For the uninitiated, Survival mode tasks players with staying alive through waves of enemies, then purchasing upgrades and abilities after each wave to fortify defenses.ġ-4 players can tackle this mode, and there’s a couple of different variations of the exo-suit on offer. The major difference is the exo-suit abilities that must be managed, along with fighting against enemies that have similar jet-packing and movement abilities themselves. Players can get a good feel for these new gameplay mechanics in Survival Mode though - It’s a cooperative wave-based mode that is very similar to the one found in Modern Warfare 3. The suit makes the player feel more agile, offering new core dashing and jumping movements, but the story never really lets you get loose in it, only teases of what’s to come in other modes.
It’s beautiful and serviceable, and while it’s not breaking any new ground in story telling or gameplay ideas, it does introduce you to the Exo-suit, which is the literal game changer for Advanced Warfare. There’s not much to gripe at with Advanced Warfare’s campaign. This goes double for Spacey’s character, who looks unbelievably life-like on screen. Cutscenes which move the story along are exceptionally well done, with actors that look pretty close to the real thing. On new gen consoles, and presumably PC, Advanced Warfare’s single player campaign is a fantastic looking game. It’s a campaign that is chocked-full of moments that definitely feel like you’ve been there and done that at some point, if you’ve been playing these games over the years. Advanced Warfare is as straight a line as any story in the series, despite some very easy to spot sweeping curves. If you were hoping that Sledgehammer returned Call of Duty to the series’ heyday roots of jumping in and out of many facets of a much larger battle, you’ll be disappointed here. It follows a fairly rigid formula, the solitary hero soldier taking on the evil figurehead.
There’s not much that feels entirely new in Advanced Warfare’s campaign, even if there’s a shiny new skin on it all. Shooting sequences peppered in with set piece moments that usually focus on some aspect of the new technology to be showcased, and a few vehicle sequences to boot. Single player feels most similar to the more recent Call of Duty games, as its structure is analogous to other recent releases in the series. The player character, under the employ of Atlus, is introduced to all of this new tech throughout the course of the twisting and turning 8-10 hour campaign.
Even if the story and wave-based cooperative modes feel more derivative of previous Call of Duty games.Ītlus Corporation, a PMC led by Jonathan Irons (Kevin Spacey) is on the cutting edge of military technology. Multiplayer in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the thing that many will spend countless hours on in this year and the next, feels both familiar and entirely new, bringing forth both major and minor changes to the formula. It changes the industry’s most popular online shooter in significant, sometimes uncomfortable ways, while attempting to retain the core feel of the series. Sledgehammer is introducing completely new mechanics to the gameplay of Call of Duty by empowering players with more mobility, introducing the Exosuit.
It’s a fine line to walk for Sledgehammer Games, the developers tapped to make their first full fledged Call of Duty title after helping in the development effort in the 2011 release of Modern Warfare 3. While the aforementioned features and changes have been marketed as major deviations in previous years, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the most drastic step in a new direction for the franchise.
Perks, power-ups, weapons, and game settings have too seen changes from year to year - The Call of Duty series and its stable of development teams have all had their turn to tweak this familiar formula. The core first person, modern military shooting of Call of Duty has essentially been untouched since Modern Warfare 2, however. As a series, Call of Duty has focused on minor iterations to its gameplay formula to keep players coming back for each yearly release.