I don’t usually comment on fan fiction, mock-ups, or fan-made game concepts. But this one is just too good to pass up.
It’s called Call of Duty: Police Warfare, and it is absolutely incredible. While I’m not a huge fan of the source material (I’m not entirely sure playing a copy would be outrageously entertaining in and of itself), the concept design is fluid and well engineered, and has some unique elements I’ve yet to see in any real game. Take a look:
Right off the bat, you can see the painstaking detail the creator, only known by YouTube username swedishtaco85, put into this incredible concept. Not only that, but he’s devised some new game mechanics like fluid rappelling from buildings and helicopters. Argue all you want, there haven’t been any games with perfected rappelling to my knowledge. Sure, he hasn’t designed the actual mechanics of how they’d work in-game, but the concept sure gets you excited thinking about it.
The user is Canadian according to his YouTube profile, and it looks as if there are a couple of Canadian scenes in the video as well, which is interesting considering it is supposed to take place in Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure I spotted the bridge outside of City Hall and the adjacent Sheraton Hotel from downtown Toronto.
The creator also expertly modifies actual CNN and ABC news footage and voice-overs to make this concept pitch look even better than something that Activision might create itself.
The quality of all this begs the question, though. Is this one massive leak after all? Has Activision become really smart and labelled all their game videos as “this is a concept, blah blah blah, it’s not really from Activision, blah blah blah, we’re not affiliated with anyone in games, blah blah blah”? If so, it’s a pretty ingenious move on their part. Perhaps it was leaked as a way to gauge audience reactions to the game, although we all know anything with the Call of Duty brand on it will sell more than a half a billion dollars in the first weekend because it’s practically the law at this point.
Either way, I have to hand it to my fellow Canadian for putting in what seems to be an enormous amount of time and effort into creating something he clearly wants to see made into a reality. Activision should look to talents like these to boost their staff, as I’m sure people like swedishtaco85 would love a job at a game development studio as prolific as Infinity Ward or as monolithic as Activision.