Why did Call of Duty's Graphics get WORSE?

Why did Call of Duty's graphics get worse after Modern Warfare 2019? In this video I will be discussing the evolution of graphics in Call of Duty and proving a common misconception about engines wrong. Enjoy! #callofduty #cod
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[@ExoGhost]

Another point: MW2019 used bright sunlight and dark shadows in a lot of its maps. It's possible that they scrapped this style to improve visibility MWII actually has sharper textures and more complex animations. The only reason it might look less appealing is because they don't shine the sun down at an angle to create lots of dark shadows on the map anymore

[@Ghost_-_]

Me personally I feel like they were way more visible on MW 2019 😭😭😭😭

[@elangrivirrojo7941]

Another thing that affects it is post proccesing

[@SmoovyNovaFan]

idk about that, just comparing Rust on MW2019 and MWIII, whichever looks more appealing is totally up to whoever, but the newer one definitely has better visibility@@Ghost_-_

[@sandmoonky]

@@Ghost_-_ bru look at rust 2019 and rust 2023, mw3 was WAYYYY more visibillity.

[@lominee287]

True. It's all about lighting approach.

[@tcoty]

Cuz 2019 wasn't rushed like Mw2 (2022) and Mw3 (2023)

[@ExoGhost]

MW2 was not rushed. It had 3 years of development :P

[@Jufa24Jaiz07]

​@@ExoGhost Not rushed, done worse.

[@pat753951]

​@@ExoGhost yea that's sad part

[@solitaryfps]

@@ExoGhostthat’s sad.

[@solitaryfps]

@@ExoGhostit had more development than cold war and cold war is still better😂

[@bleeddubs3343]

MW 2019 IW team was such an ambitious team. They 3D scanned buildings, real life locations, guns/weapons… safe to say we definitely do not have the same team behind MW2/MW3

[@danieldasilva3068]

They already scanned everything there is to scan .. no reason to go out and rescan the same buildings and weapons. It's all about the lighting and making everything easier to see for the crybabies who suck.

[@bleeddubs3343]

@@danieldasilva3068 so why are proportions off in mw2/3 compared to mw2019? Buildings … cars… They copy and pasted, and adjusted to their liking, without considering the original standard and the problem with tweaking it. I do agree better lighting is needed and may improve more of the maps/game

[@bleeddubs3343]

@@danieldasilva3068 I’m also commenting on the ambitious nature of that IW 2019 team. Sure the current team doesn’t need to scan shit, but show that same drive and motivation when it comes to developing the next sequels

[@DoctorDoomRulerOfLatveria]

FACTS. AND IT HAS BETTER FPS TOO 😂​@@bleeddubs3343

[@DoctorDoomRulerOfLatveria]

​@@bleeddubs3343I MEAN, LOOK AT THE GROUND WAR MAPS IN MW 2019 AND THEN IN MW2 AND MW3 😂 IT IS A COMPLETE DISASTER, AND IN WARZONE 2 AND 3 KEEPS HAPPENING 😂... I MISS COD 😢

[@MyPeopleNeedMe]

Don't forget that AW's graphics where a massive step up from Ghosts.

[@PartyCrasher04]

Yeah

[@realgrimez]

and bo3 and ww2, this dudes just over exaggerating for clicks

[@kisille]

@@realgrimezexactly

[@-PratyushMishra]

but who played adv warfare beuh

[@MyPeopleNeedMe]

@@-PratyushMishra the older cod community is starting to agree that it was a fun MP

[@guyguy7213]

6:20 "it looks like a ps3 game" No... no it doesn't, quit being hyperbolic.

[@PrototypeZR]

Yeah. For some reason people totally forgot how PS3 games actually looked like.

[@malcolmmacdonald3597]

Yeah, it would be the most graphically advanced PS3 game ever released if it was.

[@reezethevampire]

I can't stand phrases like "looks like a PS2/3" game. They are always just...wrong. You can literally click back to a PS3 game's footage from 2 minutes ago when he says that in this video to prove to yourself its a stupid claim.

[@josecork21]

Lol fr, Cold War looks great even when using normal settings.

[@christianworcester6851]

Maybe not a ps3 game, but not any more impressive than a ps4 launch title, hell some of these games could pass for an up rezd ps3 game, last of us p1 was the most technologically advanced game on ps3, and id say that recent cod BARELY looks better.

[@Jarvik]

One of the reasons a lot adore 2019, is the grittiness. Not that it was something new, but it laid out the "realism" for warfare with grittiness and atmosphere and color grading.

[@byeetch]

which is fine and dandy for campaign but horrendous for mp other than just to do cringe tiktok edits

[@TheDankestSand]

⁠@@byeetchgrittyness in aesthetic not gameplay like how classic cod was

[@neckbeardcat6777]

​@TheDankestSand yes and no. the sheer amount of time the devs put into 2019's graphics kind of backfired when it came to gameplay as the the overall coloring systems and shadows created issues with player visibility, the most infamous example being the Roze skins pretty much dissapearing into shadows and resulting in the nightmare situation that plaqued WZ long after, even as Vanguard became the focus of warzone. Graphical fidelity does play a massive roll in the gameplay experience. If a game isn't appealing to the eyes or has elements which result in severe eye strain, it can cause players to not want to play the game, while on the other end, higher fidelity graphics and shadow rendering, means that on the 2d view of a monitor players much more easily dissapear, which Is a massive problem for an arcade shooter franchise, where player visibility is important to maintaining a fast and engaging gameplay loop. It meant that player skins with dark colors or a disruptive shape were able to easily blend into the environment and hide from player view, which when you have to BUY those skins is a MASSIVE problem when you're already fighting pay to win accusations for discrepancies between base guns and blueprints which mysteriously boast improved stats that weren't possible under normal circumstances. In a campaign this isn't as much of an issue and can even be used to build more interesting engagements, but when it comes to multi-player there is a fine balance between realism and visual information that has to be maintained or it can end up hurting the game in the long run.

[@falfieri3167]

@@byeetchur just trash at the game lol

[@madcyborg1822]

You must be a kid if you think MW laid out the "realism", it was really arcadey, but it did have pretty bleak colors.

[@Bin0mar]

I still remember in 2020 when I wanted to increase the frames IN MW19 and change the render scale, and I accidentally set it to 200% = 4K, and I was amazed by what I saw to this day I sat looking at the graphics for a long time, forgetting that I wanted to raise the frames and not lower them, and that has not happened to me again in my life EVEN IN MW2 MW3 .

[@SuperBunny312]

is the gpu alive lmao

[@Bin0mar]

just for seconds i play on 4k to see it@@SuperBunny312

[@zxSwifty]

im the opposite, i run my game at everything minimum for max frame rate. couldn't care less about how it looks lmao

[@NiaTech]

same. i set it to 4k and i was amazed. Mw2/mw3 has a lot of washed textures and film grain and some blur and rendering at a distance is not clear.

[@mariano98ify]

​@zxSwifty I guess he is focused in Singleplayer and you will play in PVP.

[@IchiroSchiffer]

You spent 10 minutes talking and you said *nothing* on why it looks worse...

[@Metalwrath2]

these channels are so bs

[@bapoTV]

even worse : 10 minutes talking about shit he just looked up on Google while giving wrong interpretations

[@NotNykoh]

Bro read a script from chatGPT

[@KasenConnor]

Did you watch the video lol? The answer is literally the developers don’t give a shit. It all depends on what they want to do in the engine

[@Moisty_BusDriver]

Here is what he should’ve said. They all looked amazing on launch, the game downgraded with every single update. That’s the short and the only answer you need. They need to learn to change how they make their games. At this point they are just constantly going through the same making process each year like they are using a planning rubric and if they continue then each game will double in size for absolutely nothing.

[@smellmyballs2693]

4:12 lol this is such a lie. Every game after Ghosts has much higher fidelity and especially starting with IW in 2016 they are all in 4k.

[@user-mq7zn7nl4g]

yeah exactly this dude is blind

[@melep.5432]

I don’t think it’s necessarily worst, it just went more cartoonish. I definitely miss the realistic look

[@thomascoburn5481]

Yep thats my issue with it 😊

[@themilkman8554]

agreed, that and Battlefield has the same issue now too.

[@Jayblixt]

⁠@@themilkman8554Problem with Battlefield tho that the graphics looks too good to the point where it looks cartoony

[@themilkman8554]

@@Jayblixt In my experience I would disagree. What makes the game look cartoonish is the shading (or lack of) and the color palet choice. Previous games had proper lighting and shading/dark areas/shadows while the newer games go for visibility (possibly for esports- kinda like how COD is now being criticized for the same reason, I'll put the video title at the end of this comment). People also used to always hate on the blue filter but that was one of the reasons it had a gritty and grounded look. Video you should watch: Why did Call of Duty's Graphics get WORSE? By:ExoGhost

[@Jayblixt]

@@themilkman8554 Yeah I can agree on with Battlefield but CoD most definitely went backwards after MW19, not just the color shade. Btw are you talking about the blue filter on BF3?

[@ItzSikePlayz]

I honestly don't understand why he thinks the graphics got worse. All the developers actually did was reduce the saturation to generate more realistic colours

[@drewhamre]

I would play Realism mode nonstop when MW2019 first came out because the graphics were just so insanely mind blowing to me, especially the night maps

[@acoolrocket]

You forgot to mention the jump with Advanced Warfare (2014) which is when they changed the texture workflow to PBR textures over the outdated specular workflow they were stuck with since the first COD. Case in point with textures being involved like Subsurface Scattering that made face models look amazing and even by today looks great. They pretty much stuck with this till BO4 with some maps having better art and lighting direction than others such as with some of the maps in BO3 and Infinite Warfare.

[@AlluringPegasu13]

yup idk why he completly missed that after advance warfare cod games did look better but the gunplay was still kinda the same old one

[@guyinpajamas9818]

Advanced Warfare still holds up so well visually. I also think that art direction really peaked with WWII. It's so sad to see Sledgehammer be turned into a crunch studio.

[@cameronbaker97]

​@@guyinpajamas9818yeah.

[@winbrr9546]

exactly, imo this whole video is stupid it's literally just biased towards MW 2019 because he thinks its a better game or whatever If these people knew anything about graphics then they wouldn't be saying dumb stuff like this all the time The past few cod games (excluding cold war because that game was supposed to be stylised) literally look the same to mw 2019, they're just crying over nothing

[@victorley663]

People complained about the high contrast lighting in MW19 that we now consider "better graphics" - as a result, lighting, especially character lighting has been changed in MW2 and MW3 for visibility purposes to avoid "Roze skin" situations (unless the skin is literally invisible like the Groot skin). MW2 and MW3 have a purposefully "worse" art style to keep the game playable on last gen PS4s, etc. and to avoid all the visibility complaints during MW19 and WZ1.

[@SillyCrilly]

PREACH BROTHER PLEASE🙏🙏🙏

[@afterhours1337]

much rather downgraded graphics for visibility's sake over pretty graphics that mask players hiding in dark spots.

[@HereComesJJ]

We don’t care dude. Go sleep with Activision for making that disgraceful piece of shit of MWll and lll. We want a fluid, smooth and beautiful (graphics speaking) game. We do not care about crying babies complaining about movement or that their hardware cannot cope with new games. You either buy a better hardware, or play the game as it is.

[@victorley663]

@@HereComesJJ Do I sound like an activision shill to you? I blame the cod community for complaining about literally anything and everything 24/7, nonstop. MW19’s “bland color palette and poor visibility” fixed in MW2. MW2’s slow gameplay fixed in MW3. MW3’s issues are the last gen graphics and SBMM

[@jasonzherdev503]

@@HereComesJJ bro, who is we? speak for yourself. cod thrives with higher fps, graphics aren't everything in a game. go play horizon zero dawn or spiderman 2 if you want graphical fidelity. its not usually people huffing copium because they have bad PCs, it's people not wanting pay to win dark ass skins again.

[@Axisoflords]

Black Ops Cold War, actually uses a heavily modified version of Black Ops IIII's engine (heavily modified IW 3.0) using tools and underlying technology from the IW 8.0 engine! Given it's using Black Ops II's IW 3.0 build as its base, could've been worse!

[@gemingpeecee]

For Black Ops Cold War: Upgraded version of Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII's engine (heavily modified IW 3.0) using tools and underlying technology from the IW 8.0 engine (basically the same engine as COD BO1 but with improvements from IW 8.0)

[@raygunner4970]

3:55. Bro. What? Is what you said here a joke? No graphical changes in five years. Cap. 2015 BO3's graphics, especially with lighting were absolutely INSANE. Not to mention how realistic the cutscenes looked in 2014 AW and 2017 WW2. BO4 was a downgrade from BO3 IMO, but it still looks miles ahead of Ghosts.

[@samurairavo]

You're glazing every cod game since ghost rn

[@Weissenheit]

Well, AW cutscenes were CGI so... I got your point with the rest.

[@CERRYGREENBAY]

@@samurairavoprobably because they’re all much better than ghosts with the exception of vanguard.

[@homuraakemi4559]

Advanced warfare was such a huge upgrade, still looks amazing on PS3 to this day

[@stevenjonas1]

@@homuraakemi4559 I agree but I think the difference was just the coloring of the maps. I remember AW being so vibrant.

[@sunjayroy312]

Mw19 had massive resources allocated. I believe they opened a studio in Poland specifically for the reboot.

[@Herr4dler]

Yeah. The R&D team is located at Kraków, Poland. Some of the best graphics engineers in the industry are working there!

[@ImWithMe]

The big difference is actually lighting. Mw2 and mw3 have been improved drastically, the lighting is just more realistic in mw19. They made the lighting worse for visibility.

[@scottjs5207]

@@ImWithMe In which way is it better for visibility. I have yet to find any situation that the worse lighting made it better. When everything's more washed out, it just looks like a pile of mush.

[@animarcs]

​@@scottjs5207mw2019 had a shitton of dark corners where even semi-dark skins could easily camouflage themselves. This ain't the case in mw2,3. I do miss the gritty contrast though :(

[@Robertinater4546B]

​@@animarcsI can't see someone at all in the newest cods. Its not even dark just every thing blends together and hurts my eyes. Plus half the time I see enemies with my teammates name above them because my teammates on the other side of the wall so I don't shoot and die to bullshit design. 2019 when it was still supported was absolutely the best cod out of the ones mad roast it.

[@Hensg]

MW19 is colorful while MW22 is just colors with fading gray

[@mikehasfallen]

Kinda the opposite. MW22 looked way more colorful almost like a black ops game. Mw2019 just looks kinda sad sometimes but more realistic.

[@labombaromba]

@@mikehasfallen Both can be true. MWII looks more cartoonishly colourful but at the same time has no contrast. The sunlight does not hit anything the way it should and shadows are a muddy blueish grey. Even though this is usually done to help visibility, there's a point where too little contrast hurts visibility too in my experience. The same largely goes for MWIII. MW19 wasn't overly colourful or under. It was fairly neutral for the most part. Faded reds looked like faded reds. Bright blues looked like bright blues. Ofc there were some maps where the colours were more thematic. Either way, there was more range. The contrast also consistently had more range. Hell if you turn on ambient occlusion in either game, the difference is more obvious. In MWII/III, turning on ambient occlusion makes a very subtle difference. Enabling ambient occlusion in MW19 is much more noticeable. I don't think any of this is a matter of lacking resources like other comments have suggested. MW19 had a year extra as far as we know but MWII still had a full cycle and they STILL went out of their way to redo MANY assets they could've just reused from MW19. It's a deliberate change in artistic vision.

[@ThatRotundGamer]

Bro did NOT just say Cold War looks like a “PS3 game”💀🙏. Cold War looks absolutely fucking amazing man.

[@Kait0s]

4:55 MW 2019 did use a new engine. They didn't upgrade IW engine like the previous years, they straight up spent 5 years rebuilding it from the ground up. While the name is IW 8.0, because it is their 8th version of their in house engine, it fundamentally isn't the same as IW 7.0 or any prior versions because those were just updates to the engine. And the reason you can't find BOCW's engine is because Treyarch had been using a modified version of the IW 3.0 engine since WAW to make their games. It derived from IW 3.0 but after that it was heavily modified and they didn't make the engine theirs, they just updated for their game's need, that's why it's called IW still. But it was not the same engine used in MW 2019. In fact, we'll be seing Treyarch use the current engine for the first time in this years COD as they announced that they'll keep their new games in a single engine to better integrate to Warzone and the COD HQ.

[@GKID7891]

Internally, Treyarch branches go as Tx, so BOCW was T9. CoD 2024 gonna most likely by named T10, using the IW9 engine as base. They will still need to add stuff to support gameplay (round based zombies), assuming IW9 does not have components for zombies. IW8 did not support zombies and SHG had to rush Vanguard + zombies mode. Treyarch had to basically build it from the ground up for Vanguard, leading to the Shi No Numa rehash. Generally, you do not waste work hours (money) on features you do not need in a software, unless abusive managers tell you to put 100+ hours into it or get fired (old Rockstar method of working).

[@scottjs5207]

Hence why they always had such janky movement and knifing in 3arc games. Always hated how jank those games felt by comparison to IW titles so guess what games I stuck with? lol.

[@bapoTV]

​@@GKID7891The code is already written, they just need to refactor it to the other engine to make Zombies work in IW while keeping in mind that IW games already had Zombies in the past (Ghosts, IW) so there are already features for it, and apart from the AI system the rest is only gameplay so even easier to implement since it's not engine dependant

[@klowbi8088]

I honestly really think Cold War has a certain charm to it. I really liked it.

[@silencedmaxim5889]

Cold War's graphics are like an upgraded version of BO4, which was a visual downgrade from BO3. Also, Treyarch's games run (or used to) on a different branch of the engine they've been developing specifically for their games since WAW, which is why Cold War looks so different from MW19. I say they used to because I believe Treyarch's next title, Gulf War, will be rendered on the MW engine rather than the BO engine.

[@axcelramos]

@@silencedmaxim5889 I recently watched Jarhead and now im excited for BOGW

[@whattagiordi]

Weren’t bad but the weapons graphics made them feel like toys for me, while in WZ1 the Cold War gun’s with different graphics feel very well

[@ItsVibes1]

@@silencedmaxim5889nah man thats sad not the BS modern warfare engine for the upcoming black ops …. Just tells us they rushing the black ops aswell . Man these devs can work for shit 💩 their servers are whack aswell

[@hanson933]

Underrated comment. Treyarch also lean more into the "arcadey" feel than the MW dev teams while still having realistic elements. I assume Activision have pushed them to the MW engine for the next game for easier Warzone integration. It seemed like a mess during WZ1 lifecycle with them still using their own fork of IW engine for CW (hence why old mate couldn't find much about it online)@@silencedmaxim5889

[@KoffeeIsFishy]

Bo3 was an incredibly beautiful game idk what you’re yapping about

[@orionizaqt]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much of a difference between MW 2019 and any game after that. They all look similar graphically, just stylistically different to me.

[@09kingarthur]

BOCW is actually one of my favorite COD games visuals-wise. It looks realistic while adopting its own visual style, and my god the colors POP in that game. The only real criticism I have in terms of visuals were the weapon animations.

[@Kyledoggs]

I reckon the animations also looked really good, and I don’t know why exo shat on satellite because it’s the best looking map in the game, especially the details in the caves and the cracks in the muddy sand. Checkmate also looks really realistic with the cement floors

[@SlothSandwhich]

Yeah i play Cold war alot and it's such a good colorful game. I turnt off hit markers like waw 😂

[@patricklitterallyit4164]

Nah Cold War looks terrible. Pathetic excuse for a next-gen game

[@michaelespeland]

@@patricklitterallyit4164 The graphical fidelity is better in CW than MW2019, cheers from an image processing engineer. Nice try though

[@patricklitterallyit4164]

@@michaelespeland then why does it look worse than MW2019 in every single way?

[@NN010]

Some corrections & expansions on the information in the video (although this was a good video overall, especially with how you emphasize the importance of good art direction in how good a game looks): - While IW 8.0 is a numerical increment over IW 7.0, the engine was essentially rebuilt from scratch over 5 years (spanning both Infinite Warfare & MW19's development cycles) to prepare it for the future. So, really, it can be argued that IW 8.0 is about as related to IW 7.0 and earlier as Unreal Engine 5 is to Unreal Engine 4. - From what I've heard, Black Ops: Cold War was built on an upgraded version of Black Ops III's engine, which was built upon BOII's engine, which was built upon BO1's engine, which was built upon the fork of the IW 3.0 engine used for World At War. Yeah, Treyarch was on a separate technological path from Infinity Ward and the main IW engine for over a decade. That's why Black Ops 4 looks worse from a tech standpoint than COD WW2 and Infinite Warfare. They were originally supposed to switch to the IW 8.0 engine after BO4, but Cold War's troubled and expedited development meant that Treyarch & Raven had to stick to tech the former was familiar with. So Cold War's technically on a heavily modified IW 3.0, but in reality, its engine is just called the Black Ops: Cold War engine. - While it didn't come up in the video, Advanced Warfare, WWII & the Modern Warfare remasters were developed on a separate engine made by Sledgehammer that, while having some legacy code from IW 5.0 from MW3, is basically a new, distinct engine. But, as you noted, they did ditch this engine for IW 8.0 when making Vanguard and now IW 9.0 for MWIII. - Jason Schreier mentioned in his piece about MWIII's development that Vanguard was also made in less than 2 years, so that would imply that, like Treyarch & Raven with Cold War, they didn't have enough time to achieve the same attention to detail & realistic art direction that Infinity Ward stunned the world with when they came out with MW19. Hopefully, Treyarch's game this year, with 4 years of development time (and IW 9.0) on their side, will be able to match or even surpass MW19 & MWII in terms of graphics & art direction while also delivering a great Treyarch COD experience. EDIT: Just realized seconds after posting this comment that another factor in the shift in art direction for games after MW19 could be a prioritization of visual clarity & visibility for the sake of competitive play. It was infamously hard to see into dark areas at times in MW19 (hence why the Roze skin became so notorious), so later games may have been trying to avoid such issues repeating themselves...

[@diogo763]

Really well said, especially the edit part.

[@reezethevampire]

Considering UE5 and UE4 are identical engines but UE5 has a handful of features added I don't think your first point means what you think it means.

[@aids5775]

I was thinking the same thing.

[@bapoTV]

You're not understanding how engine updates works, UE5 is like a superset of UE4, the same thing with better tools and so much more features that it was a major update

[@youdonegoofed]

You put more effort into this comment than the uploader did into his video.

[@crossedfuneral]

Black Ops: Cold War, was exactly what the community asked for, simple, three lined FPS, and they delivered

[@brycenlee]

I remember playing the alpha of MW2019 and very much noticing how different everything was from the previous games especially BO4 since it was the most recent game. I had played since COD 4 technically and this was the first COD to actually make almost a brand new game while it still being apart of the COD franchise. It is seriously like no other.

[@scottjs5207]

I find it sad that the night maps were so hated. I had so much fun playing Black Gold in MW22 that I wish I got to play those night maps in rotation for MW19 as well but I was too busy rocking with some guys on MW2 on the PS3 when they were.

[@UnchainedEruption]

Engine-wise? Sure biggest change since CoD 2. Gameplay-wise? Nope it's just a remake of CoD 4. Boring. The most new they added was one level near the end that was like a proto-Splinter Cell game.

[@truth2910]

One noteworthy aspect of COD games is their consistent use of direct sunlight and shadows, even within cloudy or dimly lit maps. This emphasis on visibility often appears to overshadow the artistic elements and beauty of the game environments. This might stem from an apparent prioritization of catering to competitive gamers, potentially at the expense of aesthetic design. This approach could potentially undervalue the significance of creating visually captivating and artistically rich game landscapes. While visibility is undoubtedly crucial for competitive gaming, finding a balance between optimizing visibility and maintaining an immersive, visually striking environment could greatly enhance the overall gaming experience for all types of players. Integrating feedback from a wider spectrum of players, including those who appreciate artistry and graphics, might lead to a more harmonious blend of functionality and visual allure in future COD games.

[@neckbeardcat6777]

It isn't even catering to just competitive players, if the graphics are sacrificing the actual gameplay for the aestheyics of the game it ends up being worse for everyone overall, which was a massive problem that a lot of people don't really pick up on when discussing the changes in lighting after 2019. The game looked phenomenal, but it achieved its visuals through ways that created problems with visual information, mainly when dealing with player skins featuring dark colors and/or disruptive shapes, the most infamous example being the roze skin. In some ways, the game looking so good from a realism perspective backfired tremendously and created a constant issue that plagued 2019 and WZ1 throughout their life cycles. Not only that, but when discussing Cold War, people forget 1. What a fucking ps3 game looks like, 2. The severe lack of complaints related to player visibility and 3. That Black ops has always been more fantasy themed in terms of it's story and art style. It's ever so slighly cartoonish, blending base level realism with covert ops fantasy and more artistic and creative environments. It's part of what helps the games stand out from the other COD groups and ends up creating visual variety between games, which helps to keep the games from feeling stagnant, something that was an important factor in the golden age of cod which saw us going between different time periods and visual styles that let each years title feel unique and impressive. Cold war doesn't look hyper realistic cause that's not the point of the art style of a black ops game, or the tone they carry with them.

[@realnooey]

Thank you chat gpt

[@MuffinManProductions3D]

"To answer that question we must go back to cod 1". I love when people who know nothing about how video games are made, try to explain how video games are made.

[@frankaliberti]

To say that the IW engine is the same engine across the years is the same thing as saying Unreal 5 is the same thing as Unreal 3. LOL

[@creationfied]

i think cold war and vanguard can be considered good graphically if realism isnt the goal because theyve got style, but theres no excuse for the rest of the new MWs

[@TheDankestSand]

Vanguard was very washed out and had bad lighting

[@gustavomartins364]

I never played vanguard, but for i watched on KZbin the game looks way to shining.

[@Lolapalooza-ug9jv]

Are u dumb

[@michaelboyle-ms2id]

This is a very detailed analysis and on a topic I too have wondered about for a while! Fantastic video Exo! And I’m not even done yet.

[@dragonfire172]

POV: u don't know what a "Game engine" is

[@balakehb]

solid research @ 6:30 a couple of clicks would've told you that Black Ops Cold War's engine is literally just called Black Ops Cold War Engine, it's a revamp of the Black Ops 4 Engine which is just a heavily modified IW 3.0 (Black Ops 1, 2 and 3) Engine, so same as the Modern Warfare series has their own fork for each heavily modified version, all roads stem from Quake engine, Treyarch and Infinity Ward just took different roads

[@bapoTV]

not even THAT different, if you look at the idTech engine tree you also see that Treyarch Engine is also using the IW updates over the years

[@younailedit1509]

Black Ops Cold War runs on the T9 engine, a heavily upgraded version of the BO3 engine which is an upgraded version of IW 3 engine. So it's a completely different engine and probably at this point it's own. Personally I wouldn't say MW 2019 is the best looking FPS game, but it definitely holds up pretty well.

[@Spyro_2]

every code is on the same "engine" this just modify it to make the game, they all use the quake base, Treyarch uses the same base, you don't make "new" engines anymore because there is no point, most engines are not the problem holding the game back its money and time that hold it back.

[@younailedit1509]

@@Spyro_2 True, its still the same engine just heavily upgraded, I mean its just the BO3 engine which is IW engine heavily upgraded.

[@TestamentFromTheForest]

Poor Treyarch didn't even get enough time to polish the visuals for such a short development time. Feels like even CoD3 outperforms BOCW in terms of visuals xD Don't forget about optimization, too. Short development time due to shifting developers cycle was a really dumb decision, so we've got the game unoptimized, unpolished visuals wise, etc.

[@bapoTV]

​@@TestamentFromTheForestBOCW is far from unoptimized, it's the second best performing game in the IW 8.0+ versions

[@TheReal_Lion]

I like this new style of commentary videos where you talk about the game's history or stuff about the game while showing footage of your amazing gameplay and COD footage. Very relaxing and straight to the point. I think this is a good style, you should do this from time to time since it performs well, i kniw your worried about views but yohr channel is slowly getting back to where you want it. Love your vids bro ❤❤❤❤

[@polskabalaclava]

I don’t, it’s a waste of time and he takes too long to get to the point/answer

[@jallu_3]

5:33 what? battlefield v dwarfs any cod in graphics by a landslide

[@CRPanda7203]

Man: Yaps about the engines for ten minutes Also man: "Its not about the engine"

[@d4rthreap3r39]

i might be the only person that remembers this but there was a load of videos going around of someone doing weapon inspects from mw2019 in real life compared to the cam and i could barely tell the difference

[@subho9000]

agreed. sometimes you'd even be fooled into thinking that mw2019 is the real life version.

[@RobertoHernandez-ce2fv]

Fun fact: MW2019 had a longer developed time. That’s why

[@oksobatdunguygy]

Mw22 has long development to 😮

[@danjjjatest]

And yet MW2019 launched with broken specops and only 6 TDM maps.

[@GOATnaldosiuu]

@@oksobatdunguygy 3 years and 2 of them were in COVID

[@AmaAndZing]

make some more excuses. goof @@GOATnaldosiuu

[@GOATnaldosiuu]

@@AmaAndZing I hate both mw19 and mw22

[@AutomaticHQ]

Great content, I just wish we could go back to simpler times of CoD4, MW2 and BO2, top tier memories and fun!

[@UrKhalqiComrade49]

Cold War uses a modified version of the Black Ops 3 Engine

[@EyePatchGuy88]

IMO, BO3 was the peak of COD Graphics. The colour palette was excellent, the characters stood out, and it was just fantastic.

[@melcorchancla9431]

Yeah, him saying there were no graphics improvements after ghosts is bullshit. AW already looked a bit better than ghosts, and BO3 looked way, way better than ghosts, then came infinity with really good graphics too. Compare something like BO3, IW or WW2 to ghosts, huge difference.

[@HereComesJJ]

You’re blind. COD2019 (R)apes every single COD in existence. Period, don’t even @ me.

[@SilentNine]

@@HereComesJJnot true

[@sameoldmo]

@@HereComesJJtypical old head on console statement

[@averagefan2397]

honestly yeah BO3 slapped and played better than most CODs it just wasn't popular on PC but there are more quality settings on PC that the game looks atleast 20% better than people remember it also AW warfare looked great the industrial pseudo-futuristic aesthetic was executed pretty well

[@julianrodriguez3545]

Bro got cooked in the chat at the beginning💀

[@LA23R]

Get this cheating POS outta here

[@BenEsherick]

Graphics are better now than ever but in terms of immersion and environment the games peaked in 2009-2011 imo

[@screamxblur]

The 2019 story mode should have had the same gameplay and graphics in multiplayer. MW MP 2019 is the same old Warzone garbage, with mediocre gameplay, bad graphics. The hyperkinetic way of running and moving makes it 100% the MP for kids..

[@FrazzledPineapple]

hey exo, im a viewer from ages back that stopped watching your vids after a bit because they kind of got stale and now, im back because the title caught me and the content was just so enjoyable as it was different to your usual content of just gaming without much clear focus on anything. I love this type of content i would definitely say keep it up. Your views are going back up!!

[@BleachCuresBlindness]

Very informative video, appreciate the detailed explanation and commentary. I didn't even know that MW19 and MW2 were on the same engine with how different everything feels, MW2-3's movement and gunplay looks and feels sluggish, weightless and unresponsive like Cold War for me and one of my biggest problems with these two games that nobody talks about is the map to player scale of the game and I can't unsee it, especially inside buildings. anyways, I'd love to see you play more MW19 TDM or search and destroy, even if it is just an excuse to talk about something else. Your '19 gameplays are some of my favourite COD videos on KZbin :)

[@bapoTV]

2 things to note, the engine doesn't make the gameplay and doesn't change the feel of anything, and MW19 and MW2 are made on different engines IW 8.0 and IW 9.0, but Exo fails to explain that updating an engine is a normal thing to do

[@James_08_07]

You had me with the COD4 menu music... pure nostalgia

[@GEK0dev]

One thing for Cold War, It was made in a different engine, IW(It stands for infinity ward) This was not used for Cold War, It was a older version that was used for black ops 4, So honestly a glow up from that but not from 2019

[@TheUnknownVariable]

I'm glad you highlighted the fact that the engine itself is not "new" I've been saying this FOREVER on my channel! Good Video Exo!

[@typicalmountainbiker]

The engine used in MW2019 was built from the ground up. They just call it IW 8.0 because it's the 8th time they modified or redid their engine for a new game.

[@febiox7122]

a little thing to mention is the anti aliasing,mw19 has off,smaa x1 adn smaa x2,smaa x1 had a very little impact on details blurrying a little but for the good side of removing most of the aliasing and jittering,if you went off with a 1440p resolution the jittering became a lot less since there was a lot more detail that could be rendered,now as the name says smaa x2 is applied twice,making the loss of details and blurryness bigger but most of the people didn't use it so it was fine,mw2 and mw3 have FORCED smaa x2,making the game incredibly blurry and losing a lot of details,the only thing was a sharpening tool to give the illusion of getting back details.even if mw2 had actual sharper texures the anti aliasing proprobably ruined those

[@hakun1783]

i dont know why no one complain about this

[@febiox7122]

@@hakun1783 modern anti aliasing is ruining modern games clarity and nobody is stopping them

[@DeadOnInfil]

​@@febiox7122 100%!

[@dpg5690]

funny how he has no clue what goes into making a game

[@MFF-pq2kq]

Gotta love that Snap On Aim at 0:15 😂

[@ThatDayV]

EXO VIDEOS ARE ALWAYS BANGERS

[@angelneonlite]

basically they stopped exaggerating the lighting which made the game look more realistic. the thing about realism is that people like to go all out with the lighting and forget that not everything is so bright and colorful.

[@mfbooty_smacker]

I’m sorry but are we gonna ignore the fact that exo is only 20 years old? I thought he was at least 25!

[@justinjacquez9321]

He sounds like he’s in his 30s

[@NieSpoceniLudzie]

9:53 bruh in the right top corner you can see the box-shaped skybox when the lightning glows the sky, I think its not supposed to look like that

[@gazzamildog6732]

Just because it's still the IW engine doesn't mean they didn't fully rebuild it from the ground up, you're failing to see through branding

[@animatortoto4307]

not just graphics, features too, like wristwatches, sprays and gestures.

[@Evokyr]

We got way more paid content tho! That's great... like every 20 bucks bullshit Fortnite skin, that is a glow in the dark animated camo and an extremely unrealistic operator skin.

[@DeltaSlush]

My theory is that by slowly reducing the graphics, when the games start faltering off they can release a boosted graphics game and use it as a selling point.

[@TheDankestSand]

That’s what I was thinking too

[@JapanKilledChineseBabies]

Vanguard as a shooter wasn't bad. As a WW2 game, it was extremely disrespectful.

[@GunSightChronicles]

Lmao at the text chat in the bottom right-hand corner, beginning of video

[@anothnypitt443]

Just boils down to what aesthetics they were going for and what dev team was behind it I mean look at just how stark the difference was between MW2019 and Cold War, the very next release. But it made sense because CW was definitely going for more of an arcadey action game while MW2019 was really trying to double down on the "realism" element from the campaign. So the games were sorta modeled for the direction they were going for and it paid off as I wound up enjoying CW quite a lot, more than MW2 and MW3 that's for sure... and Vanguard.

[@bruhdude6300]

how I identify mw2 from mw3 is by the little tac stance button on the right bottom corner of the screen.

[@konradnowak159]

Sorry but I have to say it - it is getting annoying when non-technical person talk about technical stuff xd Repeating "still the same engine" is so wrong. If they can modify everything in that engine, then it does not matter how you name that engine. If you need a certain feature then you just add it. You do not need to change everything to change one thing.

[@Tofusoldat]

Thank you for the heads up!

[@Shirrako]

Great video!

[@Guyy420]

I will die on this hill, but aw looked and still looks amazing graphics wise

[@madbadseagulls1]

The quality of the assets plays a huge role, not just the engine.

[@joshuagerth1979]

0:08 the bottom right

[@byxeudrix]

We need to accept that there likely will not be a cod game with the realistic art design of mw2019 in the next thew years sadly. What also made mw2019 so great was how incredibly smooth the movement and weapon handling felt. Makes me sad they removed all the good gamemodes and dont care about the anticheat anymore because thats why its kind of unplayable now

[@delightfulvibes8372]

Cold War looks nothing close to a PS3 game. And it is the best recent CoD we have.

[@operatorcheescakman9153]

"I carefully looked at the game, with my eyeballs" 😂

[@hailsax4943]

“That was the answer you were looking for” what answer!? You just gave me 2 possibilities and that’s it!!

[@arshkhanlm3086]

If mw 2019 had good maps and didn't make horrible decisions then the game could have been a masterpiece

[@willwilkinson8014]

Exactly buddy it’s still my favourite cod did you enjoy it

[@mobeenazeem7624]

I wish they brought back the sunlight and dark shadows to mw2-mw3. graphically MW19 was amazing just from those two features. Hopefully trey arch does something similar to mw19 on their next game. I wish they gave more graphical flexibility to the players so that we can could choose if we want the games to look more gritty or poppy/arcadey.

[@neckbeardcat6777]

The problem with that is that those features sacrificed player visibility, resulting in issues like the dissapearing roze skin. As much as I do think 2019 looks stunning I don't want to ever go back to that because those systems enabled some bullshit problems that left a massive stain on mw2019 and wz1. Not to mention artistically, a black ops game isn't typically aiming for hyper realism, they tend to blend fantasy into their art direction, reflecting the more fantasy oriented elements of it's story when compared to other cod games. The benefit of this is that Black ops games tend to delve into making more unique and creative environments and lighting systems, which not only sets them apart, but creates a visual variety year to year which aids in creating diversity between each year's title, something that helps the games feel fresh. While you should absolutely expect Gulf War to have a much higher graphical quality than cold war, do not go into it expecting something similar to the current mw trilogy, cause that's not what they're trying to do. Black ops has always been more fantastical, and also boasts a much more traditional arcade style shooter experience, which is good, because It reduces the stagnation of IW and sledgehammer making the same basic game multiple times in a row and ripping Treyarchs monetization systems to make worse versions of them (ultra skins being turned into the black cell pass, the lack of theme and overall absurdity of collab skins, taking loot crates from concerning in bo3 to absolute bullshit in Infinite warfare, etc.). There's a reason so many of us are waiting on gulf war, and it isn't because of graphics, it's because we know what treyarch is capable of from past titles, and all they managed to pull off with bo4 and cold war despite the hell of both game's developement. As of right now they have the best overall track record of the main 3 cod studios and are the only one to not release a fundamentally bad cod experience as of yet. Gulf war could very well redeem the series or it could be the one to finally bury it's name for good as all 3 studios prove themselves incapable of producing a quality experience.

[@GreyVira]

Cold war actually runs fucking amazingly in terms of feel but its VERY prone to crashing. It's still maybe the second best new age cod

[@LeftoverAtoms]

Most modern game engines can be made to look nearly identical to one another, when they refer to updated IW engines, they're referring to new features whether that means graphical or otherwise.

[@pat4711]

In hindsight I think we all would’ve appreciated mw19 more if we knew what was coming.

[@scottjs5207]

I never really left it, so I never stopped appreciating it... though the WZ integration gave me a new level of seething rage towards the BR as it continuously broke MW19 and removed more and more of the game so WZ could keep growing despite me having no interest in playing it.

[@delightfulvibes8372]

In MW2019 that's all anyone was impressed about was its graphics, though the game plays horribly since map design was poor.

[@mark_thurwanger]

No. It plays the best out of any cod game since 2019.

[@delightfulvibes8372]

@@mark_thurwanger The best recent Call of Duty is BOCW. Many veteran Cod players didn't like MW2019 because it didn't feel like Cod. It was catered towards BF, R6, and other tac shooter players. The result was a Cod game with bad maps and bad gameplay because everyone sits in the corner with claymores and shotguns.

[@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9r]

@@delightfulvibes8372Well no one cares 2019 was a "campfest" because COD has now reached a new low since MW2 2022 and now MW3 2023. 2019 is just the better game than Cold War and its sequels regardless of what you say

[@delightfulvibes8372]

@@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9r To me it sounds like MW19 was one of your first CoDs. List some valid reasons why MW19 is better than BOCW?

[@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9r]

@@delightfulvibes8372 Wasn't one of my firsts, but definitely one of my favorites. Loved the visuals and gunplay, the campaign was awesome and I loved the grittiness of 2019 that the future titles couldn't match. As for the multiplayer, I liked all the different avenues with the maps and the vibe they had compared to Cold War. I liked the Cold War maps, but the overall cartoonish style really took away what could've been a better game with just a lot more time given to it

[@LakevusParadice]

i really miss the old look of the graphics from cod4 to mw2. something about it i think its the soft lighting really makes it feel special. now everything is so "real" that its not a game anymore its just reality.

[@theboshow9697]

I also miss those graphics, I think what it really was is the colors saturated with darker colors, more greyscale I guess and if there was something not meant to be in greyscale and have more contrast then they would adjust those specifically. To me advanced warfare and on had less greyscale and more contrast, then the last 5-7 years it's changed to were there isn't any greyscale and just pure color and contrast and it has made games look like cartoons almost

[@MrChuck97100]

your aim is insane, gg brotha

[@CyranoSaturnis]

I still think the gritty and realistic style and art direction make it look much better than MW3. I get they’re going for a more arcade and flashy style, but it just doesn’t look as good

[@THE_KING_REX]

wtf is the game at 8:21 called and how tf dose it look so real?

[@EthanFilms]

Unrecord...made in Unreal engine 5. It looks real because a.) Incredible animations for player character but even more so, b.) The Lumen lighting system in Unreal 5 is basically real time global illumination, they managed to make it work real time and it's incredible. Another cool thing about lumen and real time lighting, is you can use shadows and reflections to detect enemy players, like seeing their shadow before they turn a corner, or seeing their reflection in glass. A lot of games do have real time shadows, but they typically forgo this as real time lighting of any kind is costly

[@THE_KING_REX]

@@EthanFilms dang that's cool

[@bapoTV]

while the guy that already replied to you is partially right, it's also a lot about the filters (shaders) they used to make it seem like a bodycam which hides the lack of detail you usually see in every game by sort of blurring it, every bodycam game looks good because of it

[@thymme7508]

tell me you know nothing about game development, without telling me you know nothing about game development

[@DuckyBolto]

Bro didn't even answer the question in the title

[@hinokamikagura998]

The graphics seem to have downgraded over the years and i feel maybe activision is enjoying all the money that they have that they just don't care about their games anymore as long as they get money they just publish it.

[@kabirhanspal5363]

Great video! I think the idea of Sledgehammer not having enough time to work on graphics for MW3 as they were quite literally forced to pump out the game after 16 months of development time. IW also made most of the executive decisions about the campaign and would veto most of what SH wanted to do. I agree the game is glorified DLC, but honestly, I have been having more fun with the new movement than in YEARS. I have noticed a similar uptick in player counts and the audiences of WZ/MW3 streamers (IceManIsaac and Metaphor both recently matched their peak subcount from the pandemic and MW2019). Despite its issues, I really like the current gameplay and HOPE they make the right decisions for the 2024 COD.

[@GeneralHawk505]

When cold war came out I was told by a few people the reason the graphics were the way they were besides the split of the teams was between that and the gameplay. It was made to feel like the classic black ops. Which eventually got used to.

[@skizzletz533]

im 99% sure i met you in a game of warzone randoms back in 2021 and you had me sub to your yt

[@thebamboozler2190]

Shadows and lighting is different,primarily due to player feedback where some of the darker skins could hide in the shadows

[@xXWridisXx]

I think the reason MW3 2023 looks "worse" is because people wanted a more arcady game compared to mw2019 and mw2 so they made the game more arcady. and a big part of that is working to remove some of the clutter that's on the maps. mw2019 maps where very busy and therefore harder to spot enemies on. lighting is also a very big part of making games look more realistic. but its not always good to have to "good" lighting in a arcady/competitive game. The engine might also require more computing power so they sacrifice a bit of graphics for a better game

[@scottjs5207]

"better"

[@murdock6159]

A big reason the graphics has stagnated/regressed is after the success of Warzone 1 in 2020, they shifted focus to porting it to mobile. The atrocious touchscreen style Hulu menu UI/UX in MWII/MWIII shows where their focus moving foward is. Porting Verdansk proved less streamline than desired, so many of the changes for IW8 to IW9 were for the ease of porting. This is further evident with their recent decision to make ALL games moving forward to run IW9 engine, which is a big change, Treyarch has been using their own branched engine(a heavily modified IW 3.0 engine) since development for World At War in 2006/2007. Yes, BOCW uses a modified version of IW3.0. So in summary this is all the result of the same sentiment as "dO yOu GuYs NoT hAvE pHoNeS".

[@logananderson9094]

Just watched and I couldn’t agree more with this one, really interesting video

[@xxmajor]

Can only hope they switch back to mw19 engine for mw4

[@fallenprevail2753]

i hope they do for the sake of god

[@Jscrizle]

yall too nostalgic for mw2019 its almost sad how stuck in the past yall are

[@xxmajor]

@@Jscrizle game was actually really good, compared to older cods and compared in general to other fps games

[@Jscrizle]

@@xxmajor dude stop mw2019 had the worst maps in history of cod the devs literally said they were catering to campers on that one and dont get me started on verdansk .

[@xxmajor]

@@Jscrizle The only really bad ones I can think of are piccadilly and azhir cave. Every other map played well which does not necessarily mean it was good. I have 3.2 kd with 400+ nukes, I run through people with ease. Its just a skill issue if you can't beat campers... Most of the mw2 maps in mw23 are trash too Anyways, what has engine to do with map design?

[@naskouz1295]

I think the devs from MW 2019 dont want to make a CoD game, but their style of FPS game more "realistic", thats why it have a different feeling from the classic CoD, they want a specific feeling thats might not be good for a CoD game that is an arcade FPS (also thats maybe why they focused on modes like Raids/DMZ/), but ACTV wants the CoD name bc it sells (just my opinion about it) (another thing that made MW 2019 really great for me was the usage of REAL weapons, like using a real AK instead of an "Kastov")

[@gitupmechavvy2569]

Yeah I don’t like how in MW2 and 3 they are based on real guns but not 1 to 1 copies of the real thing and have weird names:/ MW19 was leagues better in this aspect compared to the last 2 MW games

[@seancorrigan_]

this was always an unanswered question in my mind when i was a kid. i just couldn’t process how a game could be newer but look worse 😂 especially when we went from mw2 to black ops 1 (both amazing games but just speaking about visuals only)

[@MutantMasterRace]

The worst parts of MW2 and MW3s graphics is the graininess (no, not film grain.) And the poor performance. The games have a graininess to them thats still present with the film grain turned off. And the performance, (especially in WZ) is extremely unoptimized and bad.