Black Ops 2 vs. Ghost Recon - Comparing two visions of the future

World War II has been done to death and by now, there’s been about a billion shooters set in the modern era. So what is next for the future of shooter games? Well, it looks like… the future. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 has made the jump to a time beyond the history books to the year 2025, and the upcoming Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is also set in the “near” future. We’re guessing somewhere around the same period. So, now that there is more than one franchise exploring the near-future setting, we thought it might be interesting to compare these two fictional worlds.

A decade or so isn’t too far away, but the theories on advances in military technology between the two development studios share some similarities but quite a few differences. Gaze into the crystal ball and peer into the future, as we take a close look at Black Ops 2’s and Ghost Recon’s visions of tomorrow.

In Black Ops 2’s world, the greatest military resource and also the greatest threat are drones. They're especially dangerous when terrorists cyber-hack them and sick'em on densely populated metropolitan areas. As far as being useful, flying quad-rotor drones provide backup to live soldiers in groups, providing cover fire from their undercarriage mounted machine guns.

There's even some Star Wars inspired AT-AT style walkers...

Armored ground drones are no strangers to Blops’ future world. They even come in two varieties (at least, of what we’ve seen so far), the four legged CLAW and the speedy ASD (which rolls on treads rather than legs). These guys come mounted with heavy machine guns and grenade launchers. That's all you need to clear out dug-in infantry.

In the Ghost's world, drones don't make an appearance in as large a scale as in Black Ops 2, but remote controlled robots do show up on these future soldiers’ battlefield. The small, flying, quad-rotor drone used by the Ghosts is a little more advanced than the Blops counterpart. This little guy transforms from a flyer to a remote-controlled car making stealth infiltrations all the more sneaky. Also, in GRFS’s multiplayer, the quad drone can be equipped with low impact rockets, which comes in handy for taking out infantry from above. But these are only a small part of the Ghosts' arsenal.

The Ghosts have their own walking quadroped, the Warhound, which is more advanced than the CLAW. Instead of being completely controlled by remote (weapon targets are designated by a Ghost) the Warhound follows mission objectives on its own. This armored artillery also packs quite a punch, with its onboard mortar launcher and guided missiles.

Granted, we haven’t seen everything the COD soldiers have up their sleeves, but so far it looks like they will be relying on traditional fatigues as their camouflage. A fairly low-tech solution compared to the Ghosts…

Now these guys have it going on when it comes to staying hidden. They are called “ghosts” after all. They employ an optical camouflage that bends light around them, rendering the soldier nearly invisible. This does seem like it strays more toward the sci-fi side, but who’s to say the Predator-like invisibility won’t be completely possible in the next few decades.

It looks like we’ve moved away from high definition view screens on our iPads to monochromatic holographic images. From what we’ve seen in the trailer, the Black Ops soldiers, David Mason and Harper, carry around sophisticated field computers on their forearms.

Undoubtedly, they’ll be able to get real-time info on the battlefield, city maps, building schematics, and maybe the ability to hack drones (judging by the title’s emphasis on cyber warfare). Hopefully, Mason thought to install Zork before heading out into the field.

The Ghosts like to get their real-time info in the form of holograms in the field, displayed through their stylin’ sunglass lenses. The holographic indicators basically provide a live HUD on the battlefield, equipping the future soldiers with the real-time ammo, health, and threat indicators you’d see in a video game… as you’re playing as soldiers in... a video game.

It's funny to think our current military already uses Xbox 360 controllers to control robots. Ubisoft just ran with that "gamers as soldiers" idea with the personal HUD. All those hours gamers spend in team deathmatch might prove to be excellent military experience in the future.

There are still helicopters in Blops 2's future world (remember, there's police chopper crashing in the trailer), but we also saw what looked like transport jets. The engines on the ends of the wings rotate, presumably making helicopter-type maneuvers. So, perhaps the military decommissioned choppers for faster moving hover jets.

Rather than sticking high powered jet engines to the side of a fuselage, the Ghost's future military has stuck to the tried an true helicopter. They don't look much different than the Black Hawk helicopters used today.

The pistol shown in the Blops 2 trailer looks like a current full-auto pistol prototype called the KARD. Not only is David Mason holding one, but several other soldiers are shown carrying them.

Not every weapon is as unfamiliar as the KARD though. The XMD assault rifle and SAW light machine gun have also made appearances, so if you were looking forward to ray guns, remember, it's not that far in the future.

There are some familiar guns like ACR assault rifles and even the KARD pistol available to the Ghosts, but things get real fancy when you take a closer look at their bullets. Besides armor piercing and incendiary rounds, they have homing sniper rounds. Used in conjunction with a special targeting scope, the bullets lock on to a target's head and can change trajectory mid-flight to meet it's target. It seems pretty unfair, but that's pretty much the point of creating advanced weapons.

We know the image above is just a guy walking behind what looks like the x-ray machine from Total Recall, but the spec ops soldiers will also be able to see hidden enemies with special x-ray scopes and blast them with cover-penetrating ballistics systems.

The Ghosts don't play by the rules either. Their high tech sunglasses have magnetic and thermal vision modes and the soldiers are equipped with a number of sensor probes which also highlight enemy locations - meaning there aren't many places for the bad guys to hide. This is wall hacks at its best.

That's all we have for right now. Be sure to check back to this page as we gather more information on Call of Duty: Black Ops. Also, make sure you check out our review of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier next week.

Which game captures the future setting better? Which do you think is more realistic? Let us know what you think about shooters set in the future in the comments below.