Did Infinity Ward rip off its own ending for Ghosts?

At least one eagle-eyed CoD gamer has noticed a striking similarity between the ending of Modern Warfare 2 and a Call of Duty: Ghosts cut-scene.

The evidence is in this side-by-side comparison below.

While the temptation is to fly into a CoD-bashing outrage over this, it’s not an uncommon practice for gaming studios (and animation studios in general) to recycle animations to streamline their production process.

Still, now that it’s been noticed, and with the ugly reputation that CoD has for being a yearly hack job with very little innovation and barely any iterative design worthy of discussion, this sort of thing is bound to sting.

One can’t help feel that Activision’s flagship title – which is being touted as the great leap forward into next-gen console FPS gaming – could have done with its own set of unique cut-scene animations.

What do you think – is this a big deal, or does CoD Ghosts carry itself for simply being a fun-filled, action-packed romp with one of the most popular multiplayer modes?