Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is on the verge of release when it releases this November. We haven’t had a lot of news as of late, that is until now. Robert Bowling have been taking interviews with various gaming websites. A lot of the information released pertains to Spec Ops and Multiplayer. Some of them were about Call of Duty Elite, which is going into beta any day now, and some were about the differences between COD4 and MW3. At one point a discussion took place about the difference between Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of MW3.
In an event that took place in New York City, both GamerRanx and Kotaku has gotten tidbits and information about MW3. Robert Bowling, the creative strategist at infinity ward said to Kotaku that they want to simplify gameplay by giving players less to think about by going back to COD4’s roots with infantry-style gameplay, rather than MW2’s major emphasis in air-support.
“What happens when you have more is that the professional guys are using that spot that is either difficult to get to… There’s fewer places to hide, which discourages the more camper mentality that seemed to emerge in the map design of Modern Warfare 2.”
Robert Bowling seems to love COD4, that he prefers the gameplay of Modern Warfare over Modern Warfare 2’s emphasis on air-support, and vertical combat.
“Modern Warfare style is, for me, all about the high-speed, fast-paced—and I’m talking in terms of smooth controls and 60-frames-per-second framerate—infantry-focused combat.”
Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer will the most popular mode in the gamne, and Activision hasn’t revealed the multiplayer portion of the game, instead, they’re holding off until Call of Duty XP in September. Robert Bowling was in NYC to show off MW3’s sub-mode, the survival mode – a two player co-op mode. Not to be confused with Spec Ops, which is rumored to allow for more players per match.
“It’s merging all three worlds, really, of a single-player experience, because you can play it all solo, a multiplayer experience and the co-op experience. It’s giving you a completely new experience that blurs the line between all three modes. I think that’s what was missing and I think that’s where, you know, the future lies in blurring those lines instead of them being hard definitions of experiences.”
Rob moved onto the philosophy about map design, about what the devs want players to be doing:
“What that is is really analyzing very aspect of how we want you to play out the map; how a team should play out a map; and how a lone wolf should play out the map. We’re looking at things like: how many hot spots do you have when you’re coming around the corner? How many angles and locations do you have to check that you need to worry about engaging an enemy from? It’s allowing you to easily envision a map in your head as you’re playing through it. So you’re looking at, ‘Ok, this map is going to be played in X amount of ways.’ and so on.”
He went into further detail about how the dev team tries to tackle the multiplayer maps:
“I’m coming around the corner. I don’t want to have to worry about being shot from 50 different angles. I want to be able to know, ‘OK, I cleared the top floor, I cleared the second floor, I cleared the base, I’m good in this area. OK, now I’m coming through this doorway, I have to watch this doorway, this alleyway and this spot.’ And then, when you’re playing objective [matches], you need to be able to know the routes and break them down in your head as you play the areas. Like Search and Destroy… I know I’ve cleared this area. There’s no way this guy can get there. And then going in an adding the fun secret stuff that people find three months into playing, like ‘Did you know if you run up the tail of the plane in Afghan you can leap to the top of the mountain instead of circling around to the route that everyone is covering?'”
Rob made sure that Kotaku understands that the dev team wants to simplify, and Rob really wants to go back to COD4’s fast-paced gameplay.
“Call of Duty 4 was much more simplistic in its map design: You have the sight points, you have the routes players will take. It was very flat in terms of where you could go. Modern Warfare 2 had a major focus on vertical combat, increasing the multi-floor levels, increasing the number of buildings you go into. There were a lot more places you could go than just the main routes and buildings where you were meant to go. That encourages and discourages a lot of types of gameplay. With Modern Warfare 3, it’s much, much more on allowing you to focus on what’s necessary; it’s making vertical combat when it makes sense but it’s not a blanket rule across every map. You will have some maps that focus on verticality and that are focused on multiple things. And then you have other maps that are very limited on the hotspots. The hotspots are a key thing on Modern Warfare 3. We went into each map wanting you to be able to turn a corner and know very easily that these are the three—no more than five—places I need to check.”
Rob then turned to hardcore players who stuck on Call of Duty over the years, he made sure that Kotaku understands that he wants to make sure that hardcore players knows that they’re building the game up for hardcore players:
“But for the hardcore guys who have been with us since the beginning, that speaks volumes: the map design, the return to focus on gun-on-gun, all that stuff.”
According to an interview with MTV MultiPlayer, Robert Bowling let it slip that Party Chat feature has been altered in many ways that allows players the options for Party Chat, and that some modes will allow it, some won’t:
“The only place where Party Chat should be blocked is Search & Destroy.” In that mode, players are given just a single life per round, so those attempting to cheat with Party Chat would definitely give players an advantage. It wouldn’t, however, be blocked “for modes like Dom[ination].”
He went in further detail:
“A major focus of ‘Modern Warfare 3’ multiplayer is allowing you to have a lot more control over [how you play], looking at those restrictions and doing away with stuff like [Party Chat blocking] that’s super hardcore. It’s about giving options. We will have places where competitive guys go where you might have restrictive voice chat. And then you have an option to maybe play that same mode without the same restrictions if that’s the type of player you are.”
DualShockers did an interview with Mr. Bowling about Modern Warfare 3, the differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of MW3, and more:
What do you think so far about the simplification of Modern Warfare 3? Do you like that it’s going back to the COD4 roots? I DO!
