New Medal of Honor Game from Respawn Announced, But It's Not What You'd Expect

TheMedal of Honorfranchise has been dormant since2012’sMedal of Honor: Warfighter. The series attempted to chase theModern Warfaretrend, but was overshadowed by bothCall of DutyandBattlefield, earning mediocre reviews and less than stellar sales. But nowMedal of Honoris coming back as a virtual reality game from Respawn Entertainment, and the first trailer actually looks pretty impressive.

Respawn Entertainment has announced a new Oculus Rift-exclusive game calledMedal of Honor: Above and Beyond. The game is set in World War 2 and is being build as an “epic AAA experience.” In the game, players will complete a tour of duty that takes them across Europe, battling Nazis alongside the French resistance.Medal of Honor: Above and Beyondwill reportedly have a multiplayer mode to go along with the single player campaign, in addition to a gallery that lets players “sit with WWII veterans and survivors to hear their stories.”

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What’s notable about Respawn developingMedal of Honor: Above and Beyondis that some of its developers really cut their teeth on theMedal of Honorfranchise. As some may recall,Medal of Honordevelopersjumped ship to Infinity Wardback in the day to work onCall of Duty, and so some Respawn devs' careers have really come full circle with this new game.

While there have certainly been some missteps with theMedal of Honorfranchise, some games in the series have been groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed. Some enjoy the honor of being thebest World War 2 games ever made, and while it’s far too early to say ifMedal of Honor: Above and Beyondwill enjoy that distinction as well, reaction to the game has been mostly positive so far. Of course, it helps that a studio like Respawn is working on the game, as the studio has yet to release a game with a review aggregate score lower than 85.

Since it’s a more demanding game,Medal of Honor: Above and Beyondis an Oculus Rift game as opposed to one for theOculus Quest. However, Oculus Quest players will still be able to play it if they have a powerful enough PC. That’s because Oculus also announced a software update called the Oculus Link, which will allow Oculus Quest games to run Rift games when connected to a PC.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyondlaunches in 2020, exclusively for Oculus Rift.