyed and connected with it. There are definitely more to come like this one. Thanks guys
@@jommunicator Well man, someone has to say what no one is saying. Its an extremely underrated truth that everyone is blind. "You take a mortal and put him in control. What him become a god" someone humble and reasonable not blinded by money has to say what is right and the title it self was a pin point accurate.
I feel super lucky to have been a young teenager during the OG golden days of COD 2007-2012. Some of the greatest times growing up and still some of my fondest memories. Cant believe I’m 30 next year, time has gone unbelievably quick. To all my fellow OG COD boys I hope you are all happy and content in your lives. I’ll never forget the amazing times we had back then 🫡
@Invictus4318 my era was 2009 - 2013. I vividly remember how much fun I had with MW 2/BO1 and how much I wanted to dislike Battlefield 3 at the time. COD had its claws dug so deep in me, it was insane.
"WaW is a horror game." Yes, the horror of having 5 grenades spontaneously appear at your feet when you try to recover from getting shot. Truly, horror.
@@AleK0451there in the raptures and the trees my guy 😂 low key miss that shit though, 3 am zombie matches wit big bro, screaming at the mic on multiplayer 😭😂
28:20 - 29:16 man that message hit home. I was 19 during the MW 2 era; 33 now. Full time employee, father, gym rat etc. The part where you said "our era might be over, but there are ways to keep the spirit alive," that hit home. I sometimes feel like an old head watching and reminiscing over older COD clips of 2009. What a time that was. Where it was straight up dumb fun, and everyone was playing. Nowadays I feel displaced, and I rarely connect with people anymore. I'm glad you captured the essence of the "jaded-ness" that most of us feel. Happy to hear that I'm not alone and that there are others that share the same sentiments. Bittersweet for sure. Anywho, loved this video! Absolutely top tier.
41 here I miss midnight releases , co-op survival mode …I also remember how u could play ur downloaded music on x box and pretty much have a soundtrack to ur kill streaks
WaW is criminally underrated. There was just WW2 fatigue at that point. Good campign, great multiplayer, and the introduction of zombies. Unfortunatly most people didn't expierence zombies until BO1.
...and WaW had modding support on PC, which was mind-blowing when I played it for the first time on PC, after experiencing DLC maps on x360. The amount of legendary quality content, that people shared on forums, was huge. Unfortunately, modding seems to be getting niche nowadays.
The saddest part about the cod falloff (and gaming in general) is that the studios know how to make an amazing cod, but they don’t because there’s no need to. All they care for is maximising profit and player retention. It’s like enjoyment is being gatekept by corporate greed. Seeing some of my favourite gaming franchises turn to shit is so upsetting
They wouldn’t retain players or make money if what they were making wasn’t fun though. Just cuz it’s not a mirror image of what we grew up on doesn’t mean it’s not fun or good. Y’all gotta get of the nostalgia train and try to just enjoy things for what they are and not what you want it to be
I'm about to be 31 and I don't ever think I'll get that same dopamine hit that COD4/MW2/BO2 gave me ever again. If you need me tho, I'll still be chasing that dragon.
I get the reference lol. People bash us for having rose tinted glasses but that's not the case given they are bootlickers and fanboys of this God forsaken movement system and mechanics. CoD is dead and kept alive by low IQ creatures.
I am a 31 y/o too and its been painful to see every single franchise that I have loved since a child slowly become terrible. I think only GTA has managed to stay fresh and engaging, but even then profits rule with online being prioritized over innovative and creative DLC
Fellow soon to be 31 year old here, only shooters I play now are tactical shooters (even though I don't like them) and halo MCC, everything else bores me to death. Only content addicts buy cod now
Cod lost its identity when it had an actual identity crisis. They want the guns and maps to feel like they are from a tactical shooter, the matches to feel like a competitive shooter, the movement to feel like its from a fast paced arena shooter, and the aesthetic to be whatever can sell the most microtransactions. They cannot create a cohesive game anymore and every cod since 2019 has felt off because of it.
THIS, This is exactly it's problem. It has absolutely no conclusive identity anymore. Even though i mildly enjoy new cod, it doesn't feel the same; and it ISN'T because of nostaliga it genuinely just is not as coherently made. Whether you think new cod or old cod is better is subjective but you cannot deny the fact that new age cod has a major, major identity/aesthetic crisis
One thing I wanna add is that its not just because its "Not for the old players" but corporate greed ultimately making cod less popular and worse. The cod you miss and remember really was the golden age of cod.
I agree with your sentiment, but corporate greed and cod being less popular does not go hand in hand. Cod is as popular as ever. Warzone numbers caused Activision to go this direction.
@@1openborderyeah in reality, its not bout the "current active users playing" as numbers, but "how much revenue we are getting" the way they are basing how cod is done these days. Is not fun anymore. And popular... bc they can still promote those cods with the omega whales who keep paying every new skin they add in the store.
Warzone numbers are only high cuz of the Indian/Chinese market. This isn’t to discount those people but the majority of them never cared for the original games and don’t have passion for what cod used to be. They only play warzone because it’s free and they’re poor
Unfortunately corporate greed is the natural reaction under capitalism. Until workers own the means of production like socialism proposes, profit for the individual capitalist will always be the white whale of the western world.
Sick of the fanbase now defending all the server crashes and victim blaming, telling people to restart their game or reinstall drivers.. Well, of course you potato fanboy, of course I've tried everything before wasting my time listening to your empty replies lol. The other thing that bothers me is all the stupid skins 😂😂😂
The last few minutes of this video hit me in the feels man. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the 2014-2015 era of coming home from school, hopping on BO2 or Minecraft and having fun with friends. No stress, no sweaty gameplay... just pure fun and joy.
This video was really good man. Im 22 now and when i was a little kid would watch my older brother play call of duty 4 and he got me into it. When mw3 was coming out i turned like 9 or 10 and finally got an xbox and xbox live for my self. I have played tons of multiplayer on cod 4, WaW, MW2, MW3, BO1 and BO2. That was the golden age. I had a good time on advanced warfare and a lot of fun on black ops 3 as well from the movement and skill gap it added and aswell as zombies was at its best in black ops 3. After that i felt it was changing like you said and each year it was releasing with less content and it felt like the games were decreasing in quality. You are completely right about mw2019 being a big changing point in how the games are now. This video made me really miss the old days of gaming. It wasnt even just cod i feel. Alot of games were in their peak back in the day and now its as much it feels like. Great video again though man
I think I'm one of the last “8 year olds” from the OG era. I’m in my last year of college, and as both a former COD and Halo fan, it truly depresses me how these franchises have been desecrated. I’m glad you went to the effort of giving people like us a voice on this matter, great video!
Holy shit. This is probably one of the most profound, heartfelt, genuinely meaningful videos on the call of duty franchise I've ever seen. You put into words what I've felt about newer cods so precisely. I really hope you get the sucess you deserve from this video, man. Keep it up, and keep bringing joy to people who may have forgotten what it was ❤
Dude, I rarely have the attention span to sit through a three minute video, but you managed to keep me watching for 10x that long. You deserve so many more subs. I’m like your brother, 30 years old now, and I got into cod mp in 2008 with cod 4. It’s sad to see what cod has become but I’m forever grateful for the memories made with my friends during the golden age of cod.
Nothing hurts worse than seeing our fellow COD veterans lose faith in COD. I, myself, still play it (despite me also seeing its downward decline since the 2007-2013 era) and every year i keep regretting hashing out the money to play a lackluster game that i wont enjoy, thinking its gonna be better this time.
We lost faith in COD because there is nothing left to have faith in. It is a cash shop that happens to have a half-baked game in it. Call of Duty is dead to me.
Yep. I still play a little COD, and have been since original MW3, but most of my friends aren’t interested in COD at all and won’t play it lol the games just aren’t as good anymore. Sometimes less is more
Man, I cried at the end of the video….. I remembered back in the day when I was 11/12/13 playing bo1 mw3 and bo2. I had no friends, but at home on my 360 I met the best friends I ever had and today I’m so sad that I skipped the Xbox one and can’t even find those guys anymore. It’s just sad, it’s brutal. I’m getting old..
It’s so wild how you can spend hours and hours talking to people on a daily basis and never know their names. Even now, 12 years later I still remember peoples gametags, their voices, and all the shit we used to talk about and do but I will never speak to them again. I’ll never know what happened to them. It’s sad to think about but also having those memories is something I wouldn’t trade for anything
@@RAGINGTomato10 man how incredibly accurate your comment is blows my mind & i'm glad i'm not the only one!.. Bo2 glory days after school I'd do Origins Easter egg with a dood named Lil Beus2900, I was younger than him but he was chill gaming with me. I didn't smoke weed at the time (I was 14ish) but for some reason I remember him always blazing on a strain called Jet Fuel lol. Didnt know anything about each other, just a couple of gamers with the same interests and goals. Video of the year forsure! never forget the Golden Age of CoD, as it wasn't a embarrassing game at the time & provided us with many memorable moments with family & friends
@@somerandomguy6268 it’s awesome hearing similar stories aye. Luckily I recorded and uploaded heaps of my sessions with my mates so I can watch back on them
Honestly you summarised a plethora of problems that has made cod a crappy franchise. -Too concerned about monetisation -Incomplete release -Exploting meta (for profit) -EOMM and SBMM
@@spankyjeffro5320That thinking is the problem. Instead of them monetizing little 15 dollar map packs and that content being worth it is completely different than pay to win weapons in an already 70 dollar game.
@@spankyjeffro5320No Its about public companies trying to make as much short term profit as possible for shareholders as CEO’s are paid for that They aren’t motivated to make long-term profits Take Valve for example, that is a private company
From someone who had the pleasure of experiencing all thats been said (and rightfully passed on a few entries). you hit the nail on the head on current state of CoD. While Black Ops 6 coming up, some may say its treyarch can bring it back; but with activision going the same way theyve been heading since 2019, Im not holding my breath. I miss those old experiences. Might check plutonium
MW3 was underrated, it wasn't super innovative but it had loads of guns and most were pretty viable or had a niche, the gun level system was good, specialist and support killstreaks were nice too. It was one of if not the last cods to have more than 2 multiplayer factions with different voiceovers and music themes as well
Agreed. I think it mostly suffered from it being not different enough from MW2. People expected much more innovation and change than we received. After MW3 we learned to temper our expectations from the franchise.
also cant forget how great of an ending was in the campaign.... just felt like perfect closure for og mw1+2... it doesnt matter that it wasnt too different bc it was still a continuation of those games...
@@PristianoPenaldoSUIIIINormal Boots' latest implosion created a vacuum that lifted the veil from the smaller creators that had been buried for years.
Dude this was a very very well put together video. Had amazing editing, was funny at points and also like super serious and even sad at the end man. Like I legit started to get a lil sad there at the end bc it reminded me of the good ole days playing up all night as kids on xbox and playstation with a close knit group of childhood friends of whom unfortunately have all recently passed away and the last one alive is fighting a war half way across the world right now just so he can support his family. I'd give a kidney or something to have them around still and play a few rounds of cod with them all again. Also can't believe you never mentioned any of the custom game lobbies on mw4 like infected, michael meyers, with old school mode of course, and etc. before they made them into actual modes in later cods.
brother...i never sat and listened through a 10 minute youtube video...but this video....i stayed for all of it. good work with clips and commentary. very knowledgeable opinion and relatable as well. I started off playing cod 4 on ps3 and was a fan up until the blackout/warzone era. zombies was the only thing that i came back for, but now the experience has gone to hell for me. lol welp thanks for the video.. it was a good watch/listen.
Makes a grown man cry 😭 See I’m gen Z and I have to say socializing now a days is hard because I only use to connect through BO2 from zombies to multiplayer and I really I hope this comes back soon but who knows who will bring back.
I am gen z too, socializing was hard for me and gaming was my escape. Nowadays, its hard to find friends, people who are actually really nice or people that actually are looking for friends. Maybe, or it could just be that I lack social skills and suck at making connections. ;~;
good work putting this all together so cohesively. really made me remember some of the greatest moments as a younger brother, too.. thanks for this one, dude.
You should honestly keep making video essays following this format. Amazing quality video, with informative and anecdotal information. You’re very well spoken, not too formal, and captivating. This is what people like, and you nailed it
Nothing will ever compare to coming home from school and hopping on mw2/blops/blops2 with the boys. One other thing that made old school cod special to me was the fact there was such a casual feel to it all, like sure we could sweat and tryhard if we wanted to, but if we just wanted to sit back and have some fun it was fully possible, like i vividly remember playing custom games in private matches back in the day like we would play hide and seek, can never forget having to try so hard to hold in a laugh when someone got too close to me... i miss those times, and i miss the way the old cod community felt, as you said in the video it was rare to join a old mw2 lobby with no one talking, even though i was a squeaker back then i still was happy to load it up and join in with the trash talking (even if it got me in trouble a few times if my mom heard me lol), but nowadays gaming in general has gone quiet, everyone is either in discord or party chats, or just dont have a mic plugged in or set it to push to talk and never push to talk... ever.
as a 29 year old who basically lived on mw2/black ops, i damn near cried when the memories came flooding back while watching this video. i havent played video games in years, but man maybe i need to make some time. i realize playing those games like i did isnt possible anymore, but i think maybe farcry 2 might give me the feeling i had while playing it as a kid. thanks for this man. god damn, we had it so good back then.
You absolutely killed it with this vid, lad. UA-cam threw this at me, and I clicked on it on a whim --- and I was not at all expecting such superb storytelling and such a deft finger on the pulse of Call of Duty's history. It'd be easy to get all cynical and angry and to endlessly lament how the good old days are all behind us, but it's better, I think, to feel grateful that those days were there for us at all. But Modern Warfare 3 came out a month before my thirteenth birthday. My midteens were defined by this narcissistic need to have the highest possible KD ratio on that game, and the Specialist bonus --- providing you with every perk and every proficiency in the game after only eight kills - made it such an enjoyable experience. I don’t think any game in the franchise rewarded skillful run-and-gunning as well as Modern Warfare 3 did. I’m twenty-five now, and it feels like video games are behind me. Getting older and working a full-time job to pay rent and caring deeply about getting good at stuff that matters to me like writing, as I’m sure is the case for many my age, has squeezed obsessive gaming out of my life. The great thing about getting older is seeing the culture age with you, and videos like these are just so satiating in that way. Keep up the great work, mate
When you started talking about bo2 man it make me almost tear up all little. I love that everyone had the same experience with that game. It was just so much fun no matter what you wanted to do.
Honestly I understand the mentality of why COD is trending this way. What breaks my heart is how they abandon the old CODS and leave them unplayable. AND completely KILL any efforts to crowd source our own attempts to revive it. Cold War was my final COD too.
cod would've never trended the way it did if the idea of making more money strictly involved making games to improve the sales numbers and popularity. They can make more money than they ever did now without making a better game or leaping heavily based off game sales
Yeah Cold War was/ is still played I put the disk in the other day people still playing vibing. Makes me consider getting black ops 6 with the new omni movement 🤔
Its ridiculous now because you'll get suspended or straight up banned for the smallest things. I made a community post roasting people who used cheats in PVE and despite it not actually being vulgar at all and literally calling out cheaters, it was mass reported by said cheaters and I got a 3 month ban. Absolutely fucking pathetic shit, makes me not even want to bother with multiplayer
@@oroboros88yea even the game chat people can report you for vulgar language and they can record your voice clip as proof using the report feature, it's truly sad
Man, the minecraft music along with your words about going back to Black Ops 2 with Plutonium seriously brought a tear to my eye. Two games I played a tremendous amount, but no longer feel connected to. A few months ago, my friends and I decided to try and play Black Ops 1 on Xbox, and 3-6 of us played online almost every night for a while. Would love to revisit once again. If you're on Xbox, come play with us. Really great video and writing.
Playing BO1/MW3 was my gaming peak. I remember I used to skip school, binge on weekends, and destroy lobbies with the ultimate complimenet of being called a hacker. Fast forward to being 27 years old, I'm a U.S. Military Officer clearing my unit and preparing for my next chapter in life, playing BO6 early in the morning (live in Germany) while I drink my morning coffee while I watch this video, and just reflecting on the good old days. The game isn't what it used to be, and I'm sure I'll stop playing in like 2 weeks like I always do and just leave it be - but it's good to notice the differnece each year. One thing I'll end this off with - I really wish kids out there could hop on COD and just experience that massive game lobby chat where you get to "meet' new people, talk so much sxxt to someone like you're about to go one on one in the basketball game, and overall feel that for one moment, you're not "alone" as you've escaped into a different place and can enjoy a different serenity until it's time to put the controller back down. Playing in these lobbies without anyone is so dead now.
The biggest issue with COD is that it's a Brand name. Like McDonald's, or Walmart. It's nice when you actually want/need it but most of the time you don't and in reality it is really, really shitty. This also means that people will flock to it no matter how bad, because they lack critical thinking skills. Brand loyalty is the stupidest thing you can do not only as a gamer, but as a consumer. If the game is shit, don't buy it because 'muh brand.' This has been a massive issue in the United States and has seeped into video games, with Valve being one of the only Triple A devs left that can actually produce a good game.
I like mw2023, I just dont play games I dont like. Like Blackops 5, also known as Cold War. I didn't like it at all so I didn't play it no more. i didn't like mw2022 either, so I didnt play it more. I dont think ppl play games they dont like, do they? Whats the point then?
@@xploitcatbecause when all your friends ONLY play warzone, what other choice do you have? Please go find me a game that's cross platform, that's got a big player base and it isn't an FPS game. The problem like other say, brand loyalty and people lacking critical thinking is the problem
The CoD cycle: A new game is announced, mild hype comes along, people trash-talk it online, the game is released, and UA-camrs say how bad/good it is. Rinse and repeat like clockwork
I was so hyped for cold war because it felt like black ops 1 in the trailers and it was coming with zombies. When I played it, it felt like a game trying to mimic what cod does without doing it right, *especially* the zombies. It didn't feel like Call of Duty Zombies. It felt like a game studio wanted to cash in on Call of Duty Zombies, but weren't allowed to make the game too similar or else they would get sued, so they made it mate with Left 4 Dead 2 to create an abhorrent abomination that it became.
@@bulgarianreaper6587 TL;DR: Engine this, engine that, the engine doesn't matter... It's what the people program into the game that makes the difference. Better game engines improve graphics qualities and development processes. Perhaps instead of writing in Assembly or C like in Id Tech 2, you can now use C++ in Unreal Engine's case or perhaps C# in Unity's case, and perhaps you have better support for model files. However, say you're moving from Source to Source 2; they're both using C++, and therefore, you can import the movement mechanic code from CS:GO straight to CS2 if you so desired (but would probably still tweak it in an attempt to improve it anyways). That code written in C++ will always work, regardless of the engine you use, so long as it supports the programming language and doesn't rely on missing libraries. A game engine impacts performance and visuals. Old engines have old rendering tricks. Modern engines have modern rendering tricks. New engines have new rendering tricks. The game you want to *make* will decide the engine you *use.* I won't use Source if I want to build a procedurally generating world as large as Rust or Minecraft; it is literally impossible due to how the engine compiles the map. Speaking of source, an antiquated engine from 2003, it's a nightmare to develop for it. How people make great games in it, I will never know. It's wonderful that Valve will be releasing Source 2. Imagine you wanted to import a model you made in Maya to your new game. If you are using the Unreal Engine, you save the model as a .fbx, you import the model you just saved into unreal engine, you drag your texture into unreal engine, and you're done. Say you wanted to do that in Source. First you need to save the model as a .obj file You import that file into Blender You fix that model in case it has weird import bugs You build a collision model for your existing model You shade your collision model smooth You download a third party addon for Blender called Source Export SMD You export your model as a Source Export SMD You take your texture, uv maps, whatever, and you put the .smd file, the textures, and whatever into its own folder You OPEN A NOTEPAD DOCUMENT You write a .qc file to specify your .smd file, your collision information file, and your texture files, etc etc MANUALLY You download Crowbar, another third party application created to make this process easier Compile the model using the .qc file using Crowbar Proceed to create a vtf file for the actual texture to show up Import that texture into hammer and *pray* you didn't mess something up along the way for every. single. model. That's the appeal of modern game engines, and is likely what Call of Duty upgraded to; you can just drag and drop most things as modern engines cater to the ease of use, so building the game and making it look pretty is easier. Of course, the engine might be horrifically optimized and perform poorly, but so long as performance is good, the game can be good. What matters most in a game is how your player moves, how you interact with your environment, how your equipment sounds and feels, how powerful your character is, how impactful the game feels, the balance of the equipment found in the game, whether the game is a challenge and whether that challenge is fun or unfair. If Activision gave me a giant team with the modern Call of Duty engine, I would build a Black Ops 1 remaster with all of the original movement and code, and simply renovate the visuals, and it would be perfect. No change the music, make the sound samples sound higher quality, and touch nothing but improve the texture quality and model detail on all of the materials in the game.
@@bulgarianreaper6587but without the cool gun building. They gotta stop listening to the new fans, guns system was great. It was the grind that was the problem, paired with SBMm to make that grind harder.
@@bulgarianreaper6587it actually wasnt made on the 2019 engine. after cold war, though, they started capitalising on it all the time which makes the newer games feel even more like the same.
I remember being 10 years old and watching my older brother’s friend play CoD 4 and not being able to pick my jaw off the floor. I played every CoD until BO3. I was so sick of the advanced movement and pay to play I found other games like Battlefield 1 or Titanfall. I rejoined the CoD hype with MW2019 but you summed it up perfectly. Unfinished, hectic maps but it felt different. I actually enjoyed it. However, I played this game religiously until I went out to sea and when I came back a year later, the game was absolutely gone. The monetization and gameplay were shot and war zone was at an all time high. I think this was the final nail in the coffin for CoD. It will never come back
I haven’t bought COD games since Black Ops 3. Having played the Black Ops 6 beta recently, it’s nuts how everyone plays so sweaty with these crazy movements. It’s like everyone is high on adrenaline. Not fun for me to constantly sweat just because i need to be on an even level with wannabe e-sport players. I miss older COD games where mechanics are simple and movement is not super fast like it is now.
How is being able to easily adapt = being sweaty. I might as well call an experienced programmer a sweat because I can't code at his level. It's like you casuals aren't great at critically thinking.
Bro I'm subbing just because of that 'worst thing that happened to me in 2019' comment. You already had me hooked for the whole video on the good commentary, but that humour has me in for the long haul haha. All jokes aside, hope all is good with you now dude, your a top G for sticking with your passion in the face of such adversity 🤙 F cancer, but I'm pressing F to pay respects to you dude 🫡
I've been having a lot of fun with a friend on Plutonium. We both reset our stats and we're playing BO2 literally as if it was the old days. Unlocking camos, weapons, getting prestige. New COD doesn't need me.
I saved up my supply drops in advanced warfare for the WHOLE life cycle of the game. About a month before the next cod was going to release I used them all and got literally nothing.
First of all, great commentary. I listened completely and I agree with you completely. My comment will be a little long, sorry for advance :) As a 25 year old who played nearly every "Golden Era CoDs", I can easily say that expectations are completely change. Back then, we (the majority) wanted to play these games for fun. I have never been the "BEST" when it comes to CoD but I sure enjoyed it much. But today, people like to grind more. After the beta of BO6, I saw and watched so many commentaries in youtube and they were just old CoD players just whining about "why the franchise is not the same it was before?". Well, time has changed and expectations are changed. People don't want to play just for fun. They want to grind. One of the commentaries, I heared "I am done with Xdefiant because I unlocked everything and there is nothing else to grind for." Well, maybe you can try to enjoy the game now. Make the game fulfill its purpose dammit. People don't want to play arena shooters, they want to play warzone. New generation don't want to stomped by sweaty pros and everyone is just a dopamine b*tch these days. They don't want to get better, they just want dopamine. And yes you re right, we re not the customer they are targeting, we re just an old minority so they wont care anyways. World has changed, we grown up and we had a great time and memories back then. Its not just about videogames, it is about everything about life. Its getting dull, isnt it. I guess we just have to move on :)
dawg i was about to cry when i heard the Minecraft music while cod gameplay in the background and showing xbox recent last players, i feel like if i were to check mines now, everything would just say the same thing. i wish I got to be more around that era, but i was a child in middle school at the time and didn't really had good wi-fi back then now that i am on my 20s, its just so wild that i missed all of that and will never or we, will never to get to have this era, ever, again. Great Video now im getting my discord and forcing them to watch this video lol
This vid was amazing bro, I grew up with my first few call of duty's on the ps2 with the ww2 era style (most the big red one was my repeat fav), most modern ones I just went to my friends house to experience it back then, the thrill of split screen and I remember going to a huge bday party when I was just a kid when mw3 first released and all the kids and I had split screen riot shield wars and other dumb fun stuff. The most fond memories was BO2 days, waiting for every new zombies map for origins to come out and the countless days me and my friends spent on snd just screwing around was perfect. To this day I miss that feel, even in the campaigns, most recent feel bland, mediocre, my last favorite was COD WW2 but even then it isn't always the best. Other than that even after trying the BO6 beta I feel like nothing will capture what it was back then unless the companies that produce it feel like they can take a shot in the dark without thinking about their wallets first. You are right though the old era will never be forgotten, we always have ways to recapture those moments again!
We really had it good boys 🥲 I’m still friends with buddies from other states. Haven’t met in real life, but we met on OG MW2 back in 2009. Still talk to them today. I’m turning 30 in less than a month. Where has the time gone lol. Loved the video, thanks for the nostalgia.
I'm the person who wrote the comment you mentioned at 2:40. The difference between World at War and other videogames in the series focusing on World War 2 is striking and evident. So much passion went into not only showcasing a dramatized version of just a few real events that took place, but also to try to show the brutality and horror of that conflict. While the game remains a typical shooter which doesn't provide nuance in the conflict, it pulls you into the events in a more tasteful manner than others. It's almost as if it's the memories of someone who was there, not concerned with the deeper philosophical conundrums of war, but a recalling of disturbing images of violence which you could never get away from. You'd try to wash them away with the brief moments of glory, but they're always there. The world might talk about your valiant efforts in victory, but your mind only remembers the rain, the numbness of your hands as you clutch your weapon, having taken the life of someone's son, someone's father, on a charred field.
calling ghosts streaks bad is criminal, map specific killstreaks went unbelievably hard, i would kill for this level of creativity in a modern cod game
I was one of those OG kids who becamse obsessed with these games being 14 years old when Black Ops 1 came out. Long story short i was max prestige in Cod 5,, bo1, mw3, and bo2. I had so many great times and met so many friends in those lobbies, sometimes the laughs were incredible. I cant help but look back fondly and be glad i got to play during those times
Sorry, 2019 is my favorite modern cod. I couldn’t stand anything post MW2 and came back in 2019 to a heavy, gritty, completely different and slower call of duty. It was great.
Exactly the same here. OG MW2 is without a doubt COD's peak. Blops just didn't feel right and I just skipped OG MW3 entirely, didn't touch COD again until the gunfight 2v2 beta for MW 2019 and it relit that fire in a big way. The people who shit on or downplay MW 2019 are in denial that it revived a dying brand that was borderline irrelevant by the time COD WW2 released.
I have played every COD since 2006. BO2 was the best by far. MW2 is in the conversation for top 5 along with COD4, BO1 and MW3. MW2 was an excellent game but BO2 was the complete package. Campaign, Multiplayer, Zombies, peak League Play and MLG competitive play yet still casual fun playstyles for Ninja Defusers, Knifers, Snipers, Riot Shielders etc. Pick 10 system. I could go on and that’s just multiplayer. MW2 didn’t have zombies. 3ARC could have made MW2 but IW couldn’t have made BO2.
People gotta understand that cod was never that special. What cod did was give millions of people one of the easiest ways to escape life. Over time the only result is for the game to eventualy die down.
I remember not liking it when it came out. The campaign's clearly not as good as in MW2. But when I replayed it, I appreciated it more since I could compare it to what studios pass off as campaigns these days (if they even have one).
MW3 was the peak IMHO. Every few years I'll get tricked by the slick ads and buy a cod game... Within the first minute of "this game needs and update", to 3 hours in to multi-player, I've made up my mind to sell it or give it away. 😅 I enjoy COD campaigns. But when it comes to playing online, it's battlefield or Insurgency Sandstorm for me.
Brought back some memories of those older ones. Thank you. Played COD from MW2 2009 all the way to Cold War. Until after reloading MW2019 in preparation for the next MWII 2022 I played one game of it and was falsely perma-banned for supposedly cheating, I wasn't. No way to fight it, every COD game I loaded after that was immediately perma-banned. 54 weeks later, over a year, I got a message from Steam stating that they'd been contacted by COD Dev Team to reverse an 'incorrectly applied perma-ban'. I wasn't contacted by COD, wasn't contacted by Activision, the only reason I know it was reversed was a message notification from Steam stating it had been reversed at the request of COD Dev Team. Loaded into COD account. No record of the ban ever occurring, they'd wiped it clean. No apology. Not nothing from COD or Activision. I've sworn I'll never pay for an Activision or COD game again. But whenever the new ones come out, it's hard. Hard not to jump back in.
I stopped playing cod after mw3 and moved over to Battlefield, but man, that last statement about how the games aren't really made for us anymore hit hard. Nothing today really hits like they used to, and I never really realized I've been holding everything to that standard of the golden years. Awesome video though, nearly made me cry there for a min
Hating on mw3 and ghosts is so damn typical. Mw3 is kind of surprising but everyone loves to hate on ghosts when it's still probably the best Cod since it came out
@@WATCH-In-the-Name-of-Zion yup first cod to have it and much more ranking up guns instead of challenges, prestige tokens, survival mode, face off mode including maps that were made only for it. Has great maps and dlc was even better
@@arish_xoyeah but he didn’t really do a good job properly explaining it since he didn’t know enough about it. COD culture was very much alive during Mw3 and a lot of Snipers would also call it their favorite. Not mentioning that is wack, but then again he said he didn’t even play it
@@nicrudiger961 the irony that it's their favourite when it's the exact same thing that MW2 did, this didn't variate enough from MW2 as people led you to believe they're just nostalgic about reliving those good old days.
@@arish_xo I mean I was very actively playing cod from MW to BO2 and I remember it pretty well. Sniping clans, montages, UA-camrs like KYR SP33DY and Faze Jev all came up during MW3. Say what you want about it not being different enough for you. There was more cool stuff to it that wasn’t mentioned. MW3 wasn’t even my fav, but that part of the vid seems super out-of-touch
Excellent video! Im an older guy that started with Doom, CS, and Call of Duty. 😂 COD4 and BlackOps were amazing games and made for great times. It was fun to make friends there. I didn’t get into the Treyarch and original Infinity Ward controversy. I didn’t follow series after BlackOps. The micropayments and the series in general is unfriendly to a casual gamer after 2010. Thank you for the video! Keep having fun
i've been checking this video every so often watching the views go up. so sick to see a relatively small creator get so much attention, you deserve it!
I can’t believe so much time has passed. Let’s be thankful that we got to live and experience such beautiful moments boys, thinking about it it’s sad but at the same time brings me so much joy. Cheers to many more memories even if they are not gaming related.
This is a great video I've played since bo1 and it's honestly so crazy how far cod has fallen from grace, especially to see it in real time going from mw2 while i still love cod and play it daily (can i get prayers for my mental health) i won't defend some of the really bad decisions and i always cal them out for it like sbmm and loot boxes
I can't believe the love this video is getting. I put so much time and effort into scripting, recording, and editing. I'm so thankful you all have enjoyed and connected with it. There are definitely more to come like this one. Thanks guys
Hard work pays off
Brother we love good content I’m trying to work on mine as well
👍
Awesome job 👍
@@jommunicator Well man, someone has to say what no one is saying. Its an extremely underrated truth that everyone is blind. "You take a mortal and put him in control. What him become a god" someone humble and reasonable not blinded by money has to say what is right and the title it self was a pin point accurate.
playing cod feels like being in a toxic relationship
“Maybe it’ll be different this time” 😞
When she good to you, she is good to you.
Just can’t stop going back
Feels like a toxic relationship that didn't start that way, that's what makes it so heartbreaking
Destiny 2 beats this by a mile.
I feel super lucky to have been a young teenager during the OG golden days of COD 2007-2012. Some of the greatest times growing up and still some of my fondest memories. Cant believe I’m 30 next year, time has gone unbelievably quick. To all my fellow OG COD boys I hope you are all happy and content in your lives. I’ll never forget the amazing times we had back then 🫡
great video just love it, black ops 6 is going to be the worst cancer cod yet
You're writing bullshit. Most iconic call of duty games were: Call of Duty, Call of Duty: United Offensive and Call of Duty 2
@@kljukusa1 Well you’re clearly delusional
Just hit 30 last month, I feel this on another level. 2007-2012 RIP the Golden Age we got to experience but didn’t know how good we had it 🫡
@Invictus4318 my era was 2009 - 2013. I vividly remember how much fun I had with MW 2/BO1 and how much I wanted to dislike Battlefield 3 at the time. COD had its claws dug so deep in me, it was insane.
"WaW is a horror game."
Yes, the horror of having 5 grenades spontaneously appear at your feet when you try to recover from getting shot. Truly, horror.
Man, veteran mode. Awesome.
Not all horror is an existential dread or jumpscares. But getting slammed by 70 grenades in WaW certainly qualifies as both.
@@3ofSpadesbest part is the grenades actually just spawn in if you’re stationary for too long, regardless if there’s actually any enemies around
@@gengarclefairy3475 i swear i can only ever see one guy actually throwing the grenade and then i see like 4 grenade indicators appear
@@AleK0451there in the raptures and the trees my guy 😂 low key miss that shit though, 3 am zombie matches wit big bro, screaming at the mic on multiplayer 😭😂
28:20 - 29:16 man that message hit home. I was 19 during the MW 2 era; 33 now. Full time employee, father, gym rat etc. The part where you said "our era might be over, but there are ways to keep the spirit alive," that hit home. I sometimes feel like an old head watching and reminiscing over older COD clips of 2009. What a time that was. Where it was straight up dumb fun, and everyone was playing. Nowadays I feel displaced, and I rarely connect with people anymore. I'm glad you captured the essence of the "jaded-ness" that most of us feel. Happy to hear that I'm not alone and that there are others that share the same sentiments. Bittersweet for sure. Anywho, loved this video! Absolutely top tier.
spot on dude
Memories of a generation.
As a fellow 33 year old family man, I do miss playing MW2 all night with friends
This video almost made me tear up
41 here I miss midnight releases , co-op survival mode …I also remember how u could play ur downloaded music on x box and pretty much have a soundtrack to ur kill streaks
WaW is criminally underrated. There was just WW2 fatigue at that point. Good campign, great multiplayer, and the introduction of zombies. Unfortunatly most people didn't expierence zombies until BO1.
If only mw2 waited a year to release waw would of had the best numbers for sure
World at war was incredible.. I played that game SO much in its prime. Man I miss those times so much..
I was just thinking the exact same thing about WaW it gets overlooked sandwhiched between Cod4 and MW2 but the campaign was still absolutely legendary
I loved WAW .. a game to play when MW2 got stale .. amazing game
...and WaW had modding support on PC, which was mind-blowing when I played it for the first time on PC, after experiencing DLC maps on x360. The amount of legendary quality content, that people shared on forums, was huge. Unfortunately, modding seems to be getting niche nowadays.
The saddest part about the cod falloff (and gaming in general) is that the studios know how to make an amazing cod, but they don’t because there’s no need to. All they care for is maximising profit and player retention. It’s like enjoyment is being gatekept by corporate greed. Seeing some of my favourite gaming franchises turn to shit is so upsetting
Agreed
This is why I moved on to games that actually care
They wouldn’t retain players or make money if what they were making wasn’t fun though. Just cuz it’s not a mirror image of what we grew up on doesn’t mean it’s not fun or good. Y’all gotta get of the nostalgia train and try to just enjoy things for what they are and not what you want it to be
It's more the players fault then Activision they keep on buying it saying it sucks and playing it anyways
I have a vivid image of Pete Parsons (Bungie CEO) and his $2000000 car collection after removing 1/3 of his employees while reading that
This video was way too high in quality to have 134 views. You've really got something here dude! Keep up the good work
It's only been one day
That's crazy bro I dare you to peel your skin off
@HotMochaCake peeling it off layer by layer like an onion as we speak 🫡
@@HotMochaCakebet
And to have only 425 subs? I’ll be your 426th nice video bro!💯
I'm about to be 31 and I don't ever think I'll get that same dopamine hit that COD4/MW2/BO2 gave me ever again. If you need me tho, I'll still be chasing that dragon.
I get the reference lol. People bash us for having rose tinted glasses but that's not the case given they are bootlickers and fanboys of this God forsaken movement system and mechanics. CoD is dead and kept alive by low IQ creatures.
Delta Force Hawk Ops looks promising
I am a 31 y/o too and its been painful to see every single franchise that I have loved since a child slowly become terrible. I think only GTA has managed to stay fresh and engaging, but even then profits rule with online being prioritized over innovative and creative DLC
Fellow soon to be 31 year old here, only shooters I play now are tactical shooters (even though I don't like them) and halo MCC, everything else bores me to death.
Only content addicts buy cod now
@dbz9393 GTA V became so stale, and Rockstar has become more greedy than ever.
Did this guy just make the best call of duty UA-cam video of 2024? Yeah let me just hit that subscribe button.
Gay
Cod lost its identity when it had an actual identity crisis. They want the guns and maps to feel like they are from a tactical shooter, the matches to feel like a competitive shooter, the movement to feel like its from a fast paced arena shooter, and the aesthetic to be whatever can sell the most microtransactions. They cannot create a cohesive game anymore and every cod since 2019 has felt off because of it.
THIS, This is exactly it's problem. It has absolutely no conclusive identity anymore. Even though i mildly enjoy new cod, it doesn't feel the same; and it ISN'T because of nostaliga it genuinely just is not as coherently made. Whether you think new cod or old cod is better is subjective but you cannot deny the fact that new age cod has a major, major identity/aesthetic crisis
Cold War felt like a more cohesive concept than mw2019.
@samuelault4723 despite less development time
One thing I wanna add is that its not just because its "Not for the old players" but corporate greed ultimately making cod less popular and worse. The cod you miss and remember really was the golden age of cod.
I agree with your sentiment, but corporate greed and cod being less popular does not go hand in hand. Cod is as popular as ever. Warzone numbers caused Activision to go this direction.
@@1openborderyeah in reality, its not bout the "current active users playing" as numbers, but "how much revenue we are getting" the way they are basing how cod is done these days. Is not fun anymore. And popular... bc they can still promote those cods with the omega whales who keep paying every new skin they add in the store.
Warzone numbers are only high cuz of the Indian/Chinese market. This isn’t to discount those people but the majority of them never cared for the original games and don’t have passion for what cod used to be. They only play warzone because it’s free and they’re poor
@1openborder You have to add in the contracts some streamers sign to push certain games.
Unfortunately corporate greed is the natural reaction under capitalism. Until workers own the means of production like socialism proposes, profit for the individual capitalist will always be the white whale of the western world.
Its just so annoying knowing most of the fanbase has never even played the original games
Sick of the fanbase now defending all the server crashes and victim blaming, telling people to restart their game or reinstall drivers..
Well, of course you potato fanboy, of course I've tried everything before wasting my time listening to your empty replies lol.
The other thing that bothers me is all the stupid skins 😂😂😂
OG Halo Player: First time?
@@LuffyTheLabrador at least MCC makes them easily accessible on modern consoles, idk if cod will ever remaster or remake the original games
Call of duty 2 was the best, color custom names and no custom classes or bs
@@Supersonicspyro bro i have been saying for ages, seriously. why is there no cod equivalent of mcc? it drives me nuts
didn’t even realize this came from a small channel, loved this high quality video essay
The last few minutes of this video hit me in the feels man. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the 2014-2015 era of coming home from school, hopping on BO2 or Minecraft and having fun with friends. No stress, no sweaty gameplay... just pure fun and joy.
This video was really good man. Im 22 now and when i was a little kid would watch my older brother play call of duty 4 and he got me into it. When mw3 was coming out i turned like 9 or 10 and finally got an xbox and xbox live for my self. I have played tons of multiplayer on cod 4, WaW, MW2, MW3, BO1 and BO2. That was the golden age. I had a good time on advanced warfare and a lot of fun on black ops 3 as well from the movement and skill gap it added and aswell as zombies was at its best in black ops 3. After that i felt it was changing like you said and each year it was releasing with less content and it felt like the games were decreasing in quality. You are completely right about mw2019 being a big changing point in how the games are now. This video made me really miss the old days of gaming. It wasnt even just cod i feel. Alot of games were in their peak back in the day and now its as much it feels like. Great video again though man
Watched this hungover, took me on a ride through my whole childhood ❤ hella good quality!
Real. Glad you enjoyed!
I wouldn't be able to handle the emotional callbacks while hungover.
I think I'm one of the last “8 year olds” from the OG era. I’m in my last year of college, and as both a former COD and Halo fan, it truly depresses me how these franchises have been desecrated. I’m glad you went to the effort of giving people like us a voice on this matter, great video!
I’m on that same boat of 8 year olds starting from WAW
Holy shit. This is probably one of the most profound, heartfelt, genuinely meaningful videos on the call of duty franchise I've ever seen. You put into words what I've felt about newer cods so precisely. I really hope you get the sucess you deserve from this video, man. Keep it up, and keep bringing joy to people who may have forgotten what it was ❤
Here from your reddit post, great job bro!
Dude, I rarely have the attention span to sit through a three minute video, but you managed to keep me watching for 10x that long. You deserve so many more subs. I’m like your brother, 30 years old now, and I got into cod mp in 2008 with cod 4. It’s sad to see what cod has become but I’m forever grateful for the memories made with my friends during the golden age of cod.
Nothing hurts worse than seeing our fellow COD veterans lose faith in COD. I, myself, still play it (despite me also seeing its downward decline since the 2007-2013 era) and every year i keep regretting hashing out the money to play a lackluster game that i wont enjoy, thinking its gonna be better this time.
Idk but youre the part of the problem...still giving them money. Do you buy skins also?
We lost faith in COD because there is nothing left to have faith in. It is a cash shop that happens to have a half-baked game in it. Call of Duty is dead to me.
why play it if u dont enjoy it, i still have fun playin even if it isnt as good
Yep. I still play a little COD, and have been since original MW3, but most of my friends aren’t interested in COD at all and won’t play it lol the games just aren’t as good anymore. Sometimes less is more
I was you from 2013-2022. It's never going to get better, just move on. I'm sorry for all of us.
Man, I cried at the end of the video….. I remembered back in the day when I was 11/12/13 playing bo1 mw3 and bo2. I had no friends, but at home on my 360 I met the best friends I ever had and today I’m so sad that I skipped the Xbox one and can’t even find those guys anymore. It’s just sad, it’s brutal. I’m getting old..
What a p****
It’s so wild how you can spend hours and hours talking to people on a daily basis and never know their names. Even now, 12 years later I still remember peoples gametags, their voices, and all the shit we used to talk about and do but I will never speak to them again. I’ll never know what happened to them. It’s sad to think about but also having those memories is something I wouldn’t trade for anything
@@RAGINGTomato10 man how incredibly accurate your comment is blows my mind & i'm glad i'm not the only one!.. Bo2 glory days after school I'd do Origins Easter egg with a dood named Lil Beus2900, I was younger than him but he was chill gaming with me. I didn't smoke weed at the time (I was 14ish) but for some reason I remember him always blazing on a strain called Jet Fuel lol. Didnt know anything about each other, just a couple of gamers with the same interests and goals. Video of the year forsure! never forget the Golden Age of CoD, as it wasn't a embarrassing game at the time & provided us with many memorable moments with family & friends
@@somerandomguy6268 it’s awesome hearing similar stories aye. Luckily I recorded and uploaded heaps of my sessions with my mates so I can watch back on them
Honestly you summarised a plethora of problems that has made cod a crappy franchise.
-Too concerned about monetisation
-Incomplete release
-Exploting meta (for profit)
-EOMM and SBMM
They're a company, of course they want monetization. You don't fucking work for free, neither do they.
@@spankyjeffro5320 the problem isn't monetization, but how they monetize it
@@spankyjeffro5320That thinking is the problem. Instead of them monetizing little 15 dollar map packs and that content being worth it is completely different than pay to win weapons in an already 70 dollar game.
@@spankyjeffro5320bootlicker.
@@spankyjeffro5320No
Its about public companies trying to make as much short term profit as possible for shareholders as CEO’s are paid for that
They aren’t motivated to make long-term profits
Take Valve for example, that is a private company
From someone who had the pleasure of experiencing all thats been said (and rightfully passed on a few entries). you hit the nail on the head on current state of CoD. While Black Ops 6 coming up, some may say its treyarch can bring it back; but with activision going the same way theyve been heading since 2019, Im not holding my breath.
I miss those old experiences. Might check plutonium
BABE WAKE UP JULIAN FINALLY RELEASED HIS MAGNUM OPUS
Until his next one, obviously
Idk if I would’ve dropped this video without your continued support and nice comments over time so thank you!
@@jommunicator this is too wholesome for its own good guys
@@jommunicator It's been 6 days and this video is your big break man congrats!!!! So many more people in this community it's awesome to see!!
@@illegalwaffleSlurp, slurp, suck, suck, lick, lick😂
MW3 was underrated, it wasn't super innovative but it had loads of guns and most were pretty viable or had a niche, the gun level system was good, specialist and support killstreaks were nice too. It was one of if not the last cods to have more than 2 multiplayer factions with different voiceovers and music themes as well
And new/fun game modes too
Agreed. I think it mostly suffered from it being not different enough from MW2. People expected much more innovation and change than we received. After MW3 we learned to temper our expectations from the franchise.
Calling in EMPs every minute was a blast for me and my friends. (Fuck your killstreaks) 😂
I loved it
also cant forget how great of an ending was in the campaign.... just felt like perfect closure for og mw1+2... it doesnt matter that it wasnt too different bc it was still a continuation of those games...
super happy youtube is pushing smaller channels now :3 bump bump bump bumpbump bump bump
Agreed alot of videos recommended to me recently have been from small channels I didn't notice until I checked alot of them had less than 1k subs
UA-cam algorithm being good and useful for once. I wish they'd fix the search function too
@@PristianoPenaldoSUIIIINormal Boots' latest implosion created a vacuum that lifted the veil from the smaller creators that had been buried for years.
Dude this was a very very well put together video. Had amazing editing, was funny at points and also like super serious and even sad at the end man. Like I legit started to get a lil sad there at the end bc it reminded me of the good ole days playing up all night as kids on xbox and playstation with a close knit group of childhood friends of whom unfortunately have all recently passed away and the last one alive is fighting a war half way across the world right now just so he can support his family. I'd give a kidney or something to have them around still and play a few rounds of cod with them all again. Also can't believe you never mentioned any of the custom game lobbies on mw4 like infected, michael meyers, with old school mode of course, and etc. before they made them into actual modes in later cods.
brother...i never sat and listened through a 10 minute youtube video...but this video....i stayed for all of it. good work with clips and commentary. very knowledgeable opinion and relatable as well. I started off playing cod 4 on ps3 and was a fan up until the blackout/warzone era. zombies was the only thing that i came back for, but now the experience has gone to hell for me.
lol welp thanks for the video.. it was a good watch/listen.
Makes a grown man cry 😭
See I’m gen Z and I have to say socializing now a days is hard because I only use to connect through BO2 from zombies to multiplayer and I really I hope this comes back soon but who knows who will bring back.
Hey bro, wanna play bo2 zombies with me?
@@worldnightmare4048 are you on xbox?
awwwe :
I am gen z too, socializing was hard for me and gaming was my escape. Nowadays, its hard to find friends, people who are actually really nice or people that actually are looking for friends. Maybe, or it could just be that I lack social skills and suck at making connections. ;~;
Trust me as a gen z, socialising is annoying but I don't mind talking to you. It may be hard to find friends but don't give up hope.
“And I got cancer in 2019.” 22:40 Subbed that moment
Same
9:10 That pause... man, I feel ya.
good work putting this all together so cohesively.
really made me remember some of the greatest moments as a younger brother, too.. thanks for this one, dude.
You should honestly keep making video essays following this format. Amazing quality video, with informative and anecdotal information. You’re very well spoken, not too formal, and captivating. This is what people like, and you nailed it
I definitely will.
Nothing will ever compare to coming home from school and hopping on mw2/blops/blops2 with the boys.
One other thing that made old school cod special to me was the fact there was such a casual feel to it all, like sure we could sweat and tryhard if we wanted to, but if we just wanted to sit back and have some fun it was fully possible, like i vividly remember playing custom games in private matches back in the day like we would play hide and seek, can never forget having to try so hard to hold in a laugh when someone got too close to me... i miss those times, and i miss the way the old cod community felt, as you said in the video it was rare to join a old mw2 lobby with no one talking, even though i was a squeaker back then i still was happy to load it up and join in with the trash talking (even if it got me in trouble a few times if my mom heard me lol), but nowadays gaming in general has gone quiet, everyone is either in discord or party chats, or just dont have a mic plugged in or set it to push to talk and never push to talk... ever.
this video about to blow up hopefully bro. 🎉❤
as a 29 year old who basically lived on mw2/black ops, i damn near cried when the memories came flooding back while watching this video. i havent played video games in years, but man maybe i need to make some time. i realize playing those games like i did isnt possible anymore, but i think maybe farcry 2 might give me the feeling i had while playing it as a kid. thanks for this man. god damn, we had it so good back then.
You absolutely killed it with this vid, lad. UA-cam threw this at me, and I clicked on it on a whim --- and I was not at all expecting such superb storytelling and such a deft finger on the pulse of Call of Duty's history. It'd be easy to get all cynical and angry and to endlessly lament how the good old days are all behind us, but it's better, I think, to feel grateful that those days were there for us at all.
But Modern Warfare 3 came out a month before my thirteenth birthday. My midteens were defined by this narcissistic need to have the highest possible KD ratio on that game, and the Specialist bonus --- providing you with every perk and every proficiency in the game after only eight kills - made it such an enjoyable experience. I don’t think any game in the franchise rewarded skillful run-and-gunning as well as Modern Warfare 3 did.
I’m twenty-five now, and it feels like video games are behind me. Getting older and working a full-time job to pay rent and caring deeply about getting good at stuff that matters to me like writing, as I’m sure is the case for many my age, has squeezed obsessive gaming out of my life. The great thing about getting older is seeing the culture age with you, and videos like these are just so satiating in that way.
Keep up the great work, mate
When you started talking about bo2 man it make me almost tear up all little. I love that everyone had the same experience with that game. It was just so much fun no matter what you wanted to do.
I like that game too, but people really seem to want to forget how divisive it was at launch along with MW3.
@Horgler I was 12 when bo2 came out, so I honestly ONLY remember good things about that game
@@FishermanKyle Newgen
@@FishermanKyleyes sir. I was 9-10 when buried came out could not stop playing zombies.
Bo2 is up there. I know you disagree, but objectively, the best call of duty. @hulkhogan2113
Honestly I understand the mentality of why COD is trending this way. What breaks my heart is how they abandon the old CODS and leave them unplayable. AND completely KILL any efforts to crowd source our own attempts to revive it. Cold War was my final COD too.
cod would've never trended the way it did if the idea of making more money strictly involved making games to improve the sales numbers and popularity. They can make more money than they ever did now without making a better game or leaping heavily based off game sales
Yeah Cold War was/ is still played I put the disk in the other day people still playing vibing. Makes me consider getting black ops 6 with the new omni movement 🤔
5:14 COD trash talk massively desensitised me to verbal abuse .. ..
It hardened you into a person who won't cry and complain because someone spoke a few words. We need more people like that in today's world
If you could survive a COD verbal assault, you're practically bulletproof.
Its ridiculous now because you'll get suspended or straight up banned for the smallest things. I made a community post roasting people who used cheats in PVE and despite it not actually being vulgar at all and literally calling out cheaters, it was mass reported by said cheaters and I got a 3 month ban. Absolutely fucking pathetic shit, makes me not even want to bother with multiplayer
sometimes i wish to be desensitized to words, not giving a shit helps but still
@@oroboros88yea even the game chat people can report you for vulgar language and they can record your voice clip as proof using the report feature, it's truly sad
Man, the minecraft music along with your words about going back to Black Ops 2 with Plutonium seriously brought a tear to my eye. Two games I played a tremendous amount, but no longer feel connected to.
A few months ago, my friends and I decided to try and play Black Ops 1 on Xbox, and 3-6 of us played online almost every night for a while. Would love to revisit once again. If you're on Xbox, come play with us. Really great video and writing.
Great video dude. Definitely brought back lots of great memories
COD Then: "It's always the same and lazy"
COD Now: "Bring back old cod without sbmm, eomm, and ai generated maps"
~sigh :c
22:40 nah you're the goat for that lmao subbed
I had the same thought process😭 subbed
29:37 now you understand why your grandparents say the old days were better 😢✌🏻🫶🏻
Playing BO1/MW3 was my gaming peak. I remember I used to skip school, binge on weekends, and destroy lobbies with the ultimate complimenet of being called a hacker. Fast forward to being 27 years old, I'm a U.S. Military Officer clearing my unit and preparing for my next chapter in life, playing BO6 early in the morning (live in Germany) while I drink my morning coffee while I watch this video, and just reflecting on the good old days.
The game isn't what it used to be, and I'm sure I'll stop playing in like 2 weeks like I always do and just leave it be - but it's good to notice the differnece each year.
One thing I'll end this off with - I really wish kids out there could hop on COD and just experience that massive game lobby chat where you get to "meet' new people, talk so much sxxt to someone like you're about to go one on one in the basketball game, and overall feel that for one moment, you're not "alone" as you've escaped into a different place and can enjoy a different serenity until it's time to put the controller back down.
Playing in these lobbies without anyone is so dead now.
Great work. Nothing more to say. Subbed.
The biggest issue with COD is that it's a Brand name. Like McDonald's, or Walmart. It's nice when you actually want/need it but most of the time you don't and in reality it is really, really shitty.
This also means that people will flock to it no matter how bad, because they lack critical thinking skills. Brand loyalty is the stupidest thing you can do not only as a gamer, but as a consumer. If the game is shit, don't buy it because 'muh brand.' This has been a massive issue in the United States and has seeped into video games, with Valve being one of the only Triple A devs left that can actually produce a good game.
I like mw2023, I just dont play games I dont like. Like Blackops 5, also known as Cold War. I didn't like it at all so I didn't play it no more. i didn't like mw2022 either, so I didnt play it more. I dont think ppl play games they dont like, do they? Whats the point then?
And indie developers. And other privately-owned game companies.
@@xploitcatbecause when all your friends ONLY play warzone, what other choice do you have? Please go find me a game that's cross platform, that's got a big player base and it isn't an FPS game.
The problem like other say, brand loyalty and people lacking critical thinking is the problem
The CoD cycle: A new game is announced, mild hype comes along, people trash-talk it online, the game is released, and UA-camrs say how bad/good it is. Rinse and repeat like clockwork
Don't diss on walmart.
Man that “in the distant future” then showing 2025 hit different
I was so hyped for cold war because it felt like black ops 1 in the trailers and it was coming with zombies. When I played it, it felt like a game trying to mimic what cod does without doing it right, *especially* the zombies. It didn't feel like Call of Duty Zombies. It felt like a game studio wanted to cash in on Call of Duty Zombies, but weren't allowed to make the game too similar or else they would get sued, so they made it mate with Left 4 Dead 2 to create an abhorrent abomination that it became.
The problem is that it was also made with the same engine as MW 2019, so it felt like MW 2019, but set during the Cold War
@@bulgarianreaper6587 TL;DR: Engine this, engine that, the engine doesn't matter... It's what the people program into the game that makes the difference.
Better game engines improve graphics qualities and development processes. Perhaps instead of writing in Assembly or C like in Id Tech 2, you can now use C++ in Unreal Engine's case or perhaps C# in Unity's case, and perhaps you have better support for model files. However, say you're moving from Source to Source 2; they're both using C++, and therefore, you can import the movement mechanic code from CS:GO straight to CS2 if you so desired (but would probably still tweak it in an attempt to improve it anyways). That code written in C++ will always work, regardless of the engine you use, so long as it supports the programming language and doesn't rely on missing libraries.
A game engine impacts performance and visuals. Old engines have old rendering tricks. Modern engines have modern rendering tricks. New engines have new rendering tricks.
The game you want to *make* will decide the engine you *use.* I won't use Source if I want to build a procedurally generating world as large as Rust or Minecraft; it is literally impossible due to how the engine compiles the map.
Speaking of source, an antiquated engine from 2003, it's a nightmare to develop for it. How people make great games in it, I will never know. It's wonderful that Valve will be releasing Source 2. Imagine you wanted to import a model you made in Maya to your new game. If you are using the Unreal Engine, you save the model as a .fbx, you import the model you just saved into unreal engine, you drag your texture into unreal engine, and you're done. Say you wanted to do that in Source.
First you need to save the model as a .obj file
You import that file into Blender
You fix that model in case it has weird import bugs
You build a collision model for your existing model
You shade your collision model smooth
You download a third party addon for Blender called Source Export SMD
You export your model as a Source Export SMD
You take your texture, uv maps, whatever, and you put the .smd file, the textures, and whatever into its own folder
You OPEN A NOTEPAD DOCUMENT
You write a .qc file to specify your .smd file, your collision information file, and your texture files, etc etc MANUALLY
You download Crowbar, another third party application created to make this process easier
Compile the model using the .qc file using Crowbar
Proceed to create a vtf file for the actual texture to show up
Import that texture into hammer
and *pray* you didn't mess something up along the way
for every. single. model.
That's the appeal of modern game engines, and is likely what Call of Duty upgraded to; you can just drag and drop most things as modern engines cater to the ease of use, so building the game and making it look pretty is easier.
Of course, the engine might be horrifically optimized and perform poorly, but so long as performance is good, the game can be good.
What matters most in a game is how your player moves, how you interact with your environment, how your equipment sounds and feels, how powerful your character is, how impactful the game feels, the balance of the equipment found in the game, whether the game is a challenge and whether that challenge is fun or unfair.
If Activision gave me a giant team with the modern Call of Duty engine, I would build a Black Ops 1 remaster with all of the original movement and code, and simply renovate the visuals, and it would be perfect. No change the music, make the sound samples sound higher quality, and touch nothing but improve the texture quality and model detail on all of the materials in the game.
@@bulgarianreaper6587but without the cool gun building. They gotta stop listening to the new fans, guns system was great. It was the grind that was the problem, paired with SBMm to make that grind harder.
@@bulgarianreaper6587it actually wasnt made on the 2019 engine. after cold war, though, they started capitalising on it all the time which makes the newer games feel even more like the same.
This video almost made me cry. Thanks for putting this together
I remember being 10 years old and watching my older brother’s friend play CoD 4 and not being able to pick my jaw off the floor. I played every CoD until BO3. I was so sick of the advanced movement and pay to play I found other games like Battlefield 1 or Titanfall. I rejoined the CoD hype with MW2019 but you summed it up perfectly. Unfinished, hectic maps but it felt different. I actually enjoyed it. However, I played this game religiously until I went out to sea and when I came back a year later, the game was absolutely gone. The monetization and gameplay were shot and war zone was at an all time high. I think this was the final nail in the coffin for CoD. It will never come back
5:26 you can literally hear that that "yum yum yum yum" comes truly from the soul. Its a classic.
I haven’t bought COD games since Black Ops 3. Having played the Black Ops 6 beta recently, it’s nuts how everyone plays so sweaty with these crazy movements. It’s like everyone is high on adrenaline. Not fun for me to constantly sweat just because i need to be on an even level with wannabe e-sport players. I miss older COD games where mechanics are simple and movement is not super fast like it is now.
Bo3 was way more sweaty than bo6 lmao
It’s not everyone, it’s the SBMm that’s doing that.
@@euphka7687That’s just your SBMm bubble anecdote.
@@bannedmann4469 i had a 3ish kd before being false banned so if anything my sbmm should be way more sweaty then this dude lol
How is being able to easily adapt = being sweaty. I might as well call an experienced programmer a sweat because I can't code at his level. It's like you casuals aren't great at critically thinking.
“They want you to play the newest most monetizable game” I had never thought about it like that
It is insane how much traction you got from this video. Amazing job ❤
Bro I'm subbing just because of that 'worst thing that happened to me in 2019' comment. You already had me hooked for the whole video on the good commentary, but that humour has me in for the long haul haha. All jokes aside, hope all is good with you now dude, your a top G for sticking with your passion in the face of such adversity 🤙 F cancer, but I'm pressing F to pay respects to you dude 🫡
I've been having a lot of fun with a friend on Plutonium. We both reset our stats and we're playing BO2 literally as if it was the old days. Unlocking camos, weapons, getting prestige. New COD doesn't need me.
I saved up my supply drops in advanced warfare for the WHOLE life cycle of the game. About a month before the next cod was going to release I used them all and got literally nothing.
Hated 6v6 in 2019 because of the maps, safe spaces, footsteps, and SBMM.
HOWEVER, I loved 10v10 and Groundwar.
First of all, great commentary. I listened completely and I agree with you completely. My comment will be a little long, sorry for advance :)
As a 25 year old who played nearly every "Golden Era CoDs", I can easily say that expectations are completely change. Back then, we (the majority) wanted to play these games for fun. I have never been the "BEST" when it comes to CoD but I sure enjoyed it much. But today, people like to grind more.
After the beta of BO6, I saw and watched so many commentaries in youtube and they were just old CoD players just whining about "why the franchise is not the same it was before?". Well, time has changed and expectations are changed. People don't want to play just for fun. They want to grind. One of the commentaries, I heared "I am done with Xdefiant because I unlocked everything and there is nothing else to grind for." Well, maybe you can try to enjoy the game now. Make the game fulfill its purpose dammit.
People don't want to play arena shooters, they want to play warzone. New generation don't want to stomped by sweaty pros and everyone is just a dopamine b*tch these days. They don't want to get better, they just want dopamine.
And yes you re right, we re not the customer they are targeting, we re just an old minority so they wont care anyways. World has changed, we grown up and we had a great time and memories back then. Its not just about videogames, it is about everything about life. Its getting dull, isnt it.
I guess we just have to move on :)
dawg i was about to cry when i heard the Minecraft music while cod gameplay in the background and showing xbox recent last players, i feel like if i were to check mines now, everything would just say the same thing. i wish I got to be more around that era, but i was a child in middle school at the time and didn't really had good wi-fi back then now that i am on my 20s, its just so wild that i missed all of that and will never or we, will never to get to have this era, ever, again. Great Video now im getting my discord and forcing them to watch this video lol
7:51 titanfall 2 is still the greatest movement shooter of all time
Titanfall never got enough love.
Agreed
@@jommunicatoryou sir have earned a sub anyone who can appreciate the greatness of titanfall is a true fps fan.
I think Half-Life 1 and Quake are better but TF2 is fun
I was in love with Titanfall 2. OG CoD guy, but Titanfall was the most underrated ever. I mean COD and mobile suit gundam had the chosen child.
22:03 that has to be one of the funniest COD clips i have ever seen lmao
the iconic pewdiepie at 16:55 has me dying lmfaoooo
IYKYK
Insane video! Congrats. Appreciate the effort placed in it. Looking forward to new ones.
This vid was amazing bro, I grew up with my first few call of duty's on the ps2 with the ww2 era style (most the big red one was my repeat fav), most modern ones I just went to my friends house to experience it back then, the thrill of split screen and I remember going to a huge bday party when I was just a kid when mw3 first released and all the kids and I had split screen riot shield wars and other dumb fun stuff. The most fond memories was BO2 days, waiting for every new zombies map for origins to come out and the countless days me and my friends spent on snd just screwing around was perfect. To this day I miss that feel, even in the campaigns, most recent feel bland, mediocre, my last favorite was COD WW2 but even then it isn't always the best. Other than that even after trying the BO6 beta I feel like nothing will capture what it was back then unless the companies that produce it feel like they can take a shot in the dark without thinking about their wallets first. You are right though the old era will never be forgotten, we always have ways to recapture those moments again!
2:35 I instantly knew which comment you were referencing
16:55 brah 💀
Those who don't know 😃
Those who know 😳😬
The Bridge Incident
I was thinking the same thing 😂
Oh no... PEWDIEPIE DONT SAY IT
“WHAT A F-CKING N-“
Cod used to force you into game chat to play certain modes. Think this changed around ghosts. Probably why the lobbies are much different today
Well put together video 🙌🏼
We really had it good boys 🥲
I’m still friends with buddies from other states. Haven’t met in real life, but we met on OG MW2 back in 2009. Still talk to them today. I’m turning 30 in less than a month. Where has the time gone lol. Loved the video, thanks for the nostalgia.
we not buying b06 till 50% off, keep supporting bp's and basically patches rebranded as a new game, yall make me sick.
6:50 Kobe 😭😭😭😭
☠️😂😂
I'm the person who wrote the comment you mentioned at 2:40. The difference between World at War and other videogames in the series focusing on World War 2 is striking and evident. So much passion went into not only showcasing a dramatized version of just a few real events that took place, but also to try to show the brutality and horror of that conflict. While the game remains a typical shooter which doesn't provide nuance in the conflict, it pulls you into the events in a more tasteful manner than others. It's almost as if it's the memories of someone who was there, not concerned with the deeper philosophical conundrums of war, but a recalling of disturbing images of violence which you could never get away from. You'd try to wash them away with the brief moments of glory, but they're always there. The world might talk about your valiant efforts in victory, but your mind only remembers the rain, the numbness of your hands as you clutch your weapon, having taken the life of someone's son, someone's father, on a charred field.
calling ghosts streaks bad is criminal, map specific killstreaks went unbelievably hard, i would kill for this level of creativity in a modern cod game
Exactly, especially playing as the Predator. The guy has no idea what hes talking about
most people were trash at ghost, you died fast and it was hard to spot enemies
I was one of those OG kids who becamse obsessed with these games being 14 years old when Black Ops 1 came out. Long story short i was max prestige in Cod 5,, bo1, mw3, and bo2. I had so many great times and met so many friends in those lobbies, sometimes the laughs were incredible. I cant help but look back fondly and be glad i got to play during those times
Great video! Didn’t expect a history of cod based on the title. But great video!
i hate that cod changed.
Sorry, 2019 is my favorite modern cod. I couldn’t stand anything post MW2 and came back in 2019 to a heavy, gritty, completely different and slower call of duty. It was great.
Exactly the same here. OG MW2 is without a doubt COD's peak.
Blops just didn't feel right and I just skipped OG MW3 entirely, didn't touch COD again until the gunfight 2v2 beta for MW 2019 and it relit that fire in a big way.
The people who shit on or downplay MW 2019 are in denial that it revived a dying brand that was borderline irrelevant by the time COD WW2 released.
@@itsWelshymw19 was undeniably hot ass and had nothing to do with cods resurgence. What really got casuals hooked was the implementation of Warzone
@@itsWelshyWW2 was the last great CoD, it was the OG MW2 for the Xbox One era.
Couldn't agree more man
The day they added wall running, sliding, exo suits it wasnt call of duty anymore
Gun skill > advanced movement
LMAO 9:03 that "uh..... *not* aftermath" killed me 😂
Edit, also holy hell how do you only have 2k subs???? Subbed!
Incredible video and loved your monologue at the end.
bo2 will forever be the PEAK of cod. no game can EVER compare.
I agree
No it definitely isnt lol
Not the peak of cod at all. In terms of amount of players and being top in culture I'd say bo1. The best cod is cod4.
Mw2 is the peak of cod, if your old enough to have played, the community was booming
I have played every COD since 2006. BO2 was the best by far. MW2 is in the conversation for top 5 along with COD4, BO1 and MW3.
MW2 was an excellent game but BO2 was the complete package. Campaign, Multiplayer, Zombies, peak League Play and MLG competitive play yet still casual fun playstyles for Ninja Defusers, Knifers, Snipers, Riot Shielders etc. Pick 10 system. I could go on and that’s just multiplayer. MW2 didn’t have zombies. 3ARC could have made MW2 but IW couldn’t have made BO2.
People gotta understand that cod was never that special. What cod did was give millions of people one of the easiest ways to escape life. Over time the only result is for the game to eventualy die down.
Mw3(2011) slander is insane.
That’s what I’m saying. Definitely a top 3 cod imo. Maybe top 4 depending on where I rank black ops
I remember not liking it when it came out. The campaign's clearly not as good as in MW2. But when I replayed it, I appreciated it more since I could compare it to what studios pass off as campaigns these days (if they even have one).
sure it felt the same as mw2 and previous cods but it perfected the formula. its mw2 without noob tube
@@maxim6993 mw2 with rebalanced and no infinite grenades
MW3 was the peak IMHO. Every few years I'll get tricked by the slick ads and buy a cod game... Within the first minute of "this game needs and update", to 3 hours in to multi-player, I've made up my mind to sell it or give it away. 😅 I enjoy COD campaigns. But when it comes to playing online, it's battlefield or Insurgency Sandstorm for me.
Brought back some memories of those older ones. Thank you. Played COD from MW2 2009 all the way to Cold War. Until after reloading MW2019 in preparation for the next MWII 2022 I played one game of it and was falsely perma-banned for supposedly cheating, I wasn't. No way to fight it, every COD game I loaded after that was immediately perma-banned. 54 weeks later, over a year, I got a message from Steam stating that they'd been contacted by COD Dev Team to reverse an 'incorrectly applied perma-ban'. I wasn't contacted by COD, wasn't contacted by Activision, the only reason I know it was reversed was a message notification from Steam stating it had been reversed at the request of COD Dev Team. Loaded into COD account. No record of the ban ever occurring, they'd wiped it clean. No apology. Not nothing from COD or Activision. I've sworn I'll never pay for an Activision or COD game again. But whenever the new ones come out, it's hard. Hard not to jump back in.
I stopped playing cod after mw3 and moved over to Battlefield, but man, that last statement about how the games aren't really made for us anymore hit hard. Nothing today really hits like they used to, and I never really realized I've been holding everything to that standard of the golden years. Awesome video though, nearly made me cry there for a min
Same. Until DICE told me not to buy their games anymore and I came back. Unlike my ex wife, COD took me back so I guess there's that...
Hating on mw3 and ghosts is so damn typical. Mw3 is kind of surprising but everyone loves to hate on ghosts when it's still probably the best Cod since it came out
@@WATCH-In-the-Name-of-Zion yup first cod to have it and much more
ranking up guns instead of challenges, prestige tokens, survival mode, face off mode including maps that were made only for it. Has great maps and dlc was even better
Trashing 2011 MW3 is a crime
let's not pretend mw3 didn't get backlash over at launch, it was literally a mw2 dlc.
@@arish_xoyeah but he didn’t really do a good job properly explaining it since he didn’t know enough about it.
COD culture was very much alive during Mw3 and a lot of Snipers would also call it their favorite. Not mentioning that is wack, but then again he said he didn’t even play it
@@nicrudiger961 the irony that it's their favourite when it's the exact same thing that MW2 did, this didn't variate enough from MW2 as people led you to believe they're just nostalgic about reliving those good old days.
@@arish_xo I mean I was very actively playing cod from MW to BO2 and I remember it pretty well. Sniping clans, montages, UA-camrs like KYR SP33DY and Faze Jev all came up during MW3. Say what you want about it not being different enough for you. There was more cool stuff to it that wasn’t mentioned. MW3 wasn’t even my fav, but that part of the vid seems super out-of-touch
@@nicrudiger961 its not out of touch because people had the exact same complains i pointed out. It wasn't well received when it first came out.
Been with the channel for a while. This was a big break, keep up the good work bro.
Excellent video! Im an older guy that started with Doom, CS, and Call of Duty. 😂 COD4 and BlackOps were amazing games and made for great times. It was fun to make friends there. I didn’t get into the Treyarch and original Infinity Ward controversy. I didn’t follow series after BlackOps. The micropayments and the series in general is unfriendly to a casual gamer after 2010.
Thank you for the video! Keep having fun
Great effort on this vid! I'll subscribe for more video essays like this!
thanks for managing to bring out that cod nostalgia in me like few other videos have
i've been checking this video every so often watching the views go up. so sick to see a relatively small creator get so much attention, you deserve it!
Dude I had 129 subs on Saturday! This is all so wild
I can’t believe so much time has passed. Let’s be thankful that we got to live and experience such beautiful moments boys, thinking about it it’s sad but at the same time brings me so much joy.
Cheers to many more memories even if they are not gaming related.
This is a great video I've played since bo1 and it's honestly so crazy how far cod has fallen from grace, especially to see it in real time going from mw2 while i still love cod and play it daily (can i get prayers for my mental health) i won't defend some of the really bad decisions and i always cal them out for it like sbmm and loot boxes
I felt this video so much. I miss the way that COD used to be. Thank you for making this video.