With Treyarch now back at the controls, many are curious about where the future of Call of Duty will lead. There is no doubt that Infinity Ward achieved something amazing with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but now CoD returns to World War II with Worlds at War.
In an interview with VideoGamer.com, Treyarch's senior producer Noah Heller and creative lead Rich Farrelly offer insight on the upcoming CoD game, as well as the history of CoD. Both men are keenly aware of how old repitition can get, and are assuring gamers that Worlds at War, while set in WWII yet again, will bring something new to the table. Farrelly explains their mentality on the subject:
"For instance, with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, arguably there were a lot of modern warfare games out there when they came out, but what they did was they came out to market and they redefined it. They said: 'OK, we know what the content is, we're going to restructure what is expected from this genre.' And that's what we want to do with the WW2 genre. We wanted to press the reset button. We want to say: 'OK, this is not the WW2 game you're used to seeing. This is something new. Yes you may have seen some of these locations before but this is nothing like you've ever played.'"
Worlds at War will include four player online co-op and two player split screen for offline co-op. Heller praises the multiplayer in CoD4, stating that instead of changing it (why fix what ain't broke?), they will be adding more to an already great system:
"What I'll say now is we recognise that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is great multiplayer. It's a great game but the multiplayer is stand out phenomenal. We would not want to take that engine and remove things from it. We're not going to keep any game types for instance that don't fit with our setting or we're not particularly passionate about. But the philosophy of map building, the way the perk system works, these are great foundation points. And then on top of that we've built things like area of effect perks, speciality perks that feel like they fit really well with WW2 and vehicles of course. We can't get away with delivering tight multiplayer and then turn around and deliver sloppy vehicle support...
We feel that the team gameplay is a great thing to support. There will also be LVT vehicles for instance that go through the water. Water and fire on maps will be a new feature of multiplayer and we'll see how that plays out. We don't add to great multiplayer lightly but the team is really passionate about it."
As for the titles of upcoming CoD games, Heller says they've dropped the number sequences:
"We're getting rid of the number in Call of Duty for a very specific reason. It's because we want you to know that when you're playing Call of Duty: World at War you're playing the best shooter, the best WW2 game ever. Likewise when you're playing Modern Warfare, likewise when you play any game that will be called Call of Duty."Heller and Farrelly also reflect on CoD3 in the interview, talking about the game's production and its shortcomings despite overwhelming success. An overall enlightening discussion, and especially enjoyable if you happen to be a Call of Duty fan. Unfortunately, no release date for Worlds at War has been confirmed, though Heller has set the general time frame in Fall.
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