What Happened to Medal of Honor?

Intro

Medal of Honor used to sit alongside Call of Duty as a major annual-ish EA first-person shooter franchise—World War II focused, Spielberg-tinted, and spread across a huge list of platforms. In this piece I walk through how it rose from DreamWorks Interactive through the EA Los Angeles years, why the modern reboot and Warfighter effectively killed momentum, what the 2020 VR entry Above and Beyond means for the IP, and why I still think there’s room for EA to treat it as something more than “another military shooter.”

Spielberg, DreamWorks, and the golden years

Steven Spielberg kicked the series off via DreamWorks Interactive after Saving Private Ryan—the idea was something educational, interactive, and still entertaining, almost a hands-on extension of that film’s subject matter.

• Medal of Honor (1999, PS1) was the start; Medal of Honor: Underground followed in 2000, also on PlayStation.
• Spielberg reportedly had a hand in the first three games’ writing.
• From roughly 1999–2007 the series saw frequent releases across many systems.
• In total I count on the order of 14 games plus one VR title, spanning PC, PS1/2/3, Mac, GBA, PSP, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360, and GameCube—different “flavors” of Medal of Honor on almost every major platform of that era.

EA Los Angeles and the games I cared about

DreamWorks Interactive was based in LA; EA bought the studio when it was half Microsoft, half DreamWorks, and rebranded it EA Los Angeles (EA LA). That team became one of my favorite EA studios—they shipped a lot of games I still think about fondly.

• Medal of Honor: Frontline — widely remembered; I’d call it a crowd favorite.
• GoldenEye: Rogue Agent — not the beloved N64 GoldenEye, but a first-person reboot/spin; I personally enjoyed it.
• The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth I and II — strong RTS entries.
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3 — the kind of cult-classic strategy catalogue that defined that era of EA LA for me.
• On the Medal side specifically: Medal of Honor: Vanguard (PS2/Wii) and especially Medal of Honor: Airborne (PS3/360, 2007) — Airborne is probably my favorite entry in the whole franchise.

The pivot after Airborne and the Danger Close reboot

After Airborne, EA clearly wanted to reposition Medal of Honor. Call of Duty had been WWII-only for years, then 2007’s Modern Warfare moved the needle hard toward contemporary combat—and EA wanted a piece of that energy for Medal of Honor.

The complication: Battlefield was also thriving in a modern setting around the same window (Bad Company, Battlefield 3, etc.), so EA ended up with two modern-military brands under one roof.

EA tasked the same LA team that had long worked on Medal of Honor, but renamed the studio Danger Close and charged them almost exclusively with the Medal of Honor franchise.

• Medal of Honor (2010) — PC, 360, PS3; reviews landed in the high 7s / 8s range; it was a commercial success.
• Single-player: Danger Close.
• Multiplayer: DICE (Battlefield). I remember it feeling Battlefield-adjacent at launch; I recently bought it on Steam, replayed the first mission, and came away thinking it’s better than its reputation—a solid, playable campaign opener.

Warfighter, the shelf, and EA’s “one strike” era

Success of the 2010 reboot led to a direct sequel:

• Medal of Honor: Warfighter (2012, 360/PS3; late October launch) marketed a story co-written with or informed by veterans and “inspired by true events.”
• Critical and commercial reception tanked — think 4–5 / 10 reviews and weak sales.

EA shelved the series. Danger Close was wound down after Warfighter (around 2013); many staff moved to DICE LA. EA publicly framed Medal of Honor as retired from rotation—partly Warfighter’s fault, partly what I remember as a different, harsher EA that seemed to kill franchises and studios after a single underperformer, even when there was more creative mileage left. I’ve talked elsewhere about how that same period swallowed other series I liked (e.g. Army of Two).

VR, the IP today, and what I’d want next

The IP isn’t literally dead:

• Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond — Respawn Entertainment, December 2020, Oculus / Steam VR.
• Reviews landed in a mediocre band (I’ve seen summaries around 6/10 territory); Steam user reviews are mixed.
• Respawn is, in my view, EA’s strongest studio (Titanfall, Apex, Jedi), so it’s encouraging they touched the brand—but the weak critical reception makes me worry EA will read that as “no more Medal” instead of “wrong format / execution.”

Silver lining: Above and Beyond went back to World War II, which is where I think the series earned its identity—Spielberg’s original pitch was entertainment plus education and real WWII stories. I’d like EA to lean into that again rather than chasing another modern-military clone.

EA has claimed ~39 million copies sold across the franchise—enough installed love that a thoughtful revival isn’t fantasy.

Where to play it now

A lot of the back catalogue is stranded on original hardware—there aren’t comprehensive remasters or modern ports.

• On Steam I could only find Above and Beyond and the 2010 reboot when I looked.
• Medal of Honor: Airborne is playable on Xbox One / Series X|S via backward compatibility (I’ve used that myself).
• I’m not sure whether the original Xbox Medal titles are BC-compatible—I haven’t tested that.

So preservation is patchy; if the series returns, I hope it comes with a clearer plan for bringing older entries forward, not just a one-off new game.