New weapons, a scout dog and personalised soldiers join the menu, along with fresh modes and a clever smartphone app that provides a second screen during online battles
In a giant marquee on the rooftop of a car park in downtown LA, Activision has splurged all the details on the Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer mode. Due out on 5 November, the latest title in the 100m-selling shooter series is shaking up the online component in what Mark Rubin, studio head of developer Infinity Ward is calling, "the biggest overhaul of multiplayer since the original Modern Warfare".
Among the most significant changes are the new squad set-up which replaces the customisable character classes of old. Now, players will be able to create and fully personalise up to ten individual soldiers, all with custom loud-outs, gear, clothing and appearances. According to Activision, there are over 20,000 combinations – and players will be able to select female character models. every player starts with just one soldier, but as they level up they earn new unlock points which can be used for items, or for opening up a new soldier. Every soldier can be prestiged just once, and now when they prestige they keep all their items. It's an interesting more personal twist on the family class-based system, allowing fans to build a team of humanised characters, rather than anonymous class-based automatons.
Load-out options include more than 30 new weapons and a complete new weapon class, the marksman rifle, which operates either as a scoped sniper rifle or a single-shot assault. The game also features a dual render technology so when using sights, players still have peripheral vision around the eyepiece. Players earn squad points which can be used to unlock new weapons – but unlike in previous games, these can be attained in any order – you just need to have the right amount of points for the item you want.
Similarly to the Black Ops II ten-point system for loud-outs, Ghosts gives players a budget to be spent on primary and secondary weapons, items, and streaks. Perks now have a value from one to five points each and players have eight points to spend on each soldier, although sacrificing the secondary weapon or some items adds more perk points to the wallet. As usual it's all about working out your play style and balancing everything accordingly. "This will be really interesting," says Ali Aiken, AKA 'Ali A', a Call of Duty YouTube broadcaster with over two million subscribers. "You can have a lad of low-level perks or just a few high level ones - it's going to be about what you really want and need, what are you aiming to do in that particular match - and then balancing out your distribution based on that."
There are 20 new kill streaks, including the ability to call in Riley the dog. Your canine scout will hunt and attack enemy players, and also bark when they're close, acting as a sort of tracking system. "It seems that they've been designed so that they can be shot down quite easily," says Aliken. "I think they're trying to ficus more on gun-to-gun combat rather than too much hectic stuff happening in the air. They're trying to balance it out a little more."
Another YouTube presenter, Jack Mason, who hosts the JackFrags YouTube channel, agreed that the Ghosts multiplayer feels more about refining than utterly re-thinking the experience. "It still has that CoD feel - it's much more evolution than revolution. There are a lot of cool little features that enhance the gameplay – the movement stuff is particular is cool. The sliding feature too – I'm sure we're going to get lots of videos on YouTube of fancy sliding kills."
Strike packages are back from the Modern Warfare series, in their usual Assault, Specialist and Support flavours, though the number of air-based options have been lowered in favour of ground items. A new satcom station, for example, replaces the old airborne UAV, making them more vulnerable – unless they're well hidden. Oh and Death streaks have been removed – an announcement that drew a loud series of whoops from the audience.
For some CoD veterans though, it was the newly refined physicality of the characters that impressed. CoD soldiers are now able to mantle over walls, cars and other obstacles without losing speed; on top of that a new contextual lean system lets you look around objects by depressing a single button, while the knee slide facilitates the speedy drop into a prone position or behind a piece of cover.
"I think these are the most exciting changes," says Aiken. "The way you traverse across the maps in Call of Duty has been pretty much the same since the beginning, but this year the knee slide is great to get behind cover nice and quickly and the lean in feature, which has been available on PC but never on console, will really change the way everyone plays the game."
As for maps, Infinity Ward elaborated on the destructible environments it chatted about at the Ghosts reveal event earlier this year. Every location will feature interactive elements ranging from small traps to map-changing kill streaks. During a demo, we see one section in which a train carriage is hit by a missile, blasting it off a cliff edge into a chasm – with several soldiers inside. In another sequence, the roof of a petrol station collapses on an unlucky player. This is, of course, an extension of the stuff that Black Ops and Modern Warfare have already been toying with, and mirrors Dice's plans for Battlefield 4 – but it's interesting none-the-less, and may add some tactical complexity to the action.
Activision also showed off a range of new multiplayer modes. Cranked is a team death match derivative in which getting a kill triggers a timed sequence in which your soldier has increasingly accelerated movement – the catch is, they need to get another kill before the clock hits zero or they explode. "It's going to really play into the hands of the aggressive players – the ones that like to charge around the maps like mentalists," says Mason. Search and rescue, meanwhile, operates a little like the Kill Confirmed mode in Black Ops – players drop dog tags when killed and these can be snatched by allies to revive their comrade or whipped away by enemies to keep them out of the game.
Ghosts is also debuting a whole new Squads mode, which will pitch you and and a personal squad of up to five of your soldiers against the squads of AI enemies and other players. At any point during play, you'll be able to swap out one of your AI-controlled squad members for a friend, providing a seamless mix of solo, co-op and competitive play. Apparently, AI combatants will do all the stuff human players do including corner camping and jump shooting.
Outside of the main game, there's also a new Ghosts smartphone app. This can be tied in with your Call of Duty Elite account to store all your stats including KDRs and hours played. However, it can also be activated as a second screen companion to the main action. This will allow you to, say, select an alternate squad member to switch to during an online match - something you'd have previously done by bringing up a menu on your main screen, placing you in a vulnerable position. It's a small feature, but it's a nice subtle integration of trendy TV/smartphone interplay. The app will also feature a Clan Wars meta-game, which feeds multiplayer competition data into a huge online map – clans can win territory on the map by beating opponents at online matches. It's a bit confusing and rather arcane at the moment, but more should become clear on playing.
Vitally, too, your Call of Duty account can be accessed from any console or PC allowing you to take your squads and loud-outs to friends' houses. Furthermore, if a gamer buys a season pass, providing discounted access to the usual four DLC map packs, they'll be able to transfer the pass if they upgrade from a current-gen to a next-gen console – free of charge.
Activision ended the global reveal event with news of the game's Prestige edition which comes complete with a head-mounted HD camcorder – like those used by soldiers in the game. "You can't count on much in this world, but you can count on Call of Duty," said Activision CEO Eric Hirschberg from the stage. And in a lot of ways he probably didn't mean, you sure can.
Anyway, Ghosts multiplayer extends and plays with the raw Modern Warfare experience without bending it out of shape entirely. Infinity Ward has learned a few tricks from Treyarch, but with the edition of squads and personalised soldiers it has moved things on a little in its own way. From here, it'll all be about the experience of playing – whatever shiny new additions are promised, that is the acid test. CoD has a particular feel, with its 60fps framerate and small, tight maps. In enclosed spaces, amid the noise and tension, balance is everything.
• Call of Duty: Ghosts is released from 5 November on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Wii U. Keith Stuart attended a press trip with other journalists from Europe, with transport and accommodation supplied by Activision
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