The event began with a 20-25 minute stage presentation spearheaded by Sledgehammer co-founders General Manager/CEO Glen Schofield and Vice President/COO Michael Condrey. From the start, their passion and energy set a tone for what we saw and heard from the accompanying footage of the game. “Power of the Exo Skeleton” was the founding reference point offered by Mr. Schofield to address the main design principles that the team at Sledgehammer is implementing to make their brand of CoD unique. The multiplayer characters are outfitted with an Exo kit. Main portions of both the axial and appendicular human skeletal structure are overlayed with machine parts that gives combatants “super” abilities. In terms of the playing experience, this means crazy fast movement speeds and a leaping not seen in Modern Warfare, Black Ops, or Ghosts.
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Exo Movement is the term used to encapsulate the revolutionary traversing. The Boost Jump is the most rambunctious portion of the aforementioned set. Double tapping A trampolines your soldier dozens of feet in the air. While still in mid air, another A tap plus a left thumbstick gesture in a given direction jettisons you that way. Layered in is Boost Dodge. A + right/left direction input shifts you laterally in the blink of an eye. And the Boost Slide acts much like the knee slide in Ghosts with, again, the added benefit of Exo power!
Another addition to AW’s MP dish is Supply Drops. Earned primarily through grinding, the after-match bonuses offer unlockable items like new versions of a specific weapon with attributes that differ from its original build. And these “Drops” progress from base level Enlisted to expert Elite that promises to bring some serious equipment to those who go HAM online. Sledgehammer is also borrowing some aspects from previous CoDs to ensure their experience doesn’t tread, er.. jetpack too far from convention. The Pick 10 system from Black Ops II has been slightly bumped up to Pick 13 to allow for more gear per Operator (AW multiplayer character distinction). The biggest reason for the increase, according to Mr. Schofield and Mr. Condrey, was to (also) comfortably bring back Scorestreaks and not let them hamper your decisions when it comes to outfitting primary/secondary weapons, attachments, equipment, Perks, the whole lot.
The Exo introduction continues with Abilities. These extra loadout options offer added power-ups to Operators, tempered by a recharging Battery to give it that “cool down” period crucial for keeping balance and avoiding OP (overpowered) items. These include things like a pop-up shield stowed in a forearm portion of the Exoskeleton that deflects incoming bullet barrages, or tried and true cloaking that offers temporary invis to set up kills and objective scores. Considering the smorgasbord of kit choices at your disposal, Sledgehammer has designed an area called Virtual Firing Range. While in the customization menu, you can instantaneously bring up a Tron-esque target range where you’re able to test out what you’ve put together instead of going into an online match completely “sight unseen.” To go along with all of the basic loadout stuff, Create-an-Operator is here to offer even more options to deck out your characters in dozens of aesthetics. Face, helmet, Exo Skeleton, boots, gloves, you name it. Seems AW is looking offer enough items that it would be unlikely to find two Operators that look exactly alike. To make this effort even more visible, Virtual Lobby is yet another CoD first. While in the match lobby, you’ll be able to scroll through all of the players loaded up and check out what kind of ensemble they’ve put together.
Before the presentation concluded and we were allowed to get our hands on the controllers, multiplayer Lead Designer Greg Reinsdorf gave us the 411 on what we could expect from the evening’s gameplay selections. Much like the other main portions, map design and modes are a story of old and new combined. Map layouts will definitely keep the core CoD principles in mind with many “smedium” selections, but scalable objects within open portions are designed to entice Exo Movements and take full advantage of AW’s bag of tricks. By popular demand, a few fan favorite match types are back in their original states such as CTF and Hardpoint. On the other side, one of the new kids on the block is Uplink. In this type, there is a neutral object called the Node, which is picked up and carried by one member of one team at a time. Each side of the map has a floating scoring area in a roughly spherical shape. Exo Jumping through with “the rock” in hand nets two points while throwing the Node into the zone offers one point. Armed with all of this knowledge and insight (presented in a awesomely loud and slightly humorous tone), it was our turn to take this new experience for a spin and see if all of the components can coalesce into a viable, cohesive, user-friendly, entertaining, and fun version of the franchise.
Right off the bat, I could see that they attempted to make the loadout selection process as easy to use as possible. Without giving too much away at this stage in the preview/review cycle, just know that all of the customization aspects are simple to digest and will be really familiar to regular CoD players. What might take a little more getting used to is actually playing AW. From what I played, it’s clear that movement is key, and putting your character into the right position at the right time will make the difference between fragging or getting fragged in an even exchange. To this point in CoD multiplayer mechanics, lateral movement has taken a back seat to other pertinent concerns like aiming and firing accurately. And while those are still paramount to successful play, they don’t quite measure up to executing proper Exo Movements to put yourself in an advantageous location that makes those other aspects much easier.
Weapon selection has your usual categories (Assault, SMG, Shotgun, Sniper, ect.) with some added “toys.” The key to using an Assault rifle at its best is, still, outfitting it with the right attachments. Old reliable sights like Red Dot and ACOG return with some new buddies like the Auto-Aim. Before any/everyone panics, let me explain what AA does. It looks and acts much like RD, for about the first three seconds aiming is initialized. After this time period, the reticle zooms in about another 1.0x magnification. So, think of it as an exercise in hybrid-ity. While working up-tempo, you have a close-to-medium scope. But if you can carve yourself out a relatively peaceful place on the map, you may have time to measure up and fire onto medium-to-long range targets. For the sake of rationalization, don’t expect longer shots to have a huge increase in accuracy. The AA scope helps to increase the size of an enemy on screen, but doesn’t turn an AR into a Sniper during the scope-in. These displays of balance will be key for the MP team at Sledgehammer to keep in mind when finalizing every aspect of AW before launch if they want it to be taken seriously by the CoD tryhard and competitive scenes.
By the initial looks of things, outfitting loadouts to go with the different match selections will be chess match in and of itself. Uplink is hyper fast paced and super fun, but meta strats surfaced rather quickly during my first match. The ways to play can be summed up by two ideas: playing on or playing off the Node. What I mean by that is a team that can successfully capture, keep, push, and score the obj. while also properly defending their area and gaining map control needs to split in two. A group of quick hitting, Exo Moving, twitchy lunatics for the former and at least a couple of mid to long shooters dedicated to overlooking main portions of the map and thwarting off approaching VIP/escort fire teams for the latter. To be fair, it was hard to establish any real camaraderie considering the circumstances, but I could clearly see and feel people on my team (comprised of just acquainted “randoms”), falling in line to roles that fit their general FPS play styles. We started successfully moving and defending the more comfortable everyone got with certain weapons and movement mechanics. Again, it will take several more hours to completely confirm my theory on the basic “how-to” tips for Uplink. Though, just the fact that those sort of thoughts crept in during the maelstrom of orchestrated chaos that AW looks to be proliferating for online/LAN matches speaks to Sledgehammer’s ideas coming into clear focus.
If unfiltered, balls-to-the-wall action is more your thing, I anticipate the 2014 version of Hardpoint satiating that thirst for digital blood. Most of you know the drill, this is CoD’s answer to King of the Hill. One designated (but periodically moving) area on the map awards the controlling faction points, and the team that accrues enough time, or has the most points when the match is up, wins. As simple as the convention is, it creates some of the most curse inducing, jaw dropping, “did you see THAT!” moments for any shooter with the match type included. For Advanced Warfare, this equates to Exo Movements showcasing what “verticality” means. It’s a word that was used throughout the evening by the very friendly reps from the studio that were on hand. It means this experiment in oufitting each player with the ability to cover short distances in a split second goes beyond just a cool parlor trick that will wear out its welcome after the first weekend. Because the control points are put in places with multiple levels, you don’t need to rely on ladders or ramps or steps to get to “high ground.” The guy/gal running point on the bottom can quickly Jump up, counter an oncoming attack from the top, then go straight back to ticking over points on the ground. And that can often happen in the same span of time it takes a “run of the mill” exchange of fire between two players residing on the same level. This is just one example, but the effects of the Exo Skeleton idea was evident, even in the brief time we got to spend with MP.
With many of these “sneak peeks,” answers to preliminary mysteries opens the door to yet more questions. Will every map play to the strengths of the new gameplay facets once the game is released? How many hours will it take to attain upper tier Supply Drops? What will the (very exciting) prospect of ranked playlists flesh itself out to look like and how stringent will the matchmaking netcode be? All will be revealed, tested, reviewed, and continually discussed on and after November 4th. What I can say in the second week of August is that Sledgehammer isn’t resting on the pre-established laurels of traditional CoD ideas. Advanced Warfare does feel like Call of Duty. Just not exactly any Call of Duty we’ve been offered to this point by IW or Treyarch. While this early, short jaunt into AW opened up the proverbial Pandora’s box of inquiries, the question of should people in and outside of the CoD community be getting excited for what this game could offer the franchise is a decided yes.