Well, Looks Like That's It For Medal Of Honor, Then
Oh Medal of Honor. You've traveled around the world, through time, and between the hands of countless developers. You've seen some things, man. But in recent outings, you've lost your way trying to play rigid railroad conductor to ours, and Warfighter clung so tightly to the straight-and-narrow that it ended up careening right into the bargain bin. Also, there was that whole Linkin Park thing. If you want sales, it's not generally a good idea to turn every living creature with ears against you. So then, what's next for EA's creaky, slightly racist World War II vet? Retirement, says EA. And possibly a long one.
EA COO Peter Moore explained the once-beloved series' future/lack thereof during a recent company conference call (via Polygon):
"This one is behind us now. We are taking Medal of Honor out of the rotation, and have a plan to bring year-over-year continuity to our shooter offerings."
"We struggled with two challenges: the slowdown that impacted the entire sector and poor critical and commercial reception for Medal of Honor Warfighter. Medal of Honor was an obvious miss. The game was solid, but the focus on combat authenticity did not resonate with consumers. Critics were polarized and gave the game scores which were, frankly, lower than it deserved."
Which is blatant enough revisionist history to make me wonder if Moore's ever actually played Medal of Honor, but I suppose the end result's still the same. The series is now dishonorably discharged for the foreseeable future, and it sounds like something else of equally modern (though potentially less "authentic") shootiness will take its place. My guess? Whatever Respawn Entertainment's working on. Battlefield 4's probably a lock for this year, but I imagine EA's patchwork bride of InfinityWardStein will have plenty of electricity coursing through its veins by the end of 2014.
Will it actually be a new start, though? Here's hoping. Now more than ever, I really hope EA understands that shamelessly aping Call of Duty just doesn't work. Plus it's, you know, kind of super played-out.