The dog is a killstreak!
During today’s reveal event for Call of Duty: Ghosts, a video montage showed what’s new in multiplayer — and new stuff there is. “We went through every single system in the game,” said executive producer Mark Rubin, which resulted in this being “the biggest overhaul of multiplayer since the original Modern Warfare.” Here are some of the highlights:
- Character customization is in, including playable female soldiers. There are some 20,000 possible combinations which are both cosmetic in nature and affect gameplay.
- Maps have dynamic events and environmental destruction.
- There are seven new game modes, thirty new weapons, the new Marksman Rifle class, 20 new killstreaks, and a new co-op mode.
- The create-a-soldier system is similar to Treyarch’s Pick Ten. You’ll have a budget to spend, and perks have varying number values associated with them.
- You can create a squad of up to ten soldiers, each with a unique loadout, appearance, and ability to prestige.
- New animations and movement systems: there’s contextual leaning, a mantling system that let’s you jump over obstacles, and a knee slide to go from sprinting to crouch or prone.
- Modes: Cranked, where a kill makes you faster but also starts a 30-second timer in which you must earn another kill; Search and Rescue, where your team can revive you by picking up your tag or enemies can deny the revive by doing the same; and Squads, in which your custom squad competes against AI or other players.
- Infinity Ward has plans for eSports following Treyarch’s work on Black Ops II but only mentioned the CoD Championship and Ghosts‘ inclusion in the 2014 MLG Pro Circuit.
- The studio is reducing the number of air-based killstreaks; for instance, the UAV is now a ground-based device instead of a drone in the air. No more death streaks, either.
- The Season Pass is back with another four map packs and the Team Leader digital pack, including an exclusive multiplayer character. You can transfer your stats, prestige level, and profile across console generations, and DLC from the pass carries over too.
Talk about an information overload. Hamza is in town for the event, so expect to hear more from him about Ghosts‘ multiplayer, including hands-on, this week.