Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s reveal trailer is now officially one of the most disliked video on YouTube, second only to Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” There are four major reasons for this.

One: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered is being “sold” as a pre-order bonus for Infinite Warfare. Now that’s a total scumbag move, probably the worst example of pre-order bs and all but, that’s not what we’re here to talk about!

Two: people are upset about the direction the series is headed wanting a more traditional “boots on the ground” shooter experience from Call of Duty.

Three: people just despise Call of Duty. There’s been this long running thing where Call of Duty is the face of all that’s wrong with gaming. Even though there are PLENTY of games with a worse record than Call of Duty and before this new Modern Warfare Remastered pre-order business their record was relatively clean.

Aaand four: The trailer was just kinda bad.

Today however! We’re here to discuss that second category and why I think the future is the best place for Call of Duty to head from both a design and thematic standpoint.

1. Design:

Call of Duty is a “twitch-based first-person-shooter” this means it’s all about testing how fast a player can understand the situation in front of them and whether or not they can execute what’s needed to succeed. Now in earlier Call of Duty’s since the games were set in a modern setting you would only really fight on flat stages where you primarily just shifted your sights from left to right to fire, only adjusted upwards to aim for the head or to hit someone at a slightly higher elevation.

Notice most combatants will just approach you on the same Z-Axis.

In recent iterations of the franchise they’ve recently started upgrading the amount of mobility the players have. With jet-packs and sliding maneuvers added players are now required to adjust their sights more dynamically in order to properly engage enemies. This adds some much needed depth to the series and depth is always good especially when it’s simple to understand. The added mobility adds much needed “outplay” potential for both players in a fire fight and such depth just isn’t possible in a “boots on the ground” experience without becoming Counter Strike.

Notice the combatant flying through the air and another about to pounce standing on the tank.

2. Thematics

Call of Duty is dumb. I mean this in the best of ways. Call of Duty is a simple game about seeing who can shoot each other in the face before the other. Call of Duty is a dumb action movie with player interaction so the stories and settings should reflect this. A futuristic story lends itself to all the absurdity Call of Duty deserves. In Call of Duty’s most recent iteration Black Ops 3 the developers are seemingly starting to understand that. This game sports a roster of characters all pulled straight out of action films. Men, women and robots with dumb special abilities and dumb taunts. It’s fantastic.

Look at um’ LOOK AT ‘UM!

A “boots on the ground” experience, while still fantasy, holds more weight to it as it is based on real experiences that real brave men and women have. In other words you gotta show it some respect. Let Call of Duty be dumb please.

If you are still looking for that “boots on the ground” experience luckily for you within the same week as the Infinite Warfare trailer a Battlefield 1 came out sporting a World War I inspired setting. If that’s not a message from the gods then I don’t know what is.