There's no shortage of decent shooters on mobile right now. Team Jade's Delta Force is an excellent Battlefield alternative, while Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Mobile brings tactical action to the small screen. So why should players keep coming back to Call of Duty: Mobile? The head of CODM, Jeffrey Gullett, tells Pocket Tactics why the team isn't afraid of competition.
A friendly rivalry can be a good thing for FPS games, especially if it leads developers to push the envelope of the genre. Embark Studios is doing that with The Finals, and I'm confident that it'll achieve similar greatness with upcoming looter shooter ARC Raiders. For Call of Duty: Mobile, Gullett's thrilled that more games are entering an already fierce space. "The mobile shooter space has always been competitive, and honestly, that's part of what keeps it exciting. New games entering the scene just push us to keep raising the bar," he tells me.
Call of Duty: Mobile landed on iOS and Android in 2019, but it wasn't a pitch-perfect experience from the beginning. There are some areas where CODM can improve, particularly in its Zombies gameplay, but I'll have more on that soon, so stay tuned. However, it does channel the frantic arcade-style nature of its console counterparts, with quick bursts of satisfying multiplayer battles in familiar locales. Gullett recognizes that the unique appeal of Call of Duty's broader approach to shooters is where CODM can excel.
Gullett adds that "what really sets CODM apart is the quality of the moment-to-moment gameplay. The team puts a ton of effort into making sure it feels tight and responsive because expectations are sky-high for it to feel great. But we don't just accept that, we lean into it. We hold ourselves to that level, and I think that commitment shows in every update we put out."
One way the free mobile game is setting itself apart is through crossovers. For some Call of Duty diehards, collaborations with pop culture icons are a controversial topic. I believe that some are more fitting than others, but CODM's disregard for lore and establishing itself as a separate entity works in its favor. Before Gundams dominated the current season, Gullett speaks on the recent NieR: Automata event's success and the road ahead.
"The NieR collaboration was one we'd been hoping to do for a long time, so seeing it finally come together was really satisfying for the whole team […] as for dream crossovers, we've got a long list. Some are just fun ideas we toss around, and others are actually in the works right now," he adds. Sadly, I can't get any specifics from Gullett on what movies, TV shows, or properties CODM plans to target next. However, he doesn't "want to jinx anything" for future events.
Want to know what else Gullett has to say? In the rest of my interview, he speaks about Black Ops 7 and how it will affect CODM, as well as the demise of Warzone Mobile. Earlier this year, I also spoke with Delta Force game design director Ricky Liao, who shared their perspective on Call of Duty: Mobile and offered a different perspective on the genre.
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