The Medal of Honor franchise has been dormant since 2012's Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The series attempted to chase the Modern Warfare trend, but was overshadowed by both Call of Duty and Battlefield, earning mediocre reviews and less than stellar sales. But now Medal of Honor is coming back as a virtual reality game from Respawn Entertainment, and the first trailer actually looks pretty impressive.
Respawn Entertainment has announced a new Oculus Rift-exclusive game called Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. The game is set in World War 2 and is being build as an "epic AAA experience." In the game, players will complete a tour of duty that takes them across Europe, battling Nazis alongside the French resistance. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will reportedly have a multiplayer mode to go along with the single player campaign, in addition to a gallery that lets players "sit with WWII veterans and survivors to hear their stories."
What's notable about Respawn developing Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is that some of its developers really cut their teeth on the Medal of Honor franchise. As some may recall, Medal of Honor developers jumped ship to Infinity Ward back in the day to work on Call of Duty, and so some Respawn devs' careers have really come full circle with this new game.
While there have certainly been some missteps with the Medal of Honor franchise, some games in the series have been groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed. Some enjoy the honor of being the best World War 2 games ever made, and while it's far too early to say if Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will enjoy that distinction as well, reaction to the game has been mostly positive so far. Of course, it helps that a studio like Respawn is working on the game, as the studio has yet to release a game with a review aggregate score lower than 85.
Since it's a more demanding game, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is an Oculus Rift game as opposed to one for the Oculus Quest. However, Oculus Quest players will still be able to play it if they have a powerful enough PC. That's because Oculus also announced a software update called the Oculus Link, which will allow Oculus Quest games to run Rift games when connected to a PC.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond launches in 2020, exclusively for Oculus Rift.