As Battlefield 6 commits to 'keeping it grounded' with skins, Call of Duty director makes an unconvincing promise to 'calibrate' cosmetics in Black Ops 7
We're set for another Call of Duty vs. Battlefield face-off this year, and it's already been fascinating to watch how these two military shooters present themselves. When it comes to one of the most incendiary topics in multiplayer games at the moment, the rising prevalence of goofy Fortnite-style skins, Call of Duty has become the poster child of ugliness run amok.
The growing exhaustion over incongruent cosmetics that erode Call of Duty's art style is what prompted Battlefield Studios' stance on skins in Battlefield 6: "It has to be grounded. That is what BF3 and BF4 was—it was all soldiers, on the ground. It's going to be like this. I don't think it needs Nicki Minaj. Let's keep it real, keep it grounded."
Time will tell if Battlefield 6 actually sticks to that mission statement—the allure of tacky crap might be irresistible when enough players are eager to buy them—but it's telling that, given the same opportunity to renew its stance on cosmetics, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 developers were decidedly wishy-washy about the whole thing.
"We have thought about this, and I think if you look at us, we're always looking at community feedback”, Treyarch associate creative director Miles Leslie told IGN in an interview ahead of today's Blops 7 reveals.
"We always try to make sure that we are trying to touch the widest audience. I've had the pleasure of working on Call of Duty now for almost 20 years, and we're constantly looking at ways to push into different audiences and fans, and that's what you saw with that; there are fans that really love it. Obviously, there are fans who those may not be their favorite. We're going to try to calibrate that as we move forward, and we take that feedback seriously. But again, we are trying to make sure that all fans feel represented in the game and figuring out that tight balance is something we're paying attention to."
It's the usual marketing-approved gobbledygook that almost sounds like something meaningful was said, but wasn't: Activision has heard the complaints, is taking them "seriously," and will "calibrate" going forward.
What sort of calibration it has in mind is open to interpretation, and non-specific enough that Blops 7 can still comfortably cash in on collaborations with cartoons, '80s action heroes, and Amazon Originals without going against its stated stance.
My read on it is that, while Call of Duty's full-bodied embrace of goofy skins probably isn't loved by many of the developers actually creating the art that gets slopped over by the Store tab, the backlash is not a particularly pressing concern for Activision at large. There are two sides to this, after all—lots of people enjoy uglifying their operators (to the tune of $20 per bundle).
There's another wrinkle to Blops 7's "calibrated" cosmetic plan: Starting with Season 1 of Blops 7, all weapons and cosmetics from Black Ops 6 will carry forward, inviting a tidal wave of fashion nightmares introduced over the previous 12 months to the new game.