Alex Birlo on September 17, 2019
Jus yesterday ended the first round of the public multiplayer beta for the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare rebut that Activision are scheduling to release this year on October 25-th.
I have played around 15 hours of it and I can tell you that finally the developers “Infinity Ward” are given all the resources you can buy with the money Activision Earned from the previous copy-paste entries of the franchise.
And with all these resources Infinity Ward are finally creating something that might very well be a spectacular return to the top for the Call of Duty franchise.
Let us start with the gunplay. First thing you will probably experience when you play the game. Now the guns do not feel as clunky as though you are playing a game 7 years old – they feel superb.
And that is evident by my most satisfying visual moment of the beta – it was when I killed the last foe in the match with a .50 GS and watched the final shot fired in slow motion on the “Finally-Kill cam”.
In slow motion, you can best see the amazing new weapon behavior animations and recoil effects. In that Kill Cam, you could see the realistic recoil shaking the characters hand, the slide moving backward revealing the muzzle that had scuff marks, the flash, the shell… somehow it all came so perfectly together and made it look so satisfying.
Controller sensitivity is another issue that always has to be addressed every time you try a game on console, and I am happy to announce that they nailed it. Now shooting with a controller no longer feels like you play “Homefront” but rather “Destiny”.
The new tactical options presented to the player give a new and more thoughtful dimension to the Call of Duty gameplay loop.
Now you can use almost all objects in your surroundings to stabilize the recoil by placing your gun on them. That includes not only chairs, tables and other horizontal objects like boxes, but also vertical surfaces like walls, rubble and tactical shields.
And my favorite addition to the multiplayer maps were the doors. Yes, you can finally not only break open doors but also close them in Call of Duty! Who would have thought I can kill so many foes just because I can open and close doors.
You can bash them open to push and stagger anyone who stood behind them, you can close some and open others to create choke points and ambush potential for rooms in buildings.
And let us not forget about the amazing “Realism” and “Nighttime maps” modes they added to the multiplayer.
Realism increases damage received and disables any HUD elements like kill hit marks, the overhead compass, and grenade and bullet count elements. It makes the game look like a genuine tactical warfare simulator. You never know if that is a friendly claymore mine or did you kill the guy that ran behind the corner.
The nighttime maps make use of the new lighting in the game and force you to utilize night vision goggles in badly light areas.
And all this goodness has crossplay! (that can be enabled or disabled in the game menu).
The graphics enabled by the new engine make it probably the best looking Call of Duty so far.
The damaged surfaces – the bullet holes and the grenade impact areas; the cloth and smoke effects; the lighting that can even influence visibility (to someone’s advantage and someone else’s disadvantage). All this contributes greatly to the immersion and it makes me happy to see Call of Duty – one of my favorite childhood franchises – finally being on par with all its modern competitors.
And again let me just return to the animations, because together with all the little visual details brought by the new engine such as muzzle fire partially obstructing your vision between shots, just like in real life, together with the physics all play a crucial role in those milliseconds that always determined whether you kill or get killed in the fast-paced multiplayer matches of Call of Duty.
It is as deep and meaningful as any I have seen in modern shooters, but in combination with all the mechanics and physics, it becomes so much more important.
And by introducing the feature that you can install only a limited amount of mods onto your weapon they make you think hard about what sort of modding you want to go for.
Between the muzzle, the barrel, under-barrel, scope/hybrid scopes, stock, handle, magazine and a single perk (like quick reload or weapon swap-speed) there is a lot to chose from with the option to take only 5 mods at a time.
After so long, I am finally and genuinely excited to play a new Call of Duty! All the new additions and improvements were long overdue to happen, but better late than never.
When it all clicks together, in the end, it creates one of the most convincing and realistic tactical shooter experiences I have seen in a long long time.
So I highly recommend you all to try it out for yourselves when the next round of the open beta starts for all consoles and PC next weekend on August 20-th.
