A New Direction for Call of Duty Shown at E3 2016
A New Direction for Call of Duty
It has been quite obvious that for the past four years the Call of Duty franchise has been going downhill regardless of which developer gets their hands on it. With their fans barely holding loyalty by a thread, Infinity Ward promises to return Call of Duty back to the top of the FPS world with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Infinity Ward has taken a risk by taking the timeline of Call of Duty so far into the future that there are now interstellar conflicts. The earth has been drained cleaned of her natural resources and now humans must rely on other resources from colonies settled throughout the solar system. The enemies that players will face are defectors from the United Nations Space Alliance called the Front. Although this seems like they are making a stretch, but the timeline is a good spot between the times of Call of duty: Black Ops 3 and the futuristic settings of Halo.
Of course the with outer space becoming a new battleground, players can expect to immersed in large scale warship conflicts. The ship in which the protagonist (Captain Reyes) calls home is The Retribution, but the ship that we will be able to control for combat is called The Jackal. Now the Jackal is not built like an UFO or anything from Star Wars, but instead it looks and supposedly feels like a normal fighter jet. This aspect should be well received because it adds to the previous point to where the game will be in the future, but will not feel ultra Sci-Fi. The presentation in the theater gave us a look at ground combat versus the space trailer of the Sony conference.
The weapons we saw where a pretty effective assault rifle, sub machine gun, shotgun, and sniper rifle. The AR and sub machine gun were pretty standard, but the shotgun and sniper boasted some pretty nice secondary traits. The reticle on the shotgun outlined the enemies to give a perfect shot similar to the target finder in previous installments. The sniper rifle had the most impressive features as it was able to switch from a sniper rifle to a full auto AR by just laying down the scope.
In terms of gameplay the movement system seems to still encourage constant movement while still holding the intensity of the fight. Also to keep the flow of battle there is a new grenade throwing system where the player holds the grenade in their left while still being able to fire from their right. Of course there were standard grenades, but we also got a look at a spider bomb that searches for enemies and latches onto them before exploding. Surprisingly there was not much talk about the multiplayer or zombies aspects that are definitely in the game, but this seems to be part of Infinity Wards strategy.
Instead of focusing on recycled and lightly polished multiplayer, Infinity Ward has chosen to bring its players back with a stunning and seemingly cinematic campaign. To almost solidify sales and popularity Infinity Ward hits its fans right in the nostalgia by including a remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. We were able to get into the theatre and capture the remastered version of the mission Crew Expendable where Sergeant Soap and Captain Price stealthily take over an enemy tanker and barely escape with their lives. To see what has been critically acclaimed the last great Call of Duty brought into next gen was almost too much for long time fans to handle. Come November 11, 2016 we will be able to indulge into a whole new experience while also travel back in time to the glory days.