Video game grudge matches rarely come this perfectly designed.
This fall, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 come out within weeks of each other, trying to capture the free time of millions of gamers worldwide. But, it’s not just the fact that both titles are realistically styled war games set in what’s pretty much the present-day.
There’s an intense rivalry between publishers EA and Activision, one that’s seen creative leaders go from one company to the other and back again, with courtroom salvos fired along the way. Call of Duty‘s been the leading shooter franchise for the last few years running, with last year’s Black Ops breaking sales records as Modern Warfare 2 did before that.
EA’s not been shy about saying that they want to knock COD off of the top of the mountain, with both execs and developers taking shots at Activision’s big money-maker. This is going to be a heavyweight bout. So, seeing both Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 at this year’s E3 amounted to a pre-fight weigh-in. Though reps for EA and Activision didn’t mention their counterpart’s big war game, the presence of the impeding competition hung in the air.
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I saw enough of each game to come away with opinions on both, and even predictions on where each game will win out this fall.
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