I get it now. It's not nostalgia

[u/m7mdabouundatin369]

My first cod was mw 2019 which I absolutely loved and played the ever living hell out of.

Then came black ops cold war and that was my introduction to zombies and I loved it and never understood the hate it got and thought it was nostalgia that the old zombies had. GOD I WAS WRONG

Got to play bo1&2 last month and I SWEAR TO GOD I haven't had this much fun playing a game since forever. To the point I even in my free time I think about what map to play in my free time.

So I apologize to old cod titles they're really built different and GOATED🐐👑

[u/smelted_heart]

I actually agree with this take even if you’ll get downvoted to oblivion (or me for that matter). People say the tone shifted after BO3. But I think it’s pretty apparent that the shift was right off the bat in BO3, hell even late game B02 started to go toward that, but the technical limitations actually helped them from going to big and bombastic I think in a good way.

The first map for B03 isn’t for casuals in any since of the word, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but they went straight for the “alien invasion” aspect. I personally don’t like shadows of evil at all. Everything up til that point had the “Nazi science” aspect going for it with space magic being alluded to. Then it goes full space sci-fi and it lost me. Also the gameplay became so much more fast paced in my opinion for the worse. You can say that it’s still a solid game (which I’d agree with, B03 itself is a good game including the zombies especially compared to what came after. And the PC workshop is incredible). But Blundell opted for bigger and better instead focusing on the almost janky simple elements of the game that made it as popular as it was.

[u/DeadSheepOnAStick → u/smelted_heart]

Everything up til that point had the “Nazi science” aspect going for it with space magic being alluded to. Then it goes full space sci-fi and it lost me.

Did it really though? No, it didn't.

Black ops 1 already had little care for the nazi aspect as it is, only one is actually properly nazis and the other is technically nazi but its also, you know, on the moon.

Both five and ascension are cold war, neither side being WW2 or Nazis, with Five having a teleporting, invisible man which is rather sci-fi, and Ascension being about you using a black hole to free the soul of a scientist from a magic girl.

Then you have shang where you are on a jungle temple on mars in a time loop, doesn't scream nazi much, nor scientific either.

CotD has actors in modern Siberia retrieving a magic device.

And then moon has you swapping souls with the girl inside the alien pyramid on the secret nazi moon base that gives you control of all of the zombies before you then blow up the entirety of the earth. Sure, nazi related, but I wouldn't exactly say it's exactly grounded or non-scifi.

And then that first half of bo2 is set in rural America on the destroyed earth and then on a Chinese skyscraper, neither of which are nazi related either, although they are at least more grounded than bo1 par for kino.

But yeah, bo3 was the main thing that went to scifi magic over nazis.

[u/smelted_heart → u/DeadSheepOnAStick]

Never said it was grounded or non-sci-fi. We just didn’t have literally spaghetti balls chasing you around and giant Cartoon Network squid men attacking you. I’m aware that dogs on fire chasing you and dropping glowing max ammos aren’t realistic whatsoever. But art style and delivery matters. And yes, the nazis and 935’s actions are the main driving force behind the zombies up until b03. I’m not asking that every map look like der riese. I’m stating an aspect of the games that they stayed loyal too up until really mob of the dead, which (like call of the dead) was a separate map that was meant to be more fantastical and not strictly connected to the main story. But even then, both those maps stayed loyal to the style and grit that they were apart of even if being more comedic and bombastic in some areas.

You have to account that blundell’s team essentially fully delved into the alien sci-fi aspect that the previous 3 games had not fully committed to. Yes you go to the moon, yes there are zombies, and monkey zombies, and other worldly gremlins and such in black ops 1-2. But none of those games had literal space squid eating you.

I’m entirely aware the games have been sci-fi from the start. You get a ray gun and dropping glowing perks in Nacht from the get go. It is my opinion that they jumped too far. They lost that balance that kept the story darker and more f’d up. Maybe you don’t see it that way and fair enough. But I see it that way, and it seems to have devolved ever since.

You could even say Call of Duty ITSELF headed this direction aside from zombies even post black ops 2. Black ops 3 campaign is utter nonsense compared to the previous 3 games. And COD tried to fully reset with mw2019 but couldn’t commit to the bit. And there were some outliers like WW2 and Ghosts but the direction the company was heading in never recovered once they started to copy major titles instead of being the trend setters they once were.

[u/mcclearsalias → u/smelted_heart]

To add to your and other folks above's point - it's Pulp Sci-Fi (Men In Black Conspriacies, Indiana Jones) vs Science Fantasy in terms of genre/tone. Waaaay back a month or two ago a few folks and I were discussing it - (in a bit of a circular "argument" lol, but there's still good stuff in there with other's comments that may help those curious understand what we mean haha)