And you lose.īring it all together, and Infinite Warfare’s multiplayer problem is its chaos. Several of the weapons feel basically worthless in multiplayer - you need the quickest ones, the ones that dump bullets into bodies at blinding speed bring the wrong weapon to a one-on-one quickdraw and you lose. These guns were not all created equal, though. Infinite Warfare is littered with insane, fast-firing future weapons. But Treyarch used them to drive engagements toward central locations, which encouraged teams to work together and limited the amount to which a random enemy might pop up behind you and grease everybody.Īnd then there are the guns. Black Ops 3’s maps, for example, also featured lots pathways and corridors. That may simply sound like a standard Call of Duty map, and it basically is, which is exactly why these maps need to be perfectly tuned. It’s incredibly common to get shot in the back by someone you never could have accounted for and had no chance of defeating. Infinite Warfare’s maps generally feel like mazes of interconnecting hallways and rooms that loop back on one another in confusing ways. Map design is a factor in this equation, too. Space, as it turns out, feels like a great addition to Call of Duty. It goes both ways, of course, but it seems that at almost all times, actually using the bag of tricks Infinite Warfare gives to players - the running on walls, the zipping through the air - puts you in jeopardy, instead of making you formidable. More often than not, you’re dead before you know someone had you in their sights.
Multiplayer here is an exercise in getting dropped by someone rounding a corner behind you, or sprinting to catch up to a firefight only to get annihilated immediately by whoever is waiting in the room. While the emphasis on speedier movement and character roles worked pretty well last year in Black Ops 3, it feels out of sync in Infinite Warfare.
Despite the shift, the TTK has always stayed high. These mechanics encourage you to get out of cover, moving fast and flanking enemies. Advanced Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 added wall-running, double-jumping and speedy sliding. In recent entries, Call of Duty has been angling to get players off the ground and moving around.
You die quickly, which rewards playing tactically and punishes mistakes severely. To make Call of Duty feel, to some degree, more realistic than other shooters, its time to kill, or TTK, is pretty short. This was always a function of its quick “time-to-kill” - the speed with which you kill another player when shooting at them, or they kill you. Too fast, but too slowįor years, Call of Duty’s has focused on creating a “military shooter,” encouraging players to move through its levels and maps carefully, taking cover and watching for opportunities. It wants to be a fast, vertical shooter, but also considered and tactical the juxtaposition of those two styles creates chaos and, often, frustration.
Even with a new interstellar setting that makes way for what may be the strongest story the series has ever told, Infinite Warfare often tries to combine disparate elements that don’t really mesh. Its multiplayer and much of its gameplay are based on the faster, jumpier Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Sledgehammer Games’ first foray into the series as lead studio, and it includes a “Zombies” mode, a chunk of the formula that originated with Call of Duty: Black Ops developer Treyarch.ĭespite gathering pieces from successful Call of Duty titles, a lot of Infinite Warfare just feels like it doesn’t quite work. With that in mind, you can understand why Infinite Warfare feels more akin to its immediate predecessors than Infinity Ward’s own games. Meanwhile, Infinity Ward’s last title, Call of Duty: Ghosts, was panned by many fans. And at this point, there have been successful Call of Duty games produced in “off years” by other lead studios that overshadow the “main” Infinity Ward entries. Though Infinity Ward created the franchise, the developer has not been its creative leader in Call of Duty‘s latest cycles. To release a new Call of Duty every year, as publisher Activision has for more than a decade, a rotating stable of developers take turns shaping each entry in the series. That has to led sub-franchises within the series, such as the Infinity Ward’s “Modern Warfare” series, and Treyarch’s “Black Ops” games. One has to wonder how much of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was left up to the lead studio behind it, the franchise’s founding developer, Infinity Ward.