In a matter of weeks, EA's Battlefield 4 and Activision's Call of Duty: Ghosts will represent their respective series in the usual fall battle for the attentions of first-person shooter fans. Predictably, the competition between the two games has recently been heating up. You could say it's turned into a real… dogfight.
How did dogs get roped into this whole thing? Well. It all started when Call of Duty: Ghosts made an (accidental, many would say) name for itself earlier this year when its developers revealed Riley, better known as Call of Duty Dog.
Beloved by many members of the press and public alike, Call of Duty Dog went on to become something of an internet sensation. He's even got his own Know Your Meme page. Why did this happen? Perhaps because a lot of us in the press are a bit exhausted by the overwhelming sameness of these annual military shooting games and latched onto a welcome bit of unintentional goofiness? Likely.
Anyway, Activision recently shared a new Call of Duty trailer that, for a few glorious seconds, featured Riley taking down a mother effing helicopter. It was… so awesome.
Just this week, Riley turned up in another trailer, this time facing down some wolves. Sic 'em, Riley!
Now here's where it becomes a dog war. Not content to let CoD hog all the dog-glory, EA offered something of a response today, tossing a clip of a soldier brutally pummeling a German Shepard into their latest BF4 trailer:
Whoa! Escalation!
Here we have two war-game marketing campaigns, and two very different uses of dogs. Though to be fair, Call of Duty has included plenty of canine massacre in the past, and in addition to heroic Riley, Ghosts will almost surely have its share of brutal doggicide.
Still, it's hard not to read EA's most recent dog-attack as a direct shot at Call of Duty. Okay, Ghosts, the ball's in your court. Fetch the ball! Good boy!