Call of Duty: Next reveals a wealth of details on Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0
Activision and their collective of Call of Duty teams peeled back the curtains on the upcoming Modern Warfare II multiplayer suite and Warzone 2.0 at today’s Call of Duty: Next event. On the Modern Warfare II front, developer Infinity Ward has focused on emergent gameplay this time out, adding features like swimming and aquatic combat, sliding and diving on floors, ledge hanging, and more for your operator. While in vehicles, players can now lean out of windows to shoot, mantle onto vehicle roofs, destroy specific parts of vehicles like doors or bumpers, and blow out tires.
A variety of new vehicles and equipment are being added as well for Modern Warfare II. Two new tanks, an armored personnel carrier, and a hatchback car are some of the new rides you can wreak havoc in. A tactical camera, shock stick, drill charge, DDoS attack (yes, really), and an inflatable decoy are new equipment gadgets you can expect to tinker with as well. The Gunsmith weapon customization system received a major overhaul as well with weapon platforms taking center-stage as the palette for creating your favorite loadout. I highly recommend reading the full breakdown of this system directly from the Call of Duty blog.
In terms of maps and modes, maps will come in two varieties at launch: Battle Maps for up to 64 players and Core Maps for the traditional count of 12 players. Three brand-new game modes are incoming: Knockout, Prisoner Rescue, and Invasion. Modern Warfare II will also include a third-person perspective set of playlists for the first time since 2009’s original Modern Warfare 2 (not to be confused with this year’s Modern Warfare II).
Other inclusions in this year’s title are a Firing Range for weapon and loadout testing that will not affect your stats, the Special Ops two-player cooperative mode, and Raids. Raids are arriving post-launch and are designed for a team of three players to tackle cooperatively.
Not to be outdone, Warzone 2.0 was officially announced as well, although it will not launch until November 16th and will still be free-to-play. Players will drop-in to Al Mazrah, the largest Warzone map to-date. You can expect the full array of features and equipment from Modern Warfare II, but there are also a few key changes to the battle royale. For starters, the safe zones will split into multiple circles, instead of the traditional single circle. Towards the end of each round, the circles will re-converge as one, creating some new and interesting gameplay dynamics. The Gulag is also mixing things up, with the battle for a second chance at life now being a 2v2 affair, teaming you up with a random partner. And finally, a special extraction-style game mode is coming to Warzone 2.0 called DMZ, which the development team will share more details on later.
Believe it or not, this is not even the entirety of what was announced. For full details on everything announced for Modern Warfare II, read the blog post in full here. Or for everything Warzone 2.0, you can read that blog post right here. If you’re looking for something a bit more straightforward, then the multiplayer reveal trailer below is the medicine you need:
