With that said, Black Ops II showed us how far the series could go, and more importantly, how making a well-balanced game, bigger maps, an improved engine and better story, could absolutely move the series up a notch. Of course, that was the good folks at Treyarch who were responsible for raising the CoD bar, and shocking the gaming world in trumping their developer rivals at Infinity Ward. No offense to the folks at Treyarch, of course.
So, how could Infinity Ward up the ante in the CoD series? How in the world could they trump what Treyarch did and improve the gaming experience, thus keeping the series fresh and likable? While we can’t answer the latter until we get our hands on the game at E3, we can give you some details on what Infinity Ward has been wanting to do. Thier job at making this CoD one of the more ambitious of the series has been no small task due to having to learn new hardware for next generation consoles. Who isn’t up for a challenge, right?
First and foremost, you’ll notice the obvious graphical enhancements. This has been a huge deal with IW, as nothing will keep gamers attention like being visually wowed at what they receive onscreen. To be quite honest, this generation of consoles has certainly hit a wall with the capabilities that each platform can deliver. Eric Hirshberg, Activision’s CEO, simply states, “Call of Duty: Ghosts will show what’s possible on the next generation systems.” And I can tell you that it certainly has done that.
Call of Duty: Ghosts will feature a completely new world that is driven by a new engine. No more upgrades and updates of the IW engine, rather this is an engine that was built from the ground up. We’ll get into that in a second, as there is one important piece to that engine puzzle that drives the new look and feel. You can also expect a new storyline featuring new characters. Infinity Ward felt like there was a clear ending to Modern Warfare 3 and wanted to move on to something else. If Star Wars can move on with a fresh story for the 2015 release, then Call of Duty certainly can do the same. Having said that, Infinity Ward’s executive producer Mark Rubin discussed certain details of what was improved in CoD: Ghosts.
The first thing that Rubin outlined was that they wanted to build everything in the game more life-like and immersive. The scene they showed off as an example of this was a jungle level. Folks, believe me when you read this, the level had more depth and more detail than any scene from the original Crysis, Crysis 2 or 3. It was absolutely nuts to see in action. The usage of HDR lighting in realtime, better shaders, dynamic particle effects that fade in and out through the light and player motion, bugs and immense amount of details with the objects in the jungle, really showed how immersive and life-like Call of Duty: Ghosts could get. The little things, such as the sun changing position when you do, and the environment reflecting that, was unlike anything I’ve seen to date. What’s even more impressive was that whatever ‘next-gen’ hardware it was running off of had almost no issues with rendering — and keep in mind that this game wasn’t nearly finished.
Another big focus with the visuals, as Rubin pointed out multiple times, was a new technique to their engine called SubD. SubD is a process where the engine does its best to smooth out curves on objects (such as hands and skin), as well as pull flat objects into 3D, real life shapes. Rubin provided two examples of SubD. The first example of the process was a more obvious change. The development team showed how the gunsight looked before SubD, and then how it looked after the process was turned on. The visuals were stunning, as the blocking gunsight shifted from edged polygon circular curves to perfectly smooth circles that look like a gunsight. There was no blurring, no usage of special effect techniques to trick the eye; it simply smoothed the edges perfectly (and I mean perfectly).
The second example they showed in the preview was how SubD affected the environment around the player. They led the player to a river bank and showed off the rocks the water was spreading around, and the giant rocky cliff that was hanging over the small river. With the SubD off, the environment became a familiar flat piece of terrain that we’re used to seeing in this current generation of consoles. With the SubD turned on, the rocks had smooth depth added to them, including some bulkiness added, and the cliffs became incredibly jagged and detailed. It was an instantaneous change that was pretty to see in realtime.
So how the heck does SubD work? Good question. It’s a rather simple answer, as Rubin explained to us, the new engine determines whether to add polygons to the graphic or keep it the same. The more polygons added, the smoother and more detailed the surface of an object becomes. To show us an example, Rubin had the development team turn the polygon overlay on (so we can could see the polygons in action) when we were looking at the gunsight then he turned off the SubD. We had a small amount of polygons creating the gunsight, the player’s hand and the ridged shaft of the weapon. Once the SubD was turned back on, the polygon count increased in realtime and it was FAR more than what it started with. The polygon count increased, smoothed out the surface of the weapon, the hands and the sight. It was amazing to see in realtime.
Visually, you can expect great things.
The last bit they showed us was of an ocean level of the game. You have never seen anything in a game like this before. The ocean was teeming with life. The fish, as we were told, move dynamically to the players motions. So, for example, if you approached a fish one way, it would swim away. If you approached it again, it would probably move in a completely different direction, in a different motion. It was an intense scene, and one that was absolutely gorgeous. It truly showed off what to expect in November (and yes, it was all realtime gameplay — with no rendering issues).
So what else can you expect from Ghosts? One surprisingly cool element is complete character customization in multiplayer mode. While the video and details were brief, we saw a variety of characters with different suits on, including a red hazmat suit that looked uncomfortable and quite badass. As it was stated by someone on the IW development team when asked what to expect from the customization, they stated, “You will be able to have your own unique feel and gear, going beyond face paint and what you’ve seen before.” Color me excited.
Another addition to the team is a K-9 unit. Nope, not in MP (I mean, he’ll probably be in MP, but this statement was for the campaign mode), rather a motion captured K-9 that works on your campaign mode team to help you complete levels. They showed us video of the motion capture process with the dog, which handled getting suited up and ‘dotted’ like a champ. What came out of that motion capture was a frightfully accurate looking pooch that I personally wouldn’t want to mess with if I was a terrorist. He was confirmed as part of the group in the campaign mode, though not fully understood as a controllable character (how cool would that be, huh?).
Yet another element of the game, which will make MP folks scream like kids running after an ice cream truck, is the inclusion of dynamic map changing. This means that certain things might fall apart, fall down or change your character’s path in MP mode. What was shown was light poles dropping on top of cars, killing cover for MP gamers, and some other catastrophes that changed the luck and feel to the MP experience. As it was explained, some of things will be big that change the maps, some of them will be small. In the end, IW promises to diversify the MP experience with this new addition.
Is there anything else you should know? Absolutely, but we couldn’t shake enough details from the Infinity Ward folks, who were mum on quite a few things. All we know after seeing Call of Duty: Ghosts in action is that this game is going to be HUGE come November.
Let’s see if Infinity Ward can snag the ‘Best of CoD’ away form Treyarch. It’s going to take a lot. Thankfully, there appears to be ‘a lot’ going for Ghosts.
-N
