It’s just before Thanksgiving and that means another entry in Activision’s annual “Call of Duty” franchise is here, and this year it’s joined by a new entry from EA’s “Battlefield” series which arrives three years after “Battlefield V” in 2018.
Reviews have started coming in for both titles and so far the verdict isn’t great going by the review scores coming from both critics and players on gaming review aggregate site Metacritic.
The “Battlefield” game series tends to veer between titles that score towards the stellar 90/100 range (“Battlefield 1942,” “Battlefield 2,” “Battlefield 3,” “Battlefield 1”) and those towards the still very good but softer 80/100 range (“Battlefield 2142,” “Battlefield 4,” “Battlefield V”). The lowest scoring by far was “Battlefield: Hardline” which dropped into the ordinary 70/100 range.
“Battlefield 2042” so far only has PC scores counted and sits at 80/100 which is very solid, but the user reviews is where there is trouble. Already the second most discussed PC game of the year, around 430 user reviews have been submitted so far with 361 of those negative.
Most of the complaints tie to technical faults and glitches, but a lot have been about the dropping of various regular signature features that separates “Battlefield” from other franchises. In addition has come the inclusion of features that reportedly make the game much more in line with 2019’s “Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare”.
Activision’s “Call of Duty: Vanguard” isn’t drawing complaints about glitches or dropping signature elements, but the title isn’t drawing raves either because it seems to be a serviceable entry that very much sticks to the formula and fundamentals of the franchise.
Combining and averaging out the three scores from the PC, PlayStation & Xbox releases of every yearly title in the franchise (not including mobile or remasters), ‘Vanguard’ sits as the second worst reviewed title of the series to date at 75/100 – ahead of only ‘Ghosts’ at 73.6/100 and just behind both “Infinite Warfare” and last year’s “Cold War” both on 76/100.
Here’s a full breakdown of the Metacritic score average of the PC, Xbox & PlayStation releases of the various ‘Duty’ titles:
Call of Duty (2003) = 80.33
Call of Duty 2 (2005) = 87.5
Call of Duty 3 (2006) = 81.75
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007) = 93.33
Call of Duty: World at War (2008) = 84
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) = 91.33
Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) = 85.33
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011) = 84.66
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012) = 80
Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013) = 73.6
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014) = 80.66
Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) = 78.33
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016) = 76
Call of Duty: WWII (2017) = 77.33
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018) = 83.66
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) = 80.66
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) = 76
Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021) = 75
“Call of Duty Vanguard” is now out on all platforms. “Battlefield 2042” is now in early access ahead of a PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S regular release on November 19th.
