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Will Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare save the franchise?

The community around Call of Duty wanted a new title without jet packs or futuristic gameplay, but instead the franchise is heading even further away from what the fans wanted with COD: Infinite Warfare. The one glimmer of hope for fans is a remastered version of Modern Warfare. Activision, this year’s game developer, claims the gameplay won’t include flying or wall climbing. Instead, the battling will try to stay grounded even when players are battling in zero gravity.

Let’s not mitigate Call of Duty’s success and widespread following. A lot of fans buy the game on launch day and play the game until the next year. That’s not to mention all the players who play competitively and hinge their lives around the games success.

Talking to Polygon, Infinity Ward’s narrative and design directors, Taylor Kurosaki and Jacob Minkoff, spoke of some of what we can expect.

“You can be on the surface of Earth, and you can launch up through the atmosphere into orbit, engage in combat in space, land on the flight deck of [your ship] the Retribution, go inside the ship, go up to the bridge, and order your ship to the next target of opportunity,” he said. “All of that completely seamlessly.”

Call of Duty will try and rid the game of load screens and wait within the worlds players are in. Destiny is instantly coming to mind, as we would travel from earth to a home base then to another world. The major is improvement lack of loading screens, which can take ages in Destiny, and will likely make COD more of a fluid experience.  Also, the change towards an open world is a complete change from the linear feel of the games. With that being said, the game will still follow a story line, “[i]t’s more akin to Saving Private Ryan,” he explained.

While you’ll still be in the thick of combat, Kurosaki says there’ll be lots of opportunities to make decisions.

“We want to put the players into the shoes of…Reyes, who is facing terrible extenuating circumstances,” Kurosaki said.

The move further away from modern combat will likely push more fans away, but the Halo like gameplay will also appeal to a lot of long time fans who hated previous titles. At the same time,  more fans will leaving could spell an end to the franchise as other titles like have become popular and fans want innovation and a story line in online gameplay.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare hits PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 4.

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