Call of Duty: Ghosts – Multiplayer Preview

When it comes to spending an entire afternoon is the blistering hot Los Angeles sun, one would be forgiven for trying to escape the heat at every opportunity. It certainly helps if your escape is a cool (literally and figuratively) tent setup in LA Live filled with pods running Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer matches. That’s exactly the situation we found ourselves in this past week, having a first look and lengthy hands-on session with the latest shooter from Activision and Infinity Ward.

Following the detailed Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal keynote, and having seen the Ghosts campaign at E3, we had a huge amount of time to simply play the game alongside other members of press and gaming community. The setup was visually impressive with a centerpiece sports-like jumbotron and a large amount of gaming pods setup around that central area. For an event filled with people, the organizers did a fine job of avoiding any human traffic chokepoints and providing very easy access to the gaming stations.

After exploring the area for a bit, it was time to get to business. The publisher offered a ton of what we believe to be Xbox One stations – at least, Xbox One controllers were used, as we could not see the actual console or hardware the game was running on. There was also an area where about 20 PC machines were setup for the keyboard and mouse enthusiasts. We had a chance to play both versions of the game for a number of hours.

There were multiple maps across a variety of gameplay modes – search and rescue, cranked, TDM, and domination. The new Search & Rescue was a mode similar to Search & Destroy, combined with Kill Confirmed. The main objective is to plant a charge, while your kills must be confirmed by picking up enemy tags. Meanwhile, you only get one life per round – but your team can revive you by picking up your tag before an opponent does. The mode does well to combine elements of teamwork and objective, likely being the most strategically demanding mode we’ve played at the event.

The other new mode was Cranked, a variation on Team Deathmatch whereas players must get a kill every 30 seconds, or they will explode. It’s an OK idea, but one that likely won’t matter much – if you go for more than 30 seconds without killing or being killed in a match, you’re playing against very few or no players, or everyone is equally terrible at aiming. In all of our hours of playing Cranked, there was maybe or two explosions of players, only due to sheer chance of not finding any other players during that timeframe.

Other modes that we could play was the usual Team Deathmatch, a self explanatory mode where two teams compete to score the most kills in a set timeframe, and Domination, where teams tried to control as many of the three strategic markers for as long as possible.

Before jumping into a game, we poked around the new Create a Soldier mode. All of the options the game promises were there, including the ability to customize visual appearance from head to toe, customize your weapons and classes, and select perks based on the new point system. The Perk categories included speed, handling, stealth, resistance, equipment, elite and others. Each category offered a number of corresponding abilities, each requiring a certain amount of points to unlock. For example, we could modify our loadout to include many 1-point perks such as faster reload speed and movement, or to include only a few expensive 2 or 4-point perks, such as being invisible to enemy radar, or more resistant to grenades and their effects. This new element of strategy will no doubt push players to carefully evaluate their options and adjust them based on the game mode. The overall balance, however, will fall into the hands of Infinity Ward as they assign the perk point value costs.

The classes available to play were also all unlocked, and included grenadier, first recon, overwatch, scout sniper, riot control, and assailant. With the ability to swap out any weapon and attachment, however, these are simply names for templates for players to use. You could very well equip your recon with an assault rifle and go to town, as the customization is both impressive and freeing of any particular set of class rules.

There were only two sets of Killstreak abilities available and unlocked, and we stuck with the default – first level was a radar installation that could be placed on the map and provide your team with enemy map locations, until the installation was destroyed by the enemy or the placing player killed. The second level was a much more interesting ability – to call in the dog Riley from the single player campaign. The dog would follow the player around and engage any enemy nearby with melee combat. It would remain on the field of play for a certain time or until it was killed – if the player was killed, the dog actually stayed alive and would rejoin the player – killing any enemies along its route back to your new spawn. If a member of the opposite team also activated this killstreak, the two dogs would actually stay in place and fight each other the death. It’s an intriguing killstreak reward and one that has unique strategic value depending on the game mode.

All of the action was taking place across about 4 maps. They varied in size and some maps such as Whiteout were larger and clearly made for objective-based gameplay, while Strike Zone was clearly a TDM/Cranked map due to its smaller size. The larger maps were impressive due to their almost overwhelming variety of pathways with nooks and crannies to explore and potential enemies to face around every corner. While there was a big potential for flanking, most matches still ended up with familiar choke points – this is perhaps due to the fact that most of these alternate pathways were located at either end of the map, rather than in the center, thus funneling players into firefights regardless. Still, the potential to have a cat and mouse experience in these large maps, especially on free for all modes, is enticing.

A few of the maps also offered the destruction capability that has been so heavily focused on in promotional materials for Ghosts. In one map, as seen in the Multiplayer Trailer, a gas station’s roof can be collapsed. It’s about as non-impacting to the flow of the game as it sounds, unless some fool was unlucky enough to stand under it. In another map, later into the round a bomb goes off and changes the whole layout considerably. Sadly, there’s a certain lacking of finesse or presentation elements for this dynamic map event, so it’s essentially nothing more than teleporting players from one map to another, with a simple flash of white light. It’s a decent idea, but one that doesn’t really showcase any particular strengths in the maps that we’ve had a chance to play. One map’s event was non-impacting, while the other map was sort of switched out and while it’s cool to see, it’s akin to just having a map change mid-round. Some players, especially in the competitive scene, will possibly find these dynamics to be game-changing, but most of us aren’t likely to linger on the idea for very long. Still, in the end these are new mechanics to the franchise that has so long used static environments, so most players will be able to appreciate something new and fresh.

Both versions we’ve played looked visually impressive, which can be considered a compliment for the Xbox One version. As promised, the game was running at a smooth 60 fps framerate, and there was never a slowdown during the action. The textures appeared sharp and with high definition, although the game lacked any particular details or memorable visual style. New animations and motion mechanics were noticeable as well, from vaulting over objects to context-based lean system. The audio design deserves a particular mention – everything that was promised in the trailer was in full effect during our gameplay time. The guns sounded satisfying and different, outdoor versus indoor locations provided new effects; hearing your empty shell casings hit the ground added another aspect of immersion. Radio chatter is now effective thanks to identifying enemy position based on actual map locations and landmarks.

And of course, the controls themselves are just as tight and responsible as players expect, though the recoil was notably stronger and provided greater challenges when handling weapons. Grenades have also been tweaked it seems, as they can’t be thrown quite as high or as far as before, likely a change that came directly from player feedback. A new Field Orders system was also noted, that provided a player with a bonus objective to execute – such as a jumpshot kill or a prone kill. Success meant more experience, while being killed allowed another player to pick up the Order and attempt it themselves.

While all of the action was taking place, the jumbotron was showing a game of VIPs at the center arena as well as the stats of the Clan Wars metagame. Each set of pods in the area was assigned to one of two global player teams, and after a few hours of play the Ghosts team won out by controlling the biggest number of objectives on the California coast, just by performing the best in their own multiplayer matches. All players were awarded bonuses and the Clan as a whole also earned rewards for winning the metagame round.

From everything we’ve seen at the Multiplayer Event, Call of Duty: Ghosts promises to be yet another fine tuned, massively accessible shooter. The quality of the new gameplay modes and the dynamic map mechanics currently feel as either hit or miss, but everything else – customization, game world, and presentation – should have fans very excited. More info on the game is promised at Gamescom in late August. Call of Duty: Ghosts is expected to launch on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Wii U on November 5, 2013.