Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) is shaping up to be much more than a simple reboot of the 2007 first-person shooter. In a post on the official PlayStation blog, Infinity Ward revealed new details on the game’s multiplayer mode. Taken together, it’s clear that this franchise is setting up to be a hardcore military shooter, not the arcade-style game of years past.
The most surprising new detail is that Modern Warfare will launch with keyboard and mouse support for modern consoles, raising the bar for accuracy on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It’s a necessary change, considering that the game will support cross-platform play between consoles and PC when it launches on Oct. 25. For fairness, players who play with mouse and keyboard will only be matched with other players using the same set-up, regardless of their platform.
A so-called “Realistic mode” is also being added. Developers say it will strip away most of the heads-up display, and take away audio and visual cues showing when players land a hit. The result, they say, is a multiplayer experience “bordering on survival-horror.”
Weapons will also function very differently this time around. Each will have between 30 and 60 different modifications, including alternate barrels, optics, and grips. But along with that flexibility comes drawbacks. Rifles piled high with mounds of accessories will be more cumbersome to use, meaning a greater time delay when aiming down the gunsights.
Doors will also have multiple interactions. Each one will be analog, allowing players to open them slowly and fluidly or burst through them at a run. Breaching charges will also be available, giving you the option to shock or stun those hiding on the other side. The addition of weapon mounting, which allows players to brace themselves against nearby surfaces, is also being included in multiplayer.
The entire post is well worth a read. Combined with changes to the size of maps, which are said to support between four and 100 players, Modern Warfare appears to be narrowing the gap between twitch-based FPS games and more methodical milsim games like Arma 3. We’ll know more after the multiplayer beta, which rolls out across multiple platforms starting on Sept. 12.