Many people avoided Call of Duty Infinite Warfare when they saw the space video with people flying around in space. However, as it turns out, the multiplayer game really isn’t like that at all. On the campaign single-player mode, certainly there is a space scene where you fly around and shoot spacecraft like in StarFox or something like that (although not near as awesome as StarFox N64 version).
However, the multiplayer is much like normal. Of course, there is the jetpacking around and running on walls like the previous few COD sequels which doesn’t seem like it is going away in the Call of Duty or Black Ops series anytime soon. I hated it at first, but then after getting used to it I kind of missed it when playing another FPS without the jetpacks.
Standard FPS Multiplayer – No Flying Through Space
Basically, COD Infinite Warfare is essentially COD Modern Warfare 4, albeit with some welcome changes and additions. In a standard FPS multiplayer match, however, you won’t be flying around trying to hit people floating around in space, like the promotional videos originally gave the impression of.
While there are certainly some “space”-ish elements, like the fact if you get killed you float away, and the planetary spacescape backdrops, overall it’s just another Call of Duty series on the ground running (well, as on the ground as jetpack boosts can be). No floating around in space during multiplayer, which may be a welcome relief for Call of Duty fans.
In fact, I was quite impressed with the new addition to Call of Duty. While sometimes I just want new maps and minor revisions, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare is in fact quite robust, and it seems that while there are some changes, and new modes and game elements, functionally it just feels like the next installment of the Call of Duty series.
In fact, the gameplay is still quite the same as the previous two installments. It’s still a warzone, running around with normal walls and buildings and shooting each other. No flying around in empty space.
Combat Rig Suits
Among the additional elements include Combat Rig Suits, basically space suits that allow cool new special abilities like being able to teleport toward your enemy, invisibility, or marking your enemy for death, giving a nice array of different elements. Combat Rigs are COD Infinite Warfare’s equivalent of tactical weapons Classes, Loadouts, or Specialists, designed for a specific type of play style.
There are 6 new Combat Rigs:
FTL Combat Rig
FTL is a tactical rig designed for agility, which comes with a gun called Eraser which can vaporize opponents. It is a great class to use for both attacking in close quarters, and can also be used for sniping, melee, or other playing styles.
Merc Combat Rig
Merc is a heavy tank, equipped with a giant shield to charge enemies and deal high damage. There is also the ability to heal quickly. It is primarily used for defense and won’t be good for situations were high agility is needed. Defensive players who want to support their team would enjoy using this class.
Phantom Combat Rig
Phantom is a stealthy rig with invisibility mode for sneaking around and catching your enemy off-guard. Phantom is definitely a prime stealth class and is excellent to use for snipers or even CQC stealth. Melee would be great to use with the invisibility mode.
Stryker Combat Rig
Stryker seems to be designed as a support rig with a unique Gravity Vortex Gun which opens a black hole to swallow enemies. It is also well-balanced so it can be used both for offense and defense, and supports a variety of playing styles. Styker also comes with a turret which will be a big help to your team – and your rank.
Synaptic Combat Rig
Synaptic is specialized for CQC (Close Quarters Combat), is very agile and has the ability to equip two machine guns. It is great for stealth, sneaking, and fast-paced battle on small maps for those wanted to get in the middle of the battle.
Warfighter Combat Rig
Warfighter is the standard traditional heavy gunner outfitted with a heavy machine gun, rocket launcher, and hand grenades. It is your typical run-and-gun shooter, which is especially good for newbies to the COD franchise or FPS games in general. It can also be used by experienced players who want a more traditional class.
New Game Modes
A good FPS must have the essential game modes as standard. New modes are great but the classic modes cannot be forgotten like Rainbow Six Siege did when they released an entire game with only one game mode – and it was not Team Deathmatch.
Call of Duty Infinite Warfare does not fail us, and contains the standard classic game modes:
• Team Deathmatch (TDM)
• Domination
• Kill Confirmed
• Capture the Flag (CTF)
• Search and Destroy
• Search and Rescue
• Free For All (Deathmatch)
• Grind
• Drop Zone
• Infected
• Demolition
• Gun Game
• Reinforce
• Uplink
Additionally, Infinite Warfare contains one entirely new game mode and one retro mode from MW2. Further, there is one more new game mode on the way: Frontline.
Defender Game Mode
Defender is a completely new game mode unique to Call of Duty Infinite Warfare. There is a drone flying overhead, and the goal is to upload to the drone. The uploader will not be able to defend themselves while uploading data to the drone. It will require teamwork in order to win, something that is welcome in a game which most players rarely work as a team.
Call of Duty Black Ops 3 had a couple modes that required this kind of teamwork, including Uplink which has been included in Infinite Warfare; although many players ended up trying to play Team Deathmatch anyway, but this would let the other team win easier when they actually play the game mode to win. It’s likely a similar occurrence will happen in Defender mode.
Defender game mode effectively has three goals:
• Capture the drone and control it as a team.
• Earn points by continuing to maintain control of the drone.
• Keep the other team from taking control of the drone.
Defender is basically a game of “keep away”. You need to defend the drone against the other team, or capture it if the other team has control of it.
Tactical Game Mode
Tactical would have been a welcome relief to players if they would have kept it as a permanent game mode. It is probable that Infinity Ward wanted to boost sales, so they released this mode catering to all the classic Call of Duty fans that don’t like the flying around and walking on walls. In Tactical mode, there is no boost jumping! This is a great and we are glad that the game developers listened to feedback for a change.
Unfortunately, however, Tactical Mode was only available for a limited time for a weekend or so, and hopefully they bring this mode back in the future. So for now, there is only one new game mode.
Frontline
Frontline is on the way, but Infinity Ward has released a statement on their official Reddit account:
“We wanted to recreate TDM in a controlled, head to head experience. To start, both teams will spawn in a designated area of the map that we’re calling their “base”. You’ll always spawn in your base and you’ll have spawn protection, which you can see by the armor bar and shield icon on the screen. When you leave your base, your protection will wear off. If you decide to infiltrate an enemy base, you’ll be outlined to the enemy team. Plus, you’ll be going up against players who still have spawn protection. You’ll also earn more points towards your team’s score by getting kills outside of the base, so hanging out inside your spawn or outside the enemy spawn isn’t the best strategy.”
Effectively, it sounds like the new Frontline game mode will be a modified version of Team Deathmatch (TDM).
New Maps
You can’t have a new Call of Duty without new maps. Maps are one thing that the Call of Duty franchise has never really failed to deliver on. The new maps are stunning and modern, futuristic-themed while still holding the classic call-of-duty feel from previous installments. There are 12 new multiplayer maps that ship with the vanilla game (not counting DLC maps):
Breakout Map
Breakout is snow map located in a maximum security penitentiary on a mountaintop on Black Mountain on Earth. Based on the scenery it looks like either in the north-central United States toward the west, or perhaps somewhere in Russia. There are some tight bottlenecks for great CQC or sniping.
Crusher Map
Crusher is on a Mars base, located in an SDF munitions factory. It is a medium-sized map and supports a variety of playing styles. There aren’t any Martian aliens here, fortunately – or are there? Perhaps that’s what happened to all the SDF members who once manned this factory.
Frontier Map
Frontier is located outside Neptune in a UNSA space station. It is a small map and likely to be popular among those desiring intense gameplay. It’s amazing you could survive here since Neptune is so cold, the suits must be really well insulated.
Frost Map
Like it sounds, Frost is a snow map located on Jupiter’s moon Europa. It is located in a deserted research facility. What were they researching? Maybe they were studying the storm in the eye of Jupiter and got wiped out by an EMF blast from the planet’s gaseous surface? No one really knows, it’s a mystery.
Genesis Map
Genesis is located on the coast of California in the Headquarters for the Division Of Mechanical Evolution (DOME). This is a small map with intense, non-stop action that is likely to be very popular. What’s going on with California, anyway?
Grounded Map
Located on Jupiter’s moon Titan, Grounded is a medium-sized map playing inside an abandoned crashed SDF Destroyer spacecraft. How did it crash? Why was it abandoned? What happened to the crew? There aren’t any ghosts on this map, but one has to wonder.
Mayday Map
Another small and fast-action intense map, Mayday is located at the edge of a black hole and features a stellar view. Literally. What’s amazing is that while situated on an event horizon, players are playing around like they are not on the verge of being sucked into a black hole and ceasing to exist. If you shoot into the black hole, is it possible it will shoot something on the other side? Probably don’t want to hurt anything on the other side, you never know what’s there.
Precinct Map
Located in Japan, precinct is located on the streets of the town in the beginning stages of the SDF invasion. I assume it is named precinct because it’s near a police station. Don’t the police notice there are tons of people outside shooting each other? Maybe they are hiding, or maybe they just gave up and left. We will never know.
Terminal Map
Terminal is a retro map from Modern Warfare 2 which has been redesigned and situated on the Moon. I loved the Terminal map from Modern Warfare 3, it was one of my favorite maps. I’m glad they brought it back again, and I hope it’s not too different. It seems to be pretty popular so far.
Throwback Map
Throwback is a throwback to the golden age of the USA, the 1950s. While still futuristic, this space station is 1950s themed giving a real retro-feel. From the classic bowling sign to the giant bowling pin and rounded trailer, it really does feel like you’re in the 1950s again – until your enemy catches you off guard and gets a headshot. Now you don’t know what to think, cause your brain is gone.
Retaliation Map
Retaliation is a classic map situated in Geneva, which has been largely destroyed by the SDF invasion. It is assumed that you are there to retaliate against the forces that destroyed such a beautiful city, but all you are doing is trying to get more kills and upgrade your weapons.
Scorch Map
As it sounds, this is a hot map. With amber hues, this medium-sized map is located on an asteroid, and contains lots of hiding places. It seems like it would be hard to maintain an adequate body temperature here. Is your suit outfitted with a refrigeration unit? What is powering your suit, fission? One can only wonder.
Skydock Map
Skydock is an open yet small map located in a floating ADF shipyard that is currently orbiting Mars. The last of the 12 new maps, Skydock is another Mars-themed map. What are you doing there in an abandoned shipyard? What happened to all the pilots and the people? Are there any alien threats lurking nearby? I guess you will never know until you go there to check it out.
Overall, Infinite Warfare Appears To Be A Solid Sequel
I’m not going to get too deep into single player in this article, although as I mentioned earlier you will be able to play in space in single-player mode and this includes the ability to command your own spacecraft fighter. Reviews of the single player mode are very good; however, frankly I rarely ever play single player mode in FPS games. Here is a scene from a space battle in single-player mode:
It is also apparently not without some amazing backdrops and scenery, as well as paying some homage to Battlestar Galactica in some of its space designs. Additionally, many single-player reviews say they love the space battle. Which really is quite a welcome addition for a single-player mode. What fans didn’t want was to be flying around in space during multiplayer; fortunately, that is not the case.
There is also a Zombies mode as well, however I personally never liked any Call of Duty official Zombies release because none came close to Call of Duty 4 PC mod: Reign of the Undead (ROTU) which was by far the best zombies game ever produced. It was an unofficial mod to the game and was made entirely by third-party developers not affiliated with the Call of Duty staff.
I miss Reign of the Undead (ROTU) mod for Call of Duty 4.
Anyhow, despite the first impressions of Call of Duty Infinite Warfare being bleak, since fans got the false impression that multiplayer would be flying around in space, in fact this isn’t at all the case and this was merely a marketing failure on behalf of Infinity Ward. I see why Infinity Ward pushed the space theme, but where they failed was in clarifying the fact that the multiplayer game would be pretty much the same as usual.
That said, this new installment to the Call of Duty franchise is a very welcome one, and I am looking forward to playing this game a bit (if I can ever find the time!). What do you think of the new Call of Duty Infinite Warfare? Are you happy that multiplayer is not flying around in empty space? What do you think of the new Combat Rigs, game modes and maps? Share your thoughts.
p.s. Apparently right now it’s available on amazon for 60% off for the standard version, only $23. Might be worth checking out. Update: As of this writing it is now $21.90 $20.49!
good review
Nice Post