Titel : Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare sounds dystopian, looks promising
Link : Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare sounds dystopian, looks promising
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare sounds dystopian, looks promising
The past year or so has been an interesting time for first-person shooters, the most dominant but sometimes creatively stagnant genre in video games. Between Doom, Overwatch, Splatoon, and even Plants vs. Zombie Garden Warfare 2, I’ve never seen the idea of shooting others in the face taken in such different, inspired directions. Even more traditional military and sci-fi shooters like Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2, respectively, seem to be innovating within their own subgenres. Battlefield 1 is set in World War 1 and Titanfall 2 has a campaign with a talking, sword-wielding mech pet.
I feared that Call of Duty, the annualized shooter juggernaut jogging in place while burning up the charts, would break this positive trend. However, after checking out this holiday’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare for myself, I’m at least intrigued, even though there are no Romans.
For about an hour an Infinity Ward representative showed me a variety of videos, art, and sources of inspiration for the studio’s seventh Call of Duty game. Infinity Ward created the franchise and launched it to new heights with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. But staff changes have left it a very different studio, and its last game, 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, underwhelmed. So there’s pressure on Infinite Warfare, or IW7, to put Infinity Ward back above Treyarch and now Sledgehammer Games as the One True Call of Duty developer.
The team stressed that despite being in the future and having heavy space elements, Infinite Warfare is not a sci-fi game. There are no aliens. Instead, it is a good vs. evil war story like Band of Brothers or Restrepo that happens to feature combat above the Earth’s atmosphere. In the future, villainous soldiers from offworld SDF mining colonies led by Kit “Jon Snow” Harington have launched an assault on the government of Earth. It’s like a violent Space Brexit. As you fight back alongside your teammates, you’ll learn what it’s like to go from grunt to commander.
The first gameplay segment I saw was an attack on a festival in Geneva. SDF warships descended from space to attack the peaceful populace when the military was least expecting it. The demo showcased combat options like calling in airstrikes, hacking drones, tossing walking grenades, and partnering with your robot buddy Eth3n. But the highlight of the footage was when the player hopped in their ship and seamlessly shot off into space to attack the enemy fleet. If you saw the Infinite Warfare space combat gameplay in Sony’s E3 press conference—the gameplay audiences were shocked to discover came from Call of Duty—you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Space combat in Infinite Warfare takes inspiration from both the Navy and the Air Force. Infinity Ward consulted both branches for accuracy and in the story there is even some military infighting. Big ships like the Retribution, the player’s base where they take on new missions, look and behave like massive aircraft carriers by way of NASA. But dogfights in your personal spaceships resemble Ace Combat or even Star Fox‘s all-range mode. Lock onto targets and nimbly avoid enemy missiles.
From what I saw, the space fights are by far the most interesting part of Infinite Warfare. Even the lengthy blast-off sections are a unique way to modulate the pace and ratchet up the tension and spectacle, while also masking load times. But that’s not the only way Call of Duty, like war, has changed. Infinity Ward showed off the new Dynamic Pain system (the only phrase more depressing than “Infinite Warfare”) that causes enemies to move and behave differently based on where and how they’ve been hurt. Players can open doors in different ways based on the potential dangers as well as their personal approach. One gameplay segment I saw was on a space station on a planetoid with a rapid day-night cycle. Players had to quickly move to stay on the dark side of the moon to avoid the burning hot sunlight. Players also shot a lot of malfunctioning robots in this station, and the section where they sprang to life almost looked like an Alien Isolation-style horror game.
The game is also pretty stellar on a visual level, although I was a bit more impressed by the Modern Warfare remastered footage I also saw just because I could directly compare it to old footage.
I haven’t played a Call of Duty game seriously since Black Ops II in 2012, but the space combat in Infinite Warfare alone was enough to make me want to actually get my hands on the game. I even suggested Infinity Ward greatly expand the mechanic in the sequel, like how Assassin’s Creed IV took the sailing from Assassin’s Creed III and ran with it. We’ll find out if Infinite Warfare gives Call of Duty the strength to keep marching forward or if it’s Infinity Ward’s last chance when Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare launches November 6.
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