In yet another attempt to nostalgia-bait people into paying $100 for the current thing, Treyarch has announced they will be remastering even more Black Ops 2 maps than before. Activision's CoD outputs have relied on regurgitating formulas for years, but it seems they're upping the ante with this one.
According to Charlie Intel, Black Ops 7 will reportedly feature more Black Ops 2 remastered maps, including those that weren't remastered for any of the previous Black Ops titles. This came from a Treyarch developer's tease during a Q&A segment, which quite clearly indicated “new” BO2 maps are on their way to BO7.
The reason behind this, though not stated, is also pretty clear: Black Ops 7 needs to sell well, especially because of that one thing called Battlefield 6 coming out at just about the same time.
Instead of thinking out of the box and trying to understand what made those old map designs work, filtering that through modern innovations, and creating new and improved inspired levels, Activision is just throwing the nostalgia bait into the wild and hoping people will bite. As one reply under the Charlie Intel tweet said, “The level of desperation is strong with this one,” and I wholeheartedly agree.
Making new content and maps that build on the foundations of the greats is simply too far-fetched of an idea for modern AAA corporate gaming, where it's better to chase trends or do that one thing that worked over and over again ad nauseam.
And there hasn't ever been a worse offender in this case than Call of Duty, who, after trying to imitate Fortnite and its collaborations for the better part of a decade, is now supposedly “keeping it real and gritty,” no doubt inspired by the abject fear produced by Battlefield 6 (who, mind you, is also nostalgia-baiting, but with one single map).
I mean, just look at the game's name—Black Ops Seven. Treyarch has been making nothing but Black Ops since the first one came out... 15 years ago! And they continue to remake maps from a 2012 title, trying hopelessly to recreate its success instead of using it as a foundation for something greater.
Please, Activision, just make something new.
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The post Black Ops 7 to include more remastered BO2 maps—because making good new ones is too hard for modern AAA appeared first on Destructoid.
