Monday, 2 February 2015

The Direction of Call of Duty - Innovation?


Over the years, Call of Duty has annually released a new game, with each iteration, at the very least, a new story has unfolded. The stories that lay in the campaign of Call of Duty are of high quality in my experiences, however, they do not innovate at all in the multiplayer department, until now.

With the latest release of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, I am pleased to write that Advanced Warfare has truly innovated, with one small addition that completely changes the way multiplayer is handled in Call of Duty.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is set in a futuristic world where military tactics and equipment have changed, the addition being exosuits, which is a skeletal-like armor that surrounds the body and supports the joints in order to give the wearer additional strength, stamina, speed and finally exo-jump, of which is achieved via a jet pack situated on the wearer's back.

What the addition of the exosuit has done to the Advanced Warfare is that it has allowed for new play-styles to emerge, and has effected the way players are generally playing. The largest comparison can be seen in Search and Destroy; a game-type of which is akin to the classic Counter-Strike mode. People were usually hesitant, a bit more tactical and a lot slower in terms of advancement in the old games, as is in Counter-Strike. With the addition of exosuits, mobility has greatly increased and as such has encouraged more of a rush-style of game play.

Rushing is usually a dangerous tactic that involves in moving at a high speed towards the enemy, hoping to catch them off-guard with the intent of appear from either behind or from a position completely unexpected, the rewards are huge if executed correctly.


This development has resulted in faster paced games, and as previously stated new play-styles which are not necessarily bad. It has also added additional character customization such as exo-abilities and the exo-launcher (which is really a replacement for firing a grenade). The interesting part is the addition of exo-abilities; there are several to choose from each with varying affects of their own.

Exo-suits also allow for some interesting battles, as there is so much more to movement than ever before, and really makes the so game so much fun to play; it's so refreshing.

It begs the question however, excluding the sequels to Advanced Warfare, let us set our minds to other entries into the franchise. Will they include exo-suits? Or will it return to the standard COD ways? Or perhaps they will find their own ways to innovate, with other unique additions or gameplay elements. What if there was a heavy influence of bows and arrows? Or they added in elemental powers (if we got really wacky).

Only time will tell.

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