There was a time when World War 2 enthusiasts had more than one major FPS franchise to turn to, but those days are long gone. Call of Duty has become the biggest name in the FPS genre, and has seemingly killed off most of its competition. One such competitor was the classic series Medal of Honor series that dominated the genre at one point, but has since faded into relative obscurity.
Medal of Honor used to be the ultimate WW2 shooter series, and it is often credited with popularizing the genre. While its first couple of entries may have been met with universal acclaim, its later entries struggled against the larger Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. As of 2012, there has been no new mainline game in the series beyond a VR spin-off, and it seems like this iconic franchise is essentially dead.
Medal of Honor Once Dominated the FPS Genre
The Medal of Honor series kicked off in 1999, four years before the first Call of Duty hit shelves. The story was penned by Steven Spielberg after he was inspired by watching his son play GoldenEye 007, and the game was developed by Dreamworks Interactive. It was met with universal acclaim upon launch, and it would go on to spawn a successful FPS series that captured the tense feeling of fighting in WW2.
Dreamworks Interactive would capitalize on the success of the first Medal of Honor by releasing Medal of Honor: Underground a year later. This would prove to be as successful as the first one, and helped cement this franchise as a major player in the industry. The studio would end up getting renamed to EA Los Angeles, and from 2002 on there seemed to be a new Medal of Honor game released every year - some years saw multiple entries. There was no end in sight for the series, at least until FPS shooters like Call of Duty also gained in popularity.
Medal of Honor Has Struggled to Stay Relevant
As multiple WW2 shooters fought for the same fanbase, the amount of games being released led to oversaturation of the market. Call of Duty ended up changing its setting with the Modern Warfare series, and EA began to put more of an emphasis on the Battlefield series. Medal of Honor was seemingly left behind, at least until EA attempted to reinvent it.
In 2010, EA would release a reboot of Medal of Honor that brought the FPS series to a more modern era. It was the first game not set in WW2, and it was also the first title to receive a Mature rating. It received strong reviews when it launched, and it felt like the Medal of Honor series had found its place in the market again. However, those dreams fell apart with the release of Medal of Honor: Warfighter two years later.
While the Medal of Honor reboot deliver a thrilling modern-day shooter, its sequel failed on multiple fronts, met with mixed reviews as a notably buggy mess at launch. The story was confusing, the AI did not function, there were numerous glitches, and the game paled in comparison to its competitors. Its reception seems to have canceled any plans for more Medal of Honor games, as the main series has been dormant since 2012.
The first Medal of Honor title to release since the failure of Medal of Honor: Warfighter was a VR game that launched in 2020. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was developed by Respawn Entertainment, and while it may have been an interesting concept, it was also met with mixed reviews. It seems like the VR game failed to revive the Medal of Honor brand, as there has been no news about a new entry since. Yet the series was once the king of the World War 2 FPS genre, and it deserves its time in the spotlight once again.