I'll Never Forget You, Call of Duty 4

A small opinion piece for this weekend. A big concern that comes along with every sequel is the issue of replacement. Does the presense of a sequel or next entry in a series mean that the previous game will be left in the dust? This is a valid concern. Games that we have grown to love getting replaced can sometimes be quite the upsetting thing. But I am here to tell you something: YOUR GAMES ARE NOT BEING REPLACED.

This issue used to be a big problem, and if this issue would have popped into my mind 7 years ago, I would have said get used to getting games replaced. It used to be that the sequel to a game was just that: a replacement. With every new game came an absolutely new experience, one that was so much better than the previous that the latter replaced the former. Take, for example, Medal of Honor. Allied Assault was one of the best PC games every created. It was one of the first shooters to have a narrative unfold while playing. This would become a staple in not only later iterations of the Medal of Honor franchise, but an industry standard in terms of war based first person shooters. Unfortunately, the next iteration replaced it. It had better multiplayer, a new singleplayer, better graphics. It overshadowed it by miles. So the great game Allied Assault was not played much anymore. Up until around the later half of the PS2 era of games did this trend of replacing stop. So, what happened?

It has a lot to do with how the game industry has evolved. At the beginning of the real game industry, the 1980's, development and innovation was emerging extremely fast. This is why in the span of only 6 years did we start seeing games like Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, groundbreaking in their times. The industry wanted new things, and it wanted it quickly. Over the years, however, this idea of new game after new game slowed down. It started to become new game "in the series". Just like the movie industry, sequels make a lot of money in the game industry. The demand for new series was more important. But just like the previous demand, it too slowed down. Now skip to the current generation. We have hit the peak in many things technologically. Graphics are at their peak. Sound is at its peak. There just isn't much in the way of new tech. So things have slowed down.

Something of great importance these days is that of storytelling. It just isn't enough to make a game with a protagonist shooting a rifle. You need immersion in the story. You need gigantic setpieces. You need control over decisions and actions and playstyle. These are new things in the game industry. These trends weren't around in the time of Medal of Honor. This, therefore, gave the idea of replacement much more room. People didn't mind that the sequel replaced the old one. The new one was better, stronger, and far more likely to be time-consuming. And while these aspects of sequels exist today in a way, they aren't the same. Sequels are more likely to bring new stories, more innovation, and new ways to play.

So, what does this mean to your old games? First, in terms of singleplayer games, they won't ever go away. A great saying of one of my former teachers is that a good book "is meant to be read more than once". This remains true for any type of medium, including video games. There is a reason playing Tetris or Pac-Man is entertaining even today. THEY ARE GOOD GAMES. Good games don't go away, ever. So for those who fear that the story and gameplay of games like BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Assassin's Creed will fade away, don't be afraid. They will always be acknowledged as great, genre defining games. And they will be replayed, not replaced. New iterations in the series just aim to provide you the great game you played before in a better way, not a way of replacement. For those of you who fear your multiplayer games are going to go away, it is a little bit more shaky. Multiplayer is in a different place in the industry. We are just hitting the peak of innovation for multiplayer. There are still plenty of things to be done in this area, and therefore some games will replace multiplayer parts of games. I am sorry to say this, but many people will be lost from Modern Warfare due to Modern Warfare 2. It won't ever go away, but it won't be the same. These games will always be alive in multiplayer, just not to the extent when they were more popular. And just like singleplayer, if the multiplayer is good, it won't go away. Just ask StarCraft and Halo 2. People still play those, and will continue to play those.

So sit down and take it easy. And one more thing: if something is being replaced, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. New things are good. So just accept some of them. I don't see anyone complaining about Halo 3 multiplayer "replacing" Halo 2 multiplayer. At this point in gaming, you can accept that if something is replaced,it's worth it. :)