The reason for its failure, as we’ve established before, is quite simple: Medal of Honor was an exercise in counterintuity. EA created a hopelessly inferior competitor to its own flagship shooter, Battlefield 3, using the same engine, the same time period and less resources to produce two uninspired single-player campaigns and multiplayer that felt like a recycled oddment of its larger cousin. Tier One-operative protagonists, Bin Laden-killing development consultants, Linkin Park – they were never enough for distinguishing the franchise by its own merits.
Despite its troubles, however, EA isn’t ready to completely abandon Medal of Honor just yet. Speaking in a recent postmortem interview with Rock, Paper Shotgun, EA chief creative director Rich Hilleman asserted that, despite January’s decommissioning, Medal of Honor is still a viable franchise for the publisher going forward… it just has a number of, shall we say severe, challenges to overcome.
Starting with the publisher itself. The current state of the series isn’t a referendum on modern military shooters, Hilleman’s says, but rather a result of EA’s failed execution:
According to Hilleman, EA has come to the realization that developing two distinct but similarly appealing shooter brands side-by-side just isn’t sustainable:
As resources became diluted, so did the talent pool. And Medal of Honor never acquired the right leadership to deliver on its full potential:
Rock, Paper Shotgun proceeded to state that Hilleman is certain Medal of Honor will return – only he’s not sure when the time will be right. Removed from the release rotation of Battlefield – call it an EA vacuum where production time, available talent and resources are, indeed, copious commodities – there’s no question of the potential, not to mention prestige, that MoH brings to the table. Imagining a world where Electronic Arts isn’t devoutly committed its Call of Duty (attempted) killer, however, is a greater stretch. With Battlefield 3’s End Game DLC keeping the game relevant well beyond its October 2011 release (Warfighter, by comparison, has already been written off) and Battlefield 4 anticipated for this Fall, possibly as the series’s next-gen entry point, we’re guessing it’s a long winter before Medal of Honor is done hibernating.
Ranters, do you see an extant future for the Medal of Honor franchise? Is there anywhere EA can take a reboot (Version 3!) that doesn’t interfere with the bigger and better Battlefield?
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Source: Rock, Paper Shotgun
