FormaL explains why playing on LAN at CDL Stage 4 Major was “weird”

The Call of Duty League returned to LAN for the Stage 4 Major, with Atlanta FaZe toppling a hot Dallas Empire to win their third Major of the season. But OpTic Chicago’s Matthew ‘FormaL’ Piper says the experience felt “weird,” despite the community’s excitement for LAN to return.

It had been well over a year since the last CDL LAN event, and the Major didn’t disappoint. There were reverse sweeps, game nines, upsets, and intense 1v1s across the board. There’s not much more a CoD fan could ask for.

While players themselves were delighted to get into some offline games and not have any concern about the drawbacks of online play, there were definitely some growing pains and a lack of familiarity in some circumstances.

On the OpTic podcast, FormaL explained why the whole experience was “weird.”

With fellow OpTic creator Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards asking what it was like, FormaL and Dylan ‘Envoy’ Hannon had to take a moment to collect their thoughts on the experience.

“It was weird,” FormaL said, with immediate agreement from Envoy. “I always imagine the environment to be a little bit different. I think it was because we didn’t have fans.”

Envoy added that they were pumping white noise into the arena, which must have made the experience that much more strange, but added that it was “sick” to have their own practice rooms.

“It’s just weird,” Envoy added later. “We’re so late into the season that playing the game on LAN was way different than playing Modern Warfare on LAN at the beginning and knowing what it was like, then playing online the rest of the season.”

Part of the power of playing for OpTic Chicago is the intense fanfare that comes with it. The majority of CoD fans are cheering you on and, when you have that at LAN, it must be a real morale booster and help push you to greater heights.

The OpTic boys are probably missing the fans now, but hopefully, by the 2022 season they’ll be hyping up a crowd once again.