This is all the more frustrating in Ground War where certain objectives have a clear view of the enemy's spawn. Usually, Call of Duty gets around this by flipping the spawns to give the down team a chance to fight, but Modern Warfare bizarrely doesn't do it on any of the modes or maps I played. The team that controls certain positions, such as the bridge in Euphrates, or the busses area in Piccadilly, almost always ends up trapping the other team in their spawn. I don’t know if Infinity Ward decided for spawns not to flip this time around or what’s actually going on, but I have been spawn-trapped in every single map I have played. Part of the problem with maps in Modern Warfare is the game's spawn system. We have now arrived at a spot where favouring non-gamey map layouts and photo-realistic visuals end up hampering gameplay, and I imagine developers will soon have to push back on some of these graphical complexities for more fun multiplayer games. On some level, I don’t really blame players with chronic drop-shooting tendencies because it can be their only way to play aggressively and stand a chance against the headglitching gods ruling every match.
![call of duty modern warfare multiplayer split screen call of duty modern warfare multiplayer split screen](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AxuVFsdburk/maxresdefault.jpg)
In my time across all the main modes, players either held these spots for the entire game, or tried abusing game mechanics in other ways such as jump and drop-shotting. I imagine this dance was intended to give multiplayer matches some meaning, but all it ends up doing is frustrate players who don't want to participate in the only gameplay opportunity these maps offer.
![call of duty modern warfare multiplayer split screen call of duty modern warfare multiplayer split screen](https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/711x399/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5fb926ec6f3c851abf496826/Modern-Warfare/960x0.jpg)
If you're not doing this yourself, your objective should be to remove whoever is currently doing that and replace them. Maps seem to only reward securing power positions and holding angles. I don't want to gloss over Modern Warfare's incredibly complex maps because it's the other major reason why multiplayer is what it is. All of this encourages and rewards playing it safe, which leads to stagnation, and a boring game as a result. Modern Warfare brings back killstreaks, the old style where kills are the only way to earn them.īut it never justified this decision in its mechanics gunplay is already very lethal, its maps aren't symmetrical arenas where you can guarantee a balanced experienced for all, and its movement mechanics are comparable to Rainbow Six: Siege than they are other CODs. Namely, hiding somewhere and worrying about padding the only thing that matters: your kill count. Since Call of Duty 4, the concept of killstreaks has evolved so many times, from pointstreaks and strike packages to the more recent scorestreaks.Ĭall of Duty developers seemingly all quietly reached the conclusion that the game needed the spectacle of killstreaks but not the gameplay they promoted. But I learned to put up with them, until I didn't have to. Infinity Ward also felt the need to drill that new pace into players' heads by over-emphasising these mechanics with the return of killstreaks and some of the most cluttered maps I have ever played in a shooter.įrom their inception, I was never down with the concept of killstreaks, even when I played the original Modern Warfare every day for what seemed like years. That's about the only consistent element I could point to in multiplayer. The slower movement speed is evident, and together with the incredibly short time to kill forces everyone to play at a much reserved pace. Almost as if no one really wanted to rock the boat. So little of what Modern Warfare attempts to do is given room to breathe - and dare I say it, disappoint on its own terms.
![call of duty modern warfare multiplayer split screen call of duty modern warfare multiplayer split screen](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qQR3eO9rMAI/maxresdefault.jpg)
Looming over my entire time with multiplayer has been this constant feeling that I am playing the product of one big compromise after another, a game whose makers couldn't agree - at a fundamental level - on what their game can or should be. In every mode, every sub-section and at every opportunity, Modern Warfare makes me feel absurd for having expected meaningful change in the latest entry of the best-selling franchise every year. Modern Warfare's presentation is muddled, its gameplay torn between two opposing design mantras and its commitment to bigger stakes in multiplayer is all a show. Now that I've played the launch version, I can safely say that very little has changed. Though my time with the beta was largely positive, I came across a number of problems that I hoped would be addressed by launch, or altered entirely in order for the game to fit the image it had created for itself. A return to classic rules in one and an introduction of some fresh ideas in another. Modern Warfare’s pre-launch marketing and beta positioned it as a break from the series’ tired formula. I'll admit right off the bat - Call of Duty isn't usually among my most anticipated games each year, but things were looking different this time around. Modern Warfare is the first Call of Duty in years that I wanted to like, but it's impossible to.