The beta following the very successful public alpha is going public this weekend and we got to play it first. The Cold War is hot again!
Lately everything from music, styling, and series draws its inspiration from the ’80s, and let’s be honest, what a great time to relive that era with a game like Call of Duty. The map selection from the very “megalomanian” and patriotic Moscow to the fresh and surprising neon-lit Miami looks like the campaign will take us all around the world to unveil the mystery of Percival.
But the beta focusses on multiplayer with a range of modes like the long time favorites domination and kill confirmed. All maps seem to be well balanced already and the spawns are well-chosen and change in a good way especially in domination where you could encounter spawn problems depending on the acquisition of the different bases. So far so good for something fans didn’t really like on some older maps. The addition of tanks and bikes is amazing although the tanks are really powerful. It seems unbalanced at first but a well-placed RC-car can get rid of those in an instant.
A map I really liked was Armada. It offers something Call of Duty had been missing for a long time and that is large scale vertical gameplay. It is a unique map that I found really weird at first but it offers a great variety of levels to play on. Sea level, and 3 to 4 levels in ship and freighter hight mixed with the horizontal and vertical zip-lines. It is by far one of the best maps until now for me as it’s a really fresh take on what a good multiplayer map can be.
Another beautiful map that was added in the beta was “Cartel”. A name that says it all. Somewhere in the beautiful jungle, there’s more to be found than bananas only… The map offers great gameplay opportunities and in multiplayer it’s a map where you quickly learn to either move fast and aggressively or rather slow and calculated because behind every corner you’ll find an enemy for sure. Especially in domination game modes. The motorbikes and RC-cars are great to use here and create some really cinematic ’80s cartel gameplay!
But the maps aren’t the only stars, some new game modes beg to be played with friends like the all-new VIP Escort where a tight group of players tries to bring a VIP player, equipped with minimal loadout, to another point on the map without the VIP dying at the hand of the other team who will, of course, try to kill the target. A very tactical and asymmetric game mode that is quite fun and isn’t just mindless grinding of kills.
Combined Arms: Assault is also tactical but in larger groups of players as you try to defend or overtake a spot on the map and so you either advance or defend a line. It’s a game mode that’s known in other FPS shooters already but with the COD salsa on top it is a real treat and we’re sure that having a good team that complements each other will be as important here as in the VIP Escort mode.
We can’t wait to play the 40-player Fireteam Dirty Bomb game mode to see how player decisions will affect the map in terms of radiation and gameplay. But that’s for another weekend. Be sure to download the beta this weekend to participate in some of the fun early before the game launches in November! And as always with COD, you’ll be rewarded for doing so with an exclusive weapon blueprint you’ll unlock in the full game at launch.
