Making Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare... 12 Years Later

There's not been one video I've made without adjustments, where a Thesaurus is never opened, and a sentence isn't deleted. When opening one of my scripts, yellow highlighter would be considered, traditional. Often indicating that either I messed up a line and need to rerecord it, or I tweaked a line... and need to rerecord it.

But even this was a bit much.

While I didn't scrap all but three paragraphs, I did very much relate to Infinity Ward's struggle of channeling their ability and desires into a focused product, how a project which at first meant total freedom, eventually led to necessary cuts, assuring completion.

In recent years I've been collaborating with more people, especially in Years Later. The Orange Box had Shammy, Red Angel, and Sparky's Thumbnail. Metro expanded even further, with Super Bunnyhop, friends Nick & Hadyn, and most obviously, an entire DLC Chapter by Mandalore. I've also had various Thumbnails done by Jack Coster, and I worked with fans to host Multiplayer sessions of Spec Ops: The Line & Max Payne 3.

All of which I'm very pleased with and proud of. These collaborations weren't possible when I started, and they deliver a variety and depth to my videos which didn't exist. But, my channel is also my name, which raised the question, was something missing from this new work? How different would it be if I had no guest spots? 

But it's a choice I regretted upon realizing that this video would be by far the biggest project yet, as my goal was to discuss everything. Promod, Split-Screen, Reflex Edition, Mod Support, Remastered, Story, and most importantly, the original Modern Warfare prototype. The reason no one heard a peep from me during September is because I spent the majority of that month searching for a build that I was never going to find. This Youtube clip, really is all the dirt I had.

https://youtu.be/W9w7PsrUGeI?t=136

The Metro video in retrospect really made me greedy, thinking that if I just did enough Google searches and expose my IP to enough questionable-sites, I could repeat the results here. Not having any results was... defeating. One of the many lessons I've taken from this project is to let things go. 

Another one, is a lesson I had to relearn.

Had I written the Halo Years Later scripts entirely based on memory rather than spending hours and hours with each over the span of that year, Halo Reach would've been remembered most fondly, and Halo 3 would've been at the bottom of my boot. But instead, I came to believe the opposite.

It taught me to treat past experiences impersonally, when replaying, unless that previous bias ties into the video's subject.

I didn't do that with Call of Duty 4.

I went in expecting my opinion to withstand a new playthrough. That Call of Duty 4 is a classic game which has been copied to the point of becoming dated. When I finished the game and wrote a 30 page first draft, those thoughts seemed to endure Infinity Ward's 5 Hour War.

I said in a comment to someone joking about the gap in my uploads that you wouldn't have wanted to see the original version of this video, and is this was the "conclusion," I very much believe that now.

Then there was the final problem.

Originally, I aimed for the project to be completed by September. Obviously, that didn't happen, in-fact, I didn't have a finished script with all the time wasted searching for that mystery build. So I thought, okay, October 19th. Before my Birthday, and Modern Warfare 2019's launch. Perfect. Thing is, my script wasn't at all to my liking, and I didn't have the will to admit it. Because of September's meandering, I thought for so long that my poor pace of production was due to pure incompetence, and laziness. 

It partially was, but at the core of those sleepless nights was an unease about my work. That's when I swallowed my pride and added these entire pages to the script which just two weeks prior to the video's launch, didn't exist.

I've learned so much about Call of Duty 4 and Infinity Ward during the making of this video, but I honestly learned more about myself than anything. That collaboration is liberating, not concerning. That fear is my motivator, not a detriment. And to accept that I'll never be able to do everything I want in one video. Just like Infinity Ward on Call of Duty 4, everything that's left on the floor can be picked up later, which itself will lead to what ended up in the finish product standing tall, and unique from everything that follows it.