People wheel out the “It’s the same game every year” argument for Call of Duty with almost every new release but this time they may just have a point.
Sharp eyed YouTuber satantribal has spotted that the opening cinematic for Call of Duty Ghosts is almost identical to the final section of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. So spoilers for that game, obviously, but none for Ghosts.
Beyond the almost identical animations, the camera movement is comparable, although it appears that there are extra frames of animation in the Ghosts video.
It’s not the first time Infinity Ward have recycled Call of Duty, a large building from the Modern Warfare map Pipeline appeared in the single player campaign of Modern Warfare 3.
Source: YouTube
CarBoyCam
I appreciate that mo-cap etc. all costs money, but seriously? On a budget like Call of Duty’s surely IW could have afforded some different mo-cap and animations? Especially with all that money their Monster Energy deal must be generating… Oh, and the Domino’s deal…
Youles
Haha, busted! Good spot.
Perhaps they have a pool of animations and just chose to cut corners rather than record a new animation. Not a huge deal imo, but doesn’t endear IW to anyone seeing as they most probably have funds and resources to make new animations.
toutski
I’m not sure of the stories but is it not a case of Ghosts picking up where MW2 left off?
Alex C
A homage, at least.
Blair Inglis
Ghosts has always been billed as a new universe, with new characters and nothing to do with Modern Warfare (and MW3 picked up from where MW2 left off).
This clearly isn’t a homage/reference, either – they’ve just used the same animations for the cutscenes :)
Alex C
And the same camera angles and so on?
It’s clearly fan service/a homage.
Blair Inglis
I think it might be if it was at the end, or featured similar characters, but it’s just at a random bit in the opening sequence where they’d hope no one would notice!
Tuffcub
No it’s completely new COD universe.
djdustb
HAHA that is an awesome spot.
DeadlyChipmunk
Haha totally busted. :-)
Cracking spot though!
Amphlett
Come on, who hasn’t cut and pasted code, changed a few variables and comments to make it look like their own work? I was doing that back in the early 90’s (though it was more of a manual copy and type routine back then)!
Youles
Like FIFA each year with a few tweeks!
TheShepanator
Ghosts is full of assets from all the other infinity ward CoD games (even tonnes of unused old assets in the game’s files) so it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they just thought they’d be cheeky and reuse an animation.