As you know Infinity Wards’ new Call of Duty, Modern Warfare trailer came out on May 30th and announced that the game will be available on October 25th. As there’s no official gameplay and all we’ve seen so far in the trailer is the campaign, there are some details you can miss. So this is our Top Ten Things you need to Know About Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Ever since Black Ops 4 decided to not include a campaign for their game, players have been wondering exactly why this would be the case. Maybe they ran out of ideas and just wanted a more multiplayer-focused game. Well now it looks like Modern Warfare will be a sort of a reboot as it will reimagine events from the original Modern Warfare series while introducing new ones.
If the game is being remade than that means some new changes will have to take place. Of course some of our favorite characters such as Captain Price and Soap would have to appear so what kind of role will they play now?
Starting from Call of Duty: World At War, at the end of the main campaign as an added bonus, you unlock Call of Duty Zombie mode where you fend off waves of the unded reich. That being said that gamemode won’t be in Modern Warfare. Campaign Gameplay Director Jacob Minkoff says during an interview with PlayStation Lifestyle says, “… we’re trying to create an authentic, realistic feeling world. We don’t have the flexibility to do something like put zombies in the game. That would compromise the feeling of playing in a world that feels realistic and authentic and relative to today’s conflicts and things we face.”
So it seems that we won’t have any zombies to play around with this time around. Well maybe we should just leave it to Treyarch to handle the zombies, they seem to have that down pretty well.
It would seem that Infinity Ward is updating the previous story to be more relevant to our real world. Studio Narrative Director Taylor Kurosaki and single player director Jacob Minkoff said that they want the game to be relevant to our current, real world. These are down to earth representations of what it’s like to be a real soldier.
Additionally, many of the scenarios are some things that we would probably seen in the headlines. Terrorist attacks that involve bombings and shooting would be included, and events with civilian casualties will more than likely take place here. People making tough decisions and not knowing the difference between right and wrong are all part of being a soldier at times and the game will show it. If the past game reflected events that happened in 2007, then this game will reflect events going on right now. Hopefully these heavy moments that may happen in the campaign will not take away from the fun experience playing through the events.
Everyone’s favorite Modern Warfare character, Captain Price will be making a return in this reimagining of the game’s events. In fact, you can even hear him narrating the reveal trailer for the game and see him near beginning. Well unfortunately there’s something a bit different about him, and it’s not just his graphical improvements. It’s his voice, he’s not being played by the original actor, Billy Murray, instead he’ll be portrayed by British actor Barry Sloane. Despite sounding different, Barry Sloane does a good job at voicing Price in the trailer. Hopefully he’ll nail Price’s acting throughout the events of Modern Warfare 2019.
Also along with Captain price is John “Soap” McTavish whose role will also be revised with the campaign’s reboot. While we have no details on what he’s going to be doing now and what he sounds like in the new game, I’m sure that he will remain to be a major character in Modern Warfare.
It looks like Co-Op will make a return to the Call of Duty series as Modern Warfare has both co-op and single-player campaigns and they seem to be consecutive with each-other. It would seem that according to Campaign Game Director Jacob Minkoff, “the single-player storyline goes directly into the co-op storyline. No stop. The events just continue.”
If this is true, that means that maybe the first half of the Modern Warfare campaign is heavily character-focused as they would probably give players a taste of what each scenario is about, and after that would be the co-op campaign that has tons of cooperative moments with tons of action and shooting. Whatever the case, it’s good to see a co-op Call of Duty Campaign again.
5. New Game Engine
According to Activision, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare features a new engine delivering an immersive and photorealistic experience. The new technology utilizes the latest advancements in visual engineering, including a physically-based material system allowing for state of the art photogrammetry…”
Additionally there’s some new rendering, world volumetric lighting, 4K HDR, DirectX Raytracing for PC and more added for the new engine that’s been introduced after the past 14 years. You can tell how advanced this technology is with how realistic the characters and graphics look in the trailer and how the fabric ruffles with the helicopter wind. It’s impressive and looks amazing so far through the trailer.
4. Crossplay Between PC and Console
That’s right, Modern Warfare will feature crossplay between PC and consoles. While the details on exactly what this means is scarce, we do know that this is indeed what Activision stated to Game Informer. “With the launch of Modern Warfare, the team is taking steps to unite the community. First, the team plans for Modern Warfare to be played together across PC and console through crossplay support.
While this sounds promising, the fact that there’s no mention of crossplay between consoles in general is troubling. Well we can only hope that pc and console crossplay extends to Xbox One and PS4 crossplay as well.
3. No Season Pass
Call of Duty will not have the traditional season pass where players buy a map for future dlc which is only available to those that either buy the DLC or Season Pass. Well it seems like this time around that the game will regularly get updates with post-release maps and events for free. That’s right, all of the new content coming to the game will all be free to all players without having to buy them. While this probably won’t extend to any special weapon or operator skin that would be considered, “elite.” It’s a nice change of pace knowing that I won’t have to miss out on a map that I didn’t buy.
2. Pre-order Operators:
Pre-Orders for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare are already available and Activision describes the many different versions. Along with an in-game knife and a prestige token you can use in Black Ops 4, Activision describes their multiplayer’s Operators.
“In the new Modern Warfare, you’ll have the opportunity to choose and express yourself as a number of diverse and named operators,” says Activision. “Rather than special abilities that affect gameplay, each offers their own backstory, nationality, character dialogue, character skins, and cosmetic customization options.”
The three operators included with the Operator Edition or Operator Enhanced Editions are themed after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s past missions: Crew Expendable, All Ghillied Up, and War Pig. Each pack includes one operator, a themed skin, and a cosmetic variant of their perspective weapons.
As operators have yet to be officially be revealed with any details, these pre-orders also give us a glimpse at the game’s replacement for Black Ops 4’s Specialists.
1. Leaning
While this is a fairly minor feature it would seem that leaning will be back. The last time we’ve seen people mostly use leaning in Call of Duty was in Call of Duty: Ghosts back in 2013. Then in 2016 with Infinite Warfare, the lean feature was brought back, but was exclusive only through the campaign and not the game’s multiplayer.
If Call of Duty wants to have more realism in its gameplay, a leaning feature would be needed during tactical situations single-player wise or multiplayer. While there is no news on what features multiplayer will have, aside from operators, it’s unknown whether or not there will be a slide or diving feature in this case as well.
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Which was showcased at E3 2003.