MIA: Whatever Happened to Medal of Honor?

In May 2013, a studio owned by a publisher received a rebranding. There’s nothing unusual about that, apart from maybe the renamed studio, which had just moved onto name number 4.

You see, this studio had been making games since the 1990s, and was originally started by none other than the legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg. It made some bold moves early on in its life, creating a franchise that had as much of an influence and impact on the first person shooter genre as Doom and Wolfenstein. It cemented World War II as the staple setting of shooters for a decade. In 2008 this franchise was recorded by Guinness as the world’s best-selling FPS series, but then it simply faded away into nothing.

“So are you going to tell us what the hell you’re blathering on about?” I hear you asking, despite my love of being cryptic. Well, I’ll tell you now: ladies and gentlemen, this is the story of Medal of Honor.

The History Part

Medal of Honor started its life in 1998, in the hands of a studio called Dreamworks Interactive. Formed by Steven Spielberg, the aim of Medal of Honor was to bring the Hollywood success of Saving Private Ryan (which Spielberg directed) and an authentic rendition of WWII to games consoles. Taking after some of Golden Eye: 007’s gameplay breakthroughs, the original Medal of Honor received critical acclaim – in fact, IGN regarded the game as the 21^st best game of all time, citing not just its authenticity, but the fact that it was still “a damn fun game”.

Dreamworks Interactive, 1999/2000

The games prequel, Underground was also a noteworthy entry into the FPS genre for its use of a female player character in a WWII setting. This is, amazingly, still a bold step today, but back in 2000 this move was widely praised for allowing players to step inside an often forgotten part of the war, the role of the French Resistance.

The 6^th and 7^th console generation eras saw the series hit some new heights, as well as some lows. Whilst 2015, Inc.’s Allied Assault did incredibly well on PC, and is considered one of the genre’s masterpieces, its success stifled its console counterpart Frontlines. Several games after this also did poorly, such as Rising Sun, which was described as “good enough to be enjoyable, but not enough to be recommend to anyone”. 2004’s Pacific Assault’s online multiplayer died out within months of release. Medal of Honor: Vanguard was disregarded for lacking in innovation and toeing the FPS line.

Medal of Honor: Airborne brought some much needed “imagination and innovation that’s becoming increasingly rare in the genre” when it released in 2007. The game saw players parachuting down onto whichever part of the map they chose and completing objectives in a non-linear fashion, a real break from the franchise norm. There was also a competent multiplayer mode, along with online co-op, but sadly all this innovation just arrived too late. In 2008, gamers were literally (figuratively) sick to death of WWII, and Airborne just wasn’t different enough. EA put the franchise on a three year long hiatus.

2015, Inc., 2002

After finding their feet, EALA, renamed Danger Close, was back with Medal of Honor (2010). With its modern day setting and an immersive jaunt into Operation Anaconda and the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Valley, but still focusing on Special Forces and secretive operations. MoH (2010) was a critical and commercial success, selling 5 million copies and being placed at number one in the UK games sales chart the month of its release; but it wasn’t all plain sailing.

Danger Close was criticised for making the game too much like its competitors, Call of Duty and even its sister series Battlefield. But the most well-known controversy revolves around the games multiplayer. With the game being set in early 2000s Afghanistan, multiplayer had to inevitably see someone playing as the Taliban. This simple fact enraged the usual suspects of Fox News and the Daily Mail, who accused the game of being insensitive to the memory of coalition soldiers who died there. The US Military also banned the game from being sold on any of its military bases around the world.

(You may think it’s disingenuous that these same pundits don’t think twice about the many WWII multiplayer games that saw gamers playing as the Axis militaries which committed many war crimes, or about the US and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan killing numerous innocent men, women, and children. I couldn’t possibly comment).

Danger Close, 2010

In the end, Danger Close relented, and renamed the Taliban “OpFor”, a military term for Opposing Force used in training exercises. Why these term? Well it means that those playing the role of the Taliban, or the Red Army or whatever the boogieman of the day is, don’t empathise or identify with said boogieman, sanitising the experience and stopping people from thinking about what they’re doing.

Unfazed by the this incident, EA CEO John Riccitiello pushed for a sequel, stating in the earnings call that year that “Consumer feedback has been strong to suggest that we've got a franchise now, once again, that we could successfully and effectively sequel in the future”.

That sequel, however, would prove to not be successful. Medal of Honor: Warfighter absolutely tanked at release. It’s poorly written and contrived story, terrible AI, and boring, linear gameplay and level design made the game “so brazenly unremarkable … that it feels like a master class in middling modern warfare".

Disappointing sales and poor critical reception saw Medal of Honor shelved indefinitely, with EA focusing on the Battlefield franchise as its Call of Duty competitor. Support for Warfighter ended after only 3 months, and Danger Close studios was renamed to DICE LA and demoted to working on the DLC for Battlefield 4.

The “Why?” Bit

With such pedigree and history behind it, why has Medal of Honor been so unceremoniously dumped by its publisher?

Well, as with most things in the games industry, it appears to be EA’s fault.

After the success of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, 22 employees from 2015, Inc. established a new studio called Infinity Ward. This new studio was eager to create their own Medal of Honor game, but suddenly EA took all development of the series in house, leaving IW out in the cold. Vince Zampella and Jason West pitched their idea of a WWII FPS game to every publisher they could find, and eventually signed a deal with EA’s arch rivals, Activision. This deal gave IW the funds to complete their project, releasing a little title called Call of Duty.

IW knew what made Medal of Honor great, and used this to their full advantage. Call of Duty was hailed for its strong narrative and tight controls, and even some innovations like true aiming down sights and improved friendly AI that enabled squad-based gameplay. Medal of Honor wouldn’t have anything like that for years, all the while Call of Duty simply outpaced it.

Around the same time, Gearbox and Ubisoft were cooking their own entry to the genre, called Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. This game invested fully into squad based tactics and a gritty sense of realise in the narrative and the gunplay. Weapons were relatively inaccurate, and incoming enemy fire made this worse. This setup taught players to be sneaky and flank their enemies, making gameplay far more tactical.

EA Los Angeles, 2007

And that was just the main external competitors; EA’s own Battlefield 1942 offered something that no other game at the time did. Class based, sandbox multiplayer with authentic weapons and vehicles. The Battlefield series would stay critically and commercially successful throughout its lifespan, switching to new time periods like Vietnam and the far future, whist Medal of Honor fluctuated between good and middling, would barely make the jump to the modern day, often skipped the multiplayer component entirely, but above all else simply failed to innovate at an acceptable pace in a time where the market was saturated with WWII shooters.

Whilst Medal of Honor (2010) suffered from its controversy in the public eye, it still inspired confidence in a sequel. Warfighter was, initially, due to be more of the same authenticity and collaboration with real Navy SEALs. But right off the bat, the game suffered its own controversies: Project Honor, a partnership programme where Danger Close obtained the rights to create and use the names of real world weapons and military vehicles in return for the manufacturers donating to the project, was seen as paid promotion of weapons of war.

After this debacle, there was also internal controversy over the planned Zero Dark Thirty tie-in map pack, with executive producer Greg Goodrich leaving the studio soon after the PR machine started. Allegedly, many of the principle writers and military advisors departed around the same time. The Chief Creative Director of Warfighter, Rich Hillerman, also spoke negatively of EA, citing their lack of “quality leadership” on the game.

Danger Close, 2012

With all said and done though, is it really fair to say Medal of Honor is a failed franchise? Sure, it’s been on indefinite hiatus for over five years now, but the series is the main reason WWII has been a staple setting throughout many gamer’s lives, arguably almost becoming a form of edutainment.

Medal of Honor is also responsible for the creation of the biggest gaming franchise ever; Call of Duty became the behemoth we know today all the way back in 2007 with CoD 4: Modern Warfare, and forced an entire genre to change and innovate. At the time, no one could compete with its tight multiplayer, white knuckle campaign, or its focus on the modern world.

The final entry into the Medal of Honor cannon, Warfighter, did do some good in the end for its sister series. Battlefield arguably was only given the chance to grow due to Medal of Honor’s decline, and Warfighter’s weapon customisation was ported over to BF4 as it was about the only successful element of the games multiplayer. Finally Dreamworks Interactive still lives on, albeit in the form of DICE LA working on Battlefield games. This studio is basically the only reason BF4’s multiplayer wasn’t a total disaster like Warfighter’s – they fixed the games balance and netcode, and provided free content in an extra year of support.

Do I think Medal of Honor failed? Financially, yes, but it has a solid legacy in gaming that I don’t think anyone could argue with.