As a Call of Duty fan, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to defend the franchise. While efforts have been made to improve and refine the Black Ops 4, experience, developer Treyarch has once again found itself on the wrong side of gamers.
This time it comes by way of a $30 melee weapon, which, aside from some cosmetic offerings, provides no additional statistical or tactical advantage on the battlefield.
Treyarch unveiled the “Triple Play” bundle during its live stream earlier this week. Available to PS4 gamers first, it includes the Home Wrecker melee weapon, 10 tiers, 10 Reserve Cases, and a Weapon Crate.
But it’s not so much what comes included in the bundle, but rather how much it costs: Triple Play will set you back 2800 CoD Points, or about $28.
That’s US dollars, too: given the game isn’t even on sale yet, that means a bundle with a weapon and some cases comes in at about 50% the price of the full game.
To make matters worse, the Home Wrecker is really only a cosmetic addition: there’s no actual offensive advantage to having access to the weapon. As for the cases and tiers, well, chances are you won’t get much out of them, either.
This has all of course frustrated a Black Ops 4 community that is finding it increasingly difficult to defend Treyarch and Activision, and the Call of Duty franchise more broadly.
Such has been the anger aimed at both companies following the announcement of the DLC, even a Call of Duty legend has gotten involved to voice his angst.
Responding to a fan on Twitter, Sledgehammer Games co-founder, Michael Condrey, said such an addition simply wouldn’t have happened during his time with the company.
Condrey and Sledgehammer last worked on Call of Duty: WWII, and before that, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The former is arguably the best Call of Duty game in a long while.
When a fan reached out jeeringly suggesting that Treyarch had added the microtransactions just for him, Condrey hit back.
“To be clear, AW launched only with rewarded Supply Drops,” Condrey said. “We were driven by, and at the service of, providing fans more ways (than just XP) to earn rewards, customize their CAC, & express achievements in the virtual lobby.
“$30 for a melee weapon? Not on my watch.”
That is a big shot fired from the one Call of Duty person that is arguably the most recognisable and respected amongst Call of Duty fans.
Condrey has since moved on from Sledgehammer games, and earlier this month revealed plans to open a new studio under the 2K label.
