"The Future is Black."
So blares the first trailer for the latest
Call of Duty (
view the trailer here),
reminding players that, though Call of Duty: Black Ops was set during
the Cold War, those "plausible deniability" missions are ever-present on
the world stage. It's appropriate, then, that Call of Duty: Black Ops
II aims to be the first in its series to extend its action beyond the
contemporary of
Modern Warfare
and, rather than stretch into the past, explore the possibility of
warfare just over a decade into the future, in the high-tech, heavily
automated world of 2025.
That isn't to say that the
new game
will have no reverence for the past. Reports from an internal
demonstration of the game have it that the main story will stretch
across two eras and, though the primary action is set in the near-future
of 2025, players can expect to control Alex Mason during the later
years of the Cold War, in the late 1980s.
Yes, you read that correctly: Alex Mason. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
is a direct, in-continuity sequel to Treyarch's last Call of Duty game.
The last game's ending left a bevy of unanswered questions about its
protagonist's history and Call of Duty: Black Ops II appears ready to
pick up those pieces and run with them. So ready, in fact, that even in
the near-future campaign, players will find themselves, for the most
part, behind the gun of David "Section" Mason, Alex's son.
In the trailer, an aged Frank Wood theorizes that people like him,
soldiers who are willing to fight and die for their country, will always
be necessary because, even with the best in automated defenses, all it
takes is for the enemy to gain control of those same things that are
supposed to protect people to turn them into lethal weapons. His warning
is accompanied by flashes of action that show unmanned drones running
amok, bombing cities, destroying a civilian chopper over the highway.
Further details from the Treyarch demonstration reveal that the man who
has infiltrated the United States' automated defense network is Raul
Menendez, who aims to bring existing tensions between the U.S. and China
(over the rare earth elements used in manufacturing advanced
technology) to a boiling point. His motivations for this quest will be
explored in the 1980s missions, particularly those set fighting proxy
wars in Central America.
Most interesting, however, is the change Call of Duty: Black Ops II
appears to be making to its series' overall structure. Even as recently
as in
Modern Warfare 3,
the complaint was levied against the single-player campaign that the
action felt, overall, like a shooting gallery. Move from set piece to
set piece, killing enemies in a linear hallway until they either stopped
spawning or you had worked your way across the map to the next
checkpoint. This was occasionally broken up by segments in which one
controlled the guns on an AC-130 or engaged in some other momentary
diversion, but the core
gameplay
had become fairly one-note and stale. While Black Ops II appears to
come from the school of big production and massive explosions (and
high-speed highway action, judging by the trailer—appropriate given its
story has been penned by David Goyer), it also introduces an entirely new mode of gameplay that Treyarch has dubbed "Strike Force."
Don't let the generic sounding name fool you. Strike Force may be the
single most revolutionary thing to hit Call of Duty's single-player
component since the first Modern Warfare's "Shock and Awe" experience
codified cinematic storytelling through gameplay. Strike Force missions
are open-ended, sandbox battlefields that allow players to approach
their objectives how they choose, including issuing orders to a squad of
soldiers under their command. Strike Force missions will appear
periodically during the campaign and, according to Treyarch, choosing
one comes at the cost of the others, for that playthrough. This, in
turn, leads to a branching storyline, especially since dying in a Strike
Force mission leads to that character's overall death in the campaign
(presumably, Strike Force missions will not star David or Alex Mason).
Strike Force missions won't be the only way the story and gameplay
branch, either, with the player getting by-the-moment choices as to how
they wish to proceed, whether providing support from afar or jumping
headlong into the action. It seems it could fit well with what the
trailer has shown thus far, which mostly shows fighting in the major
urban sprawl of Los Angeles, including the aforementioned highway action
and combat among shipping crates down at the docks. Such a tremendous,
complex map just seems to cry out for freedom and experimentation, and
it's heartening to see that Treyarch appears to be answering that call
in spades.
Along those lines, there appears to be an expanded emphasis on
vehicle segments, which include both on-rails cinematic action and
free-flying dogfights with drones in the city skyline. There's also
horseback riding, presumably in the 1980s segment of the game, down in
Central America. What would truly be incredible—and there has yet to be
any confirmation either way—would be a vehicular presence in
multiplayer. Surely the controllable drones demonstrated in the trailer
will make their way into the fray, but larger, more open maps with a
higher player count and the addition of vehicles to drive or pilot? The
introduction of freeform air combat, I feel, hints at this, as all
previous Call of Duty vehicle segments have been mostly on-rails.
And, though the trailer was primarily a campaign-focused ordeal,
Treyarch has come forward with details on the multiplayer, if only to
say that they can't say too much about it as of yet. We know that it
will take place exclusively in the 2025 setting and that zombies will be
making its return as the only planned, as of yet, co-op component.
Other than that, though, Treyarch has decided that nothing is beyond
reexamination, and is thus evaluating every element of Call of Duty
multiplayer gameplay as it stands today.
It's a new day and a new Call of Duty, one that finally looks to
actually shake up the core gameplay, to which we've become so accustomed
that it has become more a process of rote than one of pleasure.
Treyarch's willingness to rip apart what's worked for them thus far, to
take risks and challenge themselves to create an experience unlike what
we've seen thus far, is admirable. We'll see how it pays off when the
game comes out on Tuesday, November 13.
