Keeping a game perfectly balanced is a utopian idea. It’s impossible. It will never happen. There will always be slight advantages, minor drawbacks that favor certain styles and trends over others. Pure balance is impossible and probably undesirable. However, that doesn’t mean aiming to maintain the feeling of as much balance as possible isn’t desirable. Especially in the case of games with aggressive monetization like Call of Duty, it’s even essential.
Modern Warfare 3 is learning the hard way with one of the most hated skins in the game. Named Gaia, this operator skin for Nila “Nova” Brown makes her look like an evil version of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. What’s the issue? Due to its unique aesthetic, a tangle of branches that simulate a human silhouette, it’s perfect for blending into the environment.
For a significant portion of the game’s community, this skin goes beyond aesthetics and becomes a form of pay-to-win. Ultimately, it allows players to hide from the sight of other players, which is impossible for other characters regardless of their skin. This led to changes last October, but it wasn’t sufficient. As a developer from Sledgehammer Games mentioned, they’ve removed the skin from the game until they completely redesign it.
The problem is, this isn’t the first time this has happened. The Gaia skin already appeared in Modern Warfare 2, gathered exactly the same criticisms, and has returned in Modern Warfare 3, seemingly without the developers addressing the community’s complaints. Or at least not with the attention they should have given.
According to the folks at Sledgehammer themselves, adjustments to this skin will arrive in the future in Modern Warfare III to make it playable without providing a competitive advantage to those who use it. It’s the least they can do after the less-than-ideal start of one of the most played franchises in the world.
