An interview with Vince Zampella (Chief Creative Officer, Co-Studio Head), Jason West (Project Lead, Co-Studio Head), and Todd Alderman (Multiplayer Lead Designer).
GFW: You've wanted to move Call of Duty into a modern context for a while, yeah?
VINCE ZAMPELLA: Ideas we floated around wouldn't fit in World War II. I wouldn't say we were dying to do it off the bat -- like, "Oh my god, no more World War II!" -- but it was a natural move for us. We're able to write our own story this time, which is something we've always wanted to do. You know, with WWII you have to worry about historical accuracy. With this, we're able to work in whatever locations we want, whichever characters we want to use. Modern weapons let us introduce a lot of gun modifications, different gadgets -- things like that. Communication options improve with radio and satellite intel -- it allows us to broaden what our levels show you and in a believable way.
GFW: For example?
VZ: In one level, an AC-130 [ground attack airplane] flies in and saves your ass. Later, you get to jump into the gunner's seat and see the battlefield in another light. It adds to the variety of gameplay that we're going for.
GFW: Sounds similar to Call of Duty: United Offensive's B-17 bomber mission, though, doesn't it? Are Modern Warfare's locations rooted in real life?
VZ: Yeah. Russia is very accurate, and you'll recognize a lot of locations. For the sake of sensitivity, the Middle East is more nondescript.
Click the image above to see all the new screenshots.
GFW: How is the contemporary setting shaping your multiplayer content?
VZ: Well, we're able to do a lot more with the weapons, for one thing. As I said, we're introducing different attachments to customize your weapons with. You can recamouflage guns, tweak the way they look. And we have high-tech perks, like radar jamming and eavesdropping, which lets you hear the enemy team's voice chat.
GFW: Are you creating new modes to capitalize on these changes?
VZ: We're not ready to divulge all of the multiplayer modes right now, since some of them are still in testing. We are bringing back some stuff from Call 2, though: Team Deathmatch, Free-for-All, Search and Destroy, Capture the Flag. In addition, we're adding different rules over these, so while you've got CTF, you can also play Hardcore CTF, which is our realism mode.
GFW: This makes sense on PC, since realism mods are so prolific, right?
TODD ALDERMAN: Really, that's where it comes from. The community always adds that to the game, so we're giving it to them straight out of the box.
GFW: Let's talk about unlockable perks. What's the plan?
VZ: Well, we're doing good balancing the game...you start with your base classes -- all of which begin with perks -- and, as you level up, you get new perks. These change the game, but not to the point that a high-level player is clearly more powerful than you. So you look at the list of possible perks, decide to take this or that, and the downside is that you only get one. When you pick that perk, you're eliminating the other 10 that you could've taken, so it balances itself out that way. Same thing with weapons -- all the guns and attachments have strengths and weaknesses. If you equip a silencer you're not dealing as much damage, but then you're not showing up on the radar either.
TA: Yeah, perks are divided into three different categories. So, say, the radar jammer is in the same category...
VZ: ...as Stopping Power, which doubles bullet damage, or Juggernaut, which boosts health. But you can only take one for each build, and that's where the balance is.
GFW: Are we swapping these in and out every time we spawn, or only once when we join the server?
VZ: When you join. You're allotted slots with the class you create, and you can change what goes in them from outside the game. Once you join a server, though, you're committed to that class. You can create five different classes and can change whatever you want while in the menus or lobby.
TA: Make an offensive guy, a flag runner....
VZ: Absolutely. It all depends on the modes you prefer playing.
GFW: Any medic-like loadouts?
VZ: Not healing or reviving. We do have the Last Stand perk, though -- instead of dying instantly, you drop down and pull out your pistol before you bleed out. There's Martyrdom, where you drop a grenade as you die.
GFW: You want to reward people who play over and over again. How confident are you in your ability to avoid scenarios where first-time players are facing pros who have the added advantage of perks?
VZ: Juggernaut and Stopping Power are some of the starting perks. You get the ones that offer an advantage right at the beginning. We've been balancing this thing for over a year now.
GFW: Can you choose to play on "pure" servers with no perks whatsoever?
VZ: Yeah. We'll have ranked and unranked servers. Unranked games are completely customizable.
GFW: Are you paying much attention to other multiplayer shooters with similar systems? Specifically, Battlefield 2142.
TA: Yeah, I've played pretty much every multiplayer game. You see what works and what doesn't work. Diehards who play all day and all night will get rewards, just not ones that unbalance the game. It's like you can pimp yourself out with a gold AK-47....
VZ: ...scopes for your assault rifle, sights, silencers, foregrips to stabilize your weapon.
GFW: You can carry only two weapons at once?
VZ: Yeah, you get one primary weapon -- an assault rifle, submachine gun, sniper rifle, whatever -- and a sidearm. Attachments work with pistols, too. Then there's the Dual Wield perk, which lets you swap out the pistol for a second primary weapon. You sacrifice Stopping Power or Juggernaut, but you're packing two weapons. GFW: What about lifting weapons off of dead opponents?
VZ: Yes, so if someone has a supercool customized weapon, you can use it until you die and kind of preview potential unlocks.
GFW: Why no vehicles? They worked well in Call of Duty: United Offensive.
TA: Maps with vehicles tend to be larger, where the fighting is less centralized and...it's just not as intense, not the experience we're going for.
VZ: What we're doing with air support, the airstrikes and helicopters, gives us the same feeling that something big is going on but without the problems that vehicles introduce: too much traveling, too many guys fighting to fly the helicopter....
GFW: Can you shoot down the helos that opponents call in?
VZ: Yeah, but rocket launchers aren't perfectly accurate. The longer the shot, the more your rocket wavers on the way in, so it's not exactly easy. You'll see lots of cool scenes where a chopper's coming in and everyone's shooting rockets, with smoke trails everywhere.
GFW: And those smoke trails tell the enemy where you're firing from. What other cool moments are emerging?
VZ: OK, we're fighting in this hallway, and one of my buddies drops down, pistols firing, in Last Stand. He hits one guy and knocks him into Last Stand, and they're fighting from the floor.
TA: A three-kill streak gives you radar, and, if you're fast enough, a five-kill streak gets you an airstrike. So you use the radar information to designate the airstrike, jets fly in, drop their cluster bombs -- and with that, a seven-kill streak gets you the helicopter. GFW: Are your multiplayer maps largely reworked from existing campaign assets and locations?
VZ: We've made original maps just for multiplayer, and we've pulled some stuff from single-player. This time around, we've even had times where we've taken single-player stuff from the multiplayer.
GFW: Were destructible environments and/or a cover system ever in the design document? TA: Cars blow up, and the wreckage serves as cover....
VZ: Cover is important. We don't want to leave a bare landscape for firefights. But we also have bullet-penetration properties -- you can shoot through walls and wood fences.
GFW: Are all interior props still glued into position the way they were in Call of Duty, or will grenades blow them around?
VZ: Yeah, you throw a grenade into a room, and lamps and whatnot go flying.
JASON WEST: During prototyping, we tried a destructible system. Walls broke away from buildings, everything blew up, top to bottom, and it was fun for like the first minute of a firefight. But after shredding these buildings, you'd just walk through two-by-fours and the gameplay just broke down. We wound up throwing that out.
GFW: No man's land: That might work with few players and a no-respawn rule. Hacking was pervasive in the PC version of Call of Duty 2. Eventually you added PunkBuster cheat prevention, and players circumvented that almost immediately.
VZ: We will have anticheat out of the box. I can't say what right now, but we're committed. We also support ranked servers, which track things....
GFW: And the Killcam almost always gives cheaters away. Maybe it's not so much that Call of Duty 2 attracted more cheaters than most games, but that we could confirm our suspicions.
TA: You just made Jason's day today. [Laughs]
JW: You get the prize for appreciating that. TA: And Killcam shows you perks. So say you're shooting someone and it's like, damn it, this guy just won't go down. Then in the Killcam you see that he's using Juggernaut and Iron Lung perks.
JW: Iron Lung lets him hold his breath longer while sniping, so he's a sort of supercamper. I'm a sucker for asymmetric balance, so I love the create-a-class stuff.
GFW: Back to the single-player: You've said that everything, including exposition, works from first-person perspective? How thoroughly are you integrating narrative with rat-a-tat gameplay?
JW: Only the movies in between levels are noninteractive. Otherwise, exposition and story are integrated with gameplay.
VZ: For example, you're in a Blackhawk helicopter, belted in -- that's how we impose some control on the situation. You're free to look around, only you're in a fixed place.
JW: Or in the coup sequence...guys have got your arms and are dragging you out of the palace. This isn't a cut-scene. They throw you in the back of a car and train a gun on you. You're trapped there, looking around as they drive you off to assassinate you. You're helpless, but you're playing. GFW: Are you designing with downloadable content or expansion packs in mind?
VZ: We will support this game. We don't have any plans in place, though, not like "three downloadable maps in February" or something.