Last week, Migos member Offset had a few choice words for gaming’s favorite free-to-play battle royal phenomenon Fortnite.
“That shit for kids, that shit wack,” said the Father Of 4 about Epic Game’s hit game that has created fans out of everyone from Travis Scott to Drake despite finding itself on the wrong side of the culture at times. “I like Call of Duty, get your ass in the field, real game. If you gon’ die, you gon die. All that building up, it ain’t real life.”
Those who have followed the series since its inception over a decade ago thoroughly understand why Activision’s Call of Duty franchise has become the best selling first-person-shooter of all time. Regardless of the series’ beginnings as a World War II shooter created by Infinity Ward (ironically made up of former Medal of Honor developers), 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was known for having a pretty phenomenal single player campaign set in the present day where Russia is facing civil war while some fictional Arab nation deals with an evil dictator leading American and British forces to save the day. It was a mere coincidence that it was released as casualties from the War in Iraq reached record numbers that year.
Imperialistic leaning story aside, the eight to ten hour campaign featured some fairly amazing set pieces at the time including the monochromed “Death From Above” mission played from the perspective of a drone fighter similar to this controversial Wikileaks footage, Shock and Awe, which ends with the player being caught in the middle of a nuclear attack and uber suspenseful CFRX sniper chapter All Ghillied Up.
After months of speculation in regards to the series’ next yearly installment, Activision released the trailer for its reboot that would be simply known as Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Though multiplayer details haven’t been discussed, developers spent time hyping up the return of single-player campaign that was absent from last year’s Black Ops 4.
With the Electronic Entertainment Expo taking over Downtown Los Angeles this week, Activision decided to show off a private gameplay demonstration of two campaign missions for selected members of the press behind closed doors (alongside Sony, Activision didn’t actually have a showroom booth this year) at the LA Convention Center. Here’s what we saw during the nearly 20-minute demo for the game set to hit stores October 25, 2019 .
New From Scratch Engine Makes It The Best Looking Game In The Series So Far
Those who have followed Call of Duty the series began in 2003 know that the core of the graphics engine used the once hyper-popular Quake III Arena engine (or id Tech 3), which was released nearly twenty years ago. Makes sense as it made yearly installments easier to develop and the netcode for online multiplayer couldn’t have been more perfect. Developer Infinity Ward is going with a completely new engine created in-house this time around. It’ll also be the first in the series to use a currently popular rendering technique called ray tracing on PC only. Ray Tracing is already a big feature Sony and Microsoft are touting for their next-gen consoles as well. From what was shown behind doors, it’s visually the best looking game in the series since the Kevin Spacey-led Advanced Warfare.
Styled More After “Hurt Locker” & “Zero, Dark, Thirty”
Call of Duty’s single player has always provided a flow of constant stimulation of Micheal Bay like set pieces and controversial moments including Modern Warfare 2’s “No Russian” mission. Between the nearly unlimited amount of ammo available and health regeneration mechanic, it’s difficult to feel completely immersed. One mission set in London featured a police officer caught in the middle of a terrorist attack involving an exploding van. The other, also set in London, took place in an apartment building at night. Instead of dispatching wave after wave of enemies, the action was slow and deliberate. As the current state of war makes identifying friend or foe blurry as hell similar to Kathryn Bigelow’s Academy Award-winning film Hurt Locker, there seems to be real weight on tactical choices. This includes an enemy using a woman as a shield before said individual picks up a gun herself to fire at soldiers. In fact, the mission in its night-vision glow feels a lot like the last moments of 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty(another Bigelow film). Since it was a behind-closed-door video demonstration, it’s difficult to know how Modern Warfare feels. One thing for sure, developers have said that playtesters are even crying as they play through early builds.
There Will Be A Connection Between Singleplayer & Multiplayer
Anyone who’s spent a significant amount of hours playing Call of Duty knows that single player and multiplayer are two separate things that never really intersect mechanically outside of narrative. According to developers, there won’t be separation as they’ll all bleed into each other, including the return of the separate co-op Spec-Ops missions as well. Shared progress between single and multiplayer is something fans have been asking about for a very long time. Just too bad the ultra-popular Zombies won’t be making a return.
Crossplay Means Multiplayer With Friends Regardless Of Console Owned
Console specific online multiplayer is getting closer and closer to becoming a thing of the past. Thanks to games like Fortnite, gamers can play with friends regardless of what console they own thanks to hardware manufactures like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo becoming a lot more loose. The only thing that’ll separate players is whether individuals use controllers or the more efficient mouse and keyboard.
