Like Christmas, or the Summer Solstice, the annual release of a new Call of Duty should be inked on any reputable calendar.
Over the last nine months we’ve learned a lot about what Infinity Ward is planning for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Handily, we’ve packaged it all here for you – so read on for every scrap of information we have on what to expect when the game launches on November 4.
As the last Valentine’s Day rose petals fluttered to the ground, February saw Infinity Ward confirm that it was working on the 2016 installment of Call of Duty and it would launch before Christmas. The developer has been making Call of Duty Games since 2003, creating the original game, its first sequel, the Modern Warfare series and 2013's Ghosts.
Of course, we didn’t have a name yet. A premature US PS4 listing for “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” accidentally spilled the beans in April, but the official lips at Infinity Ward remained sealed. Instead it stuck a futuristic airship Easter egg inside Black Ops III’s Nuketown map, and dropped a cryptic “we are your enemy” teaser trailer.
In May the cloak was finally whipped off Infinite Warfare with a reveal trailer that revealed a launch date of November 4 2016.
Unlike last year's Black Ops 3, Infinite Warfare will only be available for current-gen platforms (PC, PS4, Xbox One), leaving behind the Xbox 360 and PS3. This is the first time COD won't be available on those platforms.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is not a continuation of Infinity Ward’s Ghosts series. It’s set in a future where Earth has been stripped of most of its natural resources, forcing the planet’s nations to form a coalition to mine energy and materials from distant asteroids.
That’s where the Settlement Defence Force (SDF) come in to stick a fighter jet-sized fly in the ointment. As a group of militant extremists that are vying for control of various intergalactic outposts, they don’t take too kindly to the United Nations Space Alliance coming in and upsetting the balance. War is declared, and it’s your job to take them down as a Captain called Nick Reyes.
While this all sounds more Star Trek than Black Hawk Down, Infinity Ward’s Jacob Minkhoff and Taylor Kurosak both told us that the single player campaign draws inspiration from classic war movies like Saving Private Ryan, rather than sci-fi.
Unlike last year's game, there'll be no co-op campaign mode.
Infinite Warfare follows in the tradition of Advanced Warfare by placing a high-profile actor and their likeness in the role of villain.
The SDF is led by Kit Harrington, who can normally be found guarding the Wall in Game of Thrones. In June we got a sneak peek at Harrington’s motion-capture work, although it wasn’t until September that we finally got our first look at him in the game’s official story trailer.
In Infinite Warfare, for the first time you can fly a spaceship in intergalactic dogfights. Infinity Ward's design director Jacob Minkoff told us this craft will be called a Jackal, and it can "transform between atmospheric flight mode and zero-G flight mode for when you have to dogfight in the vacuum of space."
It's kind of the Top Gun fantasy.
It's not just a vehicle that you hop in and out of either. Minkoff explained the fighter can be upgraded and customized, with players able to walk along the flight deck as NPC crew members prepare it for battle for you. Not only that, the Jackal seems to make the whole Call of Duty experience less funnelled than in previous games.
"You can be boots on ground, fighting through the streets of a city on earth, call down your Jackal, get into it, fly up through the atmosphere, engage in a dogfight over the orbit of earth, finish that dogfight, land on the deck of the carrier, get into the carrier, go up to the bridge, and order your ship to go to the next mission and all of it happens seamlessly with no loading screens," Minkoff said.
Five maps have been announced for Infinite Warfare, with more likely to launch with the game. The ones we know of so far are called Frost, Terminal, Frontier, Throwback and Breakout, and span the entire solar system. One takes place in a futuristic Japanese cityscape, another encourages close-quarter combat down the corridors of a space station, while others take place on distant asteroids and the caves of one on Saturn's moons.
Infinite Warfare provides its own twist on the Black Ops Specialists format with Combat Rig Suits. These are basically loadouts that support specific play styles, meaning one rig will give players the best tools to compete in close range combat, while another favours tactical support.
Each suit is equipped with a Payload and a Trait for different tactical options. Payloads are weapons earned in the match and can be activated to bring a boost to your Rig. Traits are persistent passive abilities.
There are six Combat Rigs in total, for example, the Phantom Rig that favours the sniper. Its payload renders you invisible, while its "Marked Target" trait means that damaging enemies will mark them for death, and prevent them from regenerating health for several seconds.
Confirmed modes include Team Deathmatch, Domination, Kill Confirmed, Gun Game, Search and Rescue, Search and Destroy, Infected, Uplink, and Grind. There will also be two new modes, called Defender and Frontline.
While Infinity Ward is keeping tight-lipped on Frontline, Defender riffs off of Halo's Oddball, and tasks players with holding onto a drone for as long as possible. The team that is able to keep hold of the drone for the longest period of time wins.
In Call of Duty, traditionally you get new weapons by levelling up. In Infinite Warfare, however, players still unlock "base weapons" by climbing the ranks, and if you want to make those weapons powerful you're going to need to start crafting.
Destiny players will be familiar with the coloured rarity labels attached to guns. Here, they now come in common, rare, legendary and epic rarity levels - and each has its own perks.
For example, in this weapon crafting overview, we can see one legendary gun whose perk means that a 25-player kill streak earns the player a powerful de-atomizer strike.
Players will be able to craft prototypes using salvage, which is the in-game crafting currency that can "be earned in a variety of ways," though nothing specific on that yet. The whole idea behind the crafting system, however, is the same notion of control that guides the Combat Rigs. In Infinite Warfare you should be able to bend weapons to suit your playstyle.
For the first time ever, Infinity Ward is building a zombie game mode for Call of Duty. The developer has created a mode that's in a separate universe from Infinite Warfare and the other zombie modes of yonder.
Indeed, while you'll be engaging in galactic dogfights against a fascist regime in the main campaign, zombies will plonk you in the '80s and pit you against zombies wearing leg warmers.
Gameplay wise, the mode follows what's come before with traps, survival-based rounds and unlockable areas. This time though, it's called "Zombies in Spaceland," and is set in a retro theme park with rideable rides, clown zombies, and cheesy humour.
The available weapons will be the same weapons that you use in multiplayer, meaning that any weapon XP gained in Zombies will carry over to regular multiplayer. You can watch the full trailer for Zombies in Spaceland here.
In April a leaked pre-order poster confirmed that Infinite Warfare would be available to buy in two versions: a Standard Edition and a Legacy Edition.
The Legacy Edition includes a remaster of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare Remastered won't be available to buy on its own, so the only way to play it is to buy the Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition.
The remaster includes the Modern Warfare campaign and 10 of its multiplayer maps, with beefed up visuals that make Modern Warfare, well, that bit more modern. You can see a graphics comparison of the original game and the remaster here.
Call of Duty publisher Activision has also confirmed that the estimated storage space required for the Legacy Edition of Infinite Warfare will be a combined 130GB. This allows for both the main game and the remaster, their respective Day 1 patches, and the six multiplayer maps coming to the remaster post-launch.
Alysia Judge is a video host at IGN UK. She hopes that in space, someone will be able to hear her flashbang. Follow her on Twitter.
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