Every Operator, as they are called in Advanced Warfare’s multiplayer, is equipped with a performance-enhancing Exo Skeleton Suit that grants enhanced speed, strength, and, most notably, mobility. Let’s start with the most obvious: The Exo Suit. Oddly, any advancements or additions made in Call of Duty: Ghosts appear to be largely ignored here, which may be a good thing to those who’ve expressed distaste for last year’s entry. Similarly, Advanced Warfare is exactly what the franchise needed right now. Whether it’s the right direction or not is largely up to you and your tastes, but the fresh design ideas are much appreciated. I personally thought Black Ops 2 was the best thing to happen to Call of Duty in a while. It really feels like a natural progression of Treyarch’s latest work, which is just fine by me. Sledgehammer’s vision of the future - 2054, to be exact - does differ substantially enough from Treyarch’s to not be criticized for borrowing too heavily, but at times, I wonder why Advanced Warfare simply wasn’t called “Black Ops 3”. League Play returns as a Ranked Playlist in Advanced Warfare, and as Treyarch did before them, Sledgehammer has placed a heavy emphasis on competitive settings and eSports-friendly modes. Wildcards appear once more, while weapon camoflage patterns are unlocked as they were in Black Ops 2. Once again, weapon attachments only affect weapon behavior, while Perks only affect your soldier’s performance. Pick-10 is back, except now it’s Pick-13.
In that sense, I think Sledgehammer Games accomplished exactly what they set out to do: Introduce new concepts and move the series forward in a meaningful way without alienating long-time fans.Īdvanced Warfare’s roots clearly lie in the foundation set by Treyarch and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, despite Sledgehammer owing much of their success to their previous work on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. But without the same level of expertise as other studios and with so much pressure placed on their debut solo project that aims to be the first truly next-gen Call of Duty title, will Sledgehammer find themselves in the ditch?Ĭall of Duty: Advanced Warfare certainly is the biggest departure from the series’ tried-and-true formula since 2007, when the original Modern Warfare fast-forwarded Call of Duty’s traditionally World War II setting to present day. With an extra year of development time and a new driver behind the steering wheel, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has the potential to drastically alter the direction the series is headed in. They’ve got chops as a developer - previous work includes the genre-revolutionizing game, Dead Space - but does Sledgehammer have what it takes to live up to the passionate and sometimes fierce expectations that millions of Call of Duty fans have every year?
Before that, co-founders Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey were busy conceptualizing a gritty third-person Call of Duty game set in the Vietnam War, which never ended up seeing the light of day. The dev house got its big break by assisting sister studio Infinity Ward in the completion of 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Sledgehammer isn’t entirely new to Call of Duty, however. This year marks a first for the franchise: a three-year development cycle with the introduction of a brand new studio, Sledgehammer Games. Did you hear? A new Call of Duty developer is in town, and that has a lot of veteran fans of the annual first-person shooter series eager to see what exactly that might mean for this year’s entry.Ĭall of Duty has been primarily built on a two-year development cycle between Activision studios Infinity Ward, famous for introducing the Modern Warfare series, and Treyarch, best known for their work on the Black Ops series.