I’ve always like first person shooters; Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the game that got me back into gaming in my early twenties. Between the Xbox 360 and PC versions (yes, I had both, I loved it that much), I think I racked up around 500-600 hours. There were enough achievements to be challenging without being inducing a rage quit, and I felt that the exact right amount of customisation was there. Having too much choice can be a bad thing sometimes. I’ve played other CoD games since then, and I’ve never felt that any of them lived up to how I felt about Cod 4. We all want the next game in how much loved franchise to be similar to the last, while bringing in something new and exciting, and to build on the strong points of what we felt made the last game great. I may come to regret this, but Infinite Warfare seems to be doing just that.
I didn’t get to play any of the campaign, but I did get a small amount of time playing multiplayer. I wish I could have had more time, but with people lining up in a queue a mile long, we all got shuffled through rather quickly. Everything looks amazing. We were playing it on the PS4 (it was at the Sony stand), which is not something I’m used to. Playing FPS on a console isn’t my preferred choice, I much prefer mouse and keyboard for this style of game. But as it turns out, I wasn’t as horrible at it as I thought I would be.
The trailer isn’t lying; movement is pretty fluid and it isn’t too difficult to rack up a kill streak in less than thirty seconds. It all just felt really nice and natural to play, I didn’t feel like any of the controls were jarring, and it was just fun. I was having too much of a good time to really focus on exactly what gun I had equipped, or what traits and kill streaks were playing out, and I think that says something. If the players are getting so caught up in the fun that they forget about the how and the why, you have a good game going.
The level design on the map that I played on was really well made. There was good cover, some killer corners that would result in your death if you didn’t know they were there, and really good laneing opportunities. This opens the game up to a lot of different strategies, if you choose to go down that road.
I only played Team Death Match, the stock standard mode for any public forum, but the others seem pretty interesting. Things like rigs (pretty much their class system) with their own customisation options will really feed into player choice when it comes to different modes and team dynamics. I feel like with the massive resurgence of MOBAs games like Call of Duty, which don’t fit under that umbrella, have started to adopt ideas from them to make them more diverse and appealing to people who play them.
Crafting is something new too; in Infinite Warfare players now have the opportunity to create specialised weapons, further expanding both the customisation and strategy options. I’m not too sure on how having all these options is going to influence my enjoyment of it. Having a well designed user interface is really what I think will either make it or break it.
As I did have so little time with it, I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on it. I want to experience some of those cool traits and new equipment, and more maps and modes.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare comes out on November 4, on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
About the Author
Meagan Stearn
Video and tabletop game lover. Canonically bi. Has way too many hobbies for her own good.
