Call of Duty: Vietnam?

After Infinity Ward seemingly "leaving" the CoD franchise and focusing on their Modern Warfare IP, the question of what Treyarch will do with the beloved franchise remains. The latest rumor to hit the franchise has the series going to Vietnam, a war rarely if ever executed well in video games. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=214296

Yeah, it's not WWII, which is great, but it's still an old war. While we've seen little of this venue in games, I think that the problems that plagued CoD: WaW will remain (such as map sizing and overall design). With Treyarch on their own for the CoD franchise, I think it'll take two more CoD4 clones (but in different venues) before the franchise has died off completely. That being said, Modern Warfare 2 looks great, eh?

The CoD franchise is doomed.

 It could be cool, but I wasn't a fan of Call Of Duty: World at War. It could be great or awful.

The Vietnam War wouldn't make a very good video game... You'd have to keep a constant eye on the ground, to make sure you don't fall into covered holes full of sharp sticks and Vietcong shit. Then you'd shoot at a few distant Asians hiding in some brush. Then you'd make camp and be murdered in your sleep. The end.

Vietnam is a political and tactical quagmire to place a game. You both have to handle the subject matter with enough care to not offend (there are plenty of Vietnam vets still around) and somehow turn jungle guerrilla warfare into a fun gaming experience. The thing with WWII, and Modern Warfare's full scale city battles, is that they are so huge and chaotic they provide a wealth of experiences to keep things interesting. Vietnam was for the most part a low level conflict fought in heavily vegetated terrain against a loosely organized enemy. While they may choose to concentrate on some of the large scale engagements like the Tet Offensive in the end the United States is going to lose. Does anyone really want to play a game where they know they're going to come out the loser?

I'm much more hopeful that it goes the root of covering various Cold War pseudo-wars fought between the United States and Soviet Union. Of course once again the problem arises of trying to handle the subject matter with care.

Call of Duty may well go the way of Medal of Honor; Infinity Ward did the right thing distancing themselves from that title.