Where Next for the Medal of Honor Series?

The last we saw of the Medal of Honor series was back in 2012, when we were taking it to America’s enemies.

The last instalment of the MOH series – Medal of Honor: Warfighter was just awful. Whilst it was inspired by real life events and written by Special Forces operatives, it left a lot to be desired, especially with both Call of Duty and Battlefield claiming the trophies for best FPS and online multiplayer. The gameplay was severely lacking and the characters were just monotone hulks, able to kill all of Uncle Sam’s enemies through force of will alone.

So where the series should go next? It was taken for granted from 1999 onwards that you would find a MOH WW2 shooter on the shelves once per year and back then they were really worth the time and effort. MOH: Allied Assault, Frontline and Rising Sun were all excellent games. Frontline in particular brought us to the shores of Normandy with all the sounds and sights akin to Saving Private Ryan. Playing as Jimmy Patterson gave the player the feel of one man against the Nazis, and more often than not you would prevail.

The first MOH, brought to us in 1999 and helped along by none other than Steven Spielberg was probably the best of the series, followed closely by MOH: Frontline. There’s certainly a lot of replay in those early games, and I for one am starting to feel the itch to revisit them, but we’re not here to look to the past. The real question is, where should the series go now?

Firstly, they should remake and remaster the 1999 PS1 classic. It was the forerunner of what can be considered a very entertaining series, whilst it has nothing on Call of Duty in terms of staying power, MOH is still one for the history books. It gave us a glimpse into the world of WW2 espionage.

Beyond that, I’d say it boils down to 3 key steps. Here they are:

1. Get Jimmy Patterson back in action

MOH and MOH: Warfighter were forays into the world of the modern shooter, grounded in reality and intent on being as real and accurate as possible. For me they really didn’t hit the mark. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, what made MOH memorable and indeed playable was the fact that it was the go-to WW2 shooter before Call of Duty. So one idea is to bring Jimmy Patterson back from retirement and get him taking on battalions of Nazis by himself.

2. Stick to WW2

Yes the subject has been done to death, but it was what made MOH so playable, wrecking the Nazi war effort one campaign at a time. What I liked about the series is that even though it was fairly linear, it still gave you different environments to explore. Jimmy Patterson would be dropped in to sabotage a rocket or take out an official in charge of a secret weapon. It made you feel like you were actively changing the fate of the whole war.

So where could they go next? Could we see Jimmy drop into Norway to destroy the Nazi’s Heavy Water plant ala ‘Heroes of Telemark’ or stealing the plans for the new Luftwaffe Jet fighter from the Neuberg jet plant. Perhaps sabotaging the Rocket facilities at Peenemunde. The point I’m making is that for me MOH was all about you taking on the world. Why not go back to that, it was a formula that worked previously and since EA has already broken new ground with Battlefield 1, what have they got to lose?

3. Keep it simple and make it fun

MOH never took itself too seriously until its more modern installations came out in the late 2000s. For me that’s where the series went downhill, you can argue that they tried something different, a change from the rehashing the same content from WW2. Like I said before being set in WW2 made it fun, taking on the Nazi’s and generally being a pain in the German high command’s rear. I think they should bring it back to basics, give you one mission destroy a machine or prototype, rescue a scientist or just generally screw with the Nazis. Give the player this one mission, but have it span all over Europe. One mission gradually leads to another, gathering more information from each consecutive objective (notebooks, blue prints, and overheard conversations), proper spying and espionage.

So from all that, do I think MOH will ever be raised from the dead? One can live in hope. I would sincerely hope that if they ever bring back MOH then it should follow the layout above. One starting location, one key objective. You learn what you can, which gives you the next location. Don’t learn enough? You’ll have to go back and search the area again. Open world, but linear enough to encourage you to complete the missions, instead of just wandering around Nazi occupied Europe. Where should MOH go from here, is back to Europe, back to the 1940s, and back to punching Nazis in the face.