For all intents and purposes, war has changed in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. For the first time in the series’ history, developer Treyarch is taking the reins and steering the COD franchise into the near future: A time when the battlefield conflicts of 2025 are settled through a combination of military-grade robots, human infantry, and deadly advanced weaponry. If any of these ideas sound familiar (and they should), you’ve probably played a lot of games in the last ten years… but it’s the specific, and unexpected, connection to Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series that strikes me as the most interesting aspect of Treyarch’s latest addition to Call of Duty.
These connections are more likely coincidences than a blatant crib job, but as Call of Duty tries to free itself from the shackles of conventional sequels and continue its legacy as a premier blockbuster, you can’t help but see the connections between it and Metal Gear. I see five distinct similarities between Black Ops 2 and Metal Gear (especially Metal Gear Solid 4), and to my mind these connections can only benefit the series.
