Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II wants to take the series to new heights

Call of Duty

Among the unmissable appointments in the world of video games, the one with Call of Duty also arrives on time this year. The shooter returns this October with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, the second chapter of the saga restarted after the 2019 reboot. alternate: the most famous are precisely Modern Warfare and Black Ops, developed respectively by the studios of Infinity Ward and Treyarch. This year it is therefore the turn of Infinity Ward to carry on the shooter that currently occupies the fourth place among the best-selling franchises in the history of video games, with over 400 million copies in total. Activision's goose that lays golden eggs has always been (at least until we understand if the Microsoft acquisition will go through)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will be officially released for everyone on October 28th, but who pre-ordered the special version of the game was able to access the single player campaign as early as October 20. The title seems intent on renewing the franchise in a profound way, thanks to a new graphic engine and several innovative elements of the gameplay, both single player and multiplayer, not to mention the link with the famous free-to-play battle royale of the saga, Call of Duty: Warzone, which will update to version 2.0 this November. To tell us about all these news were the same members of the Infinity Ward team during a special presentation event held in Amsterdam, a city that was not chosen randomly, since it will be one of the settings present in the campaign of the new game.

The Evolution of Modern Warfare II

The first Modern Warfare, in 2019, was like a breath of fresh air in a franchise that was starting to go stale. The chapter of 2018, in fact, had lost every single player mode, which was however always considered an integral part of the package of every Call of Duty, in addition to multiplayer and cooperative modes (usually Zombies and Special Operations). In fact, fans had never found the same storytelling quality in the chapters following the last Modern Warfare of the original trilogy (released between 2007 and 2011), and had begun to focus more on multiplayer.

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The Infinity Ward team has chosen not to abandon its historical characters, who played a role in decreeing the success of the franchise. So he created a reboot with a more complex and intriguing story and more multifaceted characters in the characterization, including Captain Price, of the old guard, to which were added interesting new supporting actors such as the protagonist, Sergeant Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, and the rebel guerrilla Farah Karim.

The new chapter is set three years after the previous one and will see the introduction of some of the most iconic characters of the Modern Warfare saga: John "Soap" MacTavish and Simon "Ghost" Riley. These two special soldiers will join Task Force 141, founded by Price at the end of the 2019 reboot to thwart terrorist threats around the world.

The developers attending the Amsterdam event wanted to point out how much the story of the new title is important for the entire franchise, given that the narrative background started with the 2019 chapter in the future will expand more and more, becoming an integral part of modes that apparently do not need a plot, such as Warzone 2.0, so to create a common thread between all the different faces of Call of Duty.

Activision Speaking of multiplayer, there are also great news for the online component of the title, always highly anticipated by fans of the franchise. In fact, there will be new modes that will range from Prisoner Rescue and Knockout, where two teams of six players will face each other in clashes in which tactics will be fundamental for victory, to Invasion, a large-scale mode where 64 players will clash in a pitched battle. in which it will be possible to use assault vehicles and devastating equipment to get the better of the opponents. An offer that wants to adapt to all types of multiplayer shooter enthusiasts, passing from classic and fast modes to more tactical ones, up to large-scale ones. The title will also introduce for the first time the possibility of playing not only in first person, but also in third person.

There will also be a new system for customizing weapons called Gunsmith 2.0: it will be possible to create your own dream weapon with different parts unlocked. The big news is that these parts will be available for all the weapons of the same family, so as not to have to repeat the process of obtaining for each single muzzle present, thus saving a lot of time. Finally, the Special Ops are also confirmed, that is the cooperative mode of the title, which will allow two players to face dangerous missions together.

Activision The awaited Warzone 2.0 mode, heir to the first successful Battle Royale of Activision, will share not only the same updated graphics engine as Modern Warfare II, but also several small gameplay innovations, such as the ability to hang from the grips to shoot without exposing yourself or to climb on the roofs of vehicles to hit enemies with a field expanded visual. The new version of the battle royale will be set in a map called Al Mazrah, which is also linked to the narrative of the new main chapter of the franchise. This will offer an unprecedented safe zone system, where multiple safe zones will be present at the same time, which at the end of the game will all converge in a single point for the final challenge between the players. In addition, there will also be forts or bunkers protected by soldiers guided by the AI, where, if you manage to prevail, you will be able to recover usually very powerful equipment.

Finally, we were also presented with the news from the point of view technician. In fact, we will have a renewed artificial intelligence system, which should make enemies more difficult and fierce, but the biggest novelty is represented by water: it will be a new system to simulate the liquid element, which will wet clothes in a realistic way. of our soldiers according to the point touched by the water. Furthermore, for the first time, we will be able to swim and dive, with physics that will perfectly simulate even the deviations of bullets, when trying to shoot someone who is underwater.

Activision A technology that is certainly impressive to which there is also photogrammetry, which perfectly reconstructs some landscapes of the real world within the game. It is no coincidence that the event took place in Amsterdam, in fact, as already mentioned, one of the levels of the single player campaign will be set right in the Dutch capital and, after trying the aforementioned mission, we can confirm that you will really feel at home. interior of a virtual Amsterdam, perfectly reconstructed compared to its real counterpart.

Face to face with the Infinity Ward team

We also had the opportunity to explore some aspects of the game by talking with members of the development team of Infinity Ward, namely Brian Bloom and Jeff Negus, specifically two members of the working group that gave life to the single player campaign, and Barry Sloane and Neil Ellice, the voices of Captain Price and John "Soap" MacTavish.

Brian Bloom was in the past a voice actor for several titles of the Call of Duty saga, also lending his voice to characters from other video games (for example, the iconic B. J. Blazkowi cz, protagonist of Wolfenstein), now he has been in charge of directing the actors during the scenes of the campaign and writing the story and the dialogues of the title. Jeff Negus is the director of the narrative component, with the task of overseeing all the work related to the history of the game.