Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II brings the series into a new era

Same name, whole new game

The Call of Duty series has seen a lot of changes over the years. With every entry in the series, the franchise evolves in one way or another, especially with three different studios to make their own mark on the series’ legacy. Now with the October 28 release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (not to be confused with the 2009 game with the same name), Activision is looking to overhaul the series by adding a whole host of new features to go along with the reboot, as reported by Polygon.

A new engine

Probably the biggest change coming for Call of Duty is a brand new engine. Because the CoD games are developed separately by three different studios — Sledgehammer Games, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch — Activision wanted to make sure that all of the games moving forward would be created to run on the same unified engine, according to Infinity Ward.

This also makes a lot of sense considering that all three studios are co-developing the new Warzone sequel, and the only way to really do that is if they’re all working from one standard engine across the board. They also said they want to each studio to maintain their own specific voice when it comes to making the mainline games, so it’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out as the series continues to unfold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72GP1PIZa0

Improved AI

Another new promise is improved AI, something that fans have complained about for years when it comes to the games’ campaigns. Infinity Ward said they’ve entirely revamped their AI systems, especially taking inspiration from real world soldiers, as well as Hollywood blockbusters. Those two things kind of sound wildly different to me, but as long as it’s fun to play and the AI doesn’t break my immersion, it’s all good with me.

Returning to Steam

Fans of the series were also pleased to hear a few days ago that Call of Duty is officially returning to Steam with Modern Warfare II on October 28. The games had been previously accessible on PC through Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher, a change that started with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 back in 2018.

Even more gun customization

Gun attachments have been a staple of the Call of Duty experience for a while now, and with Modern Warfare II, we’re going to have more customization options than ever with an upgraded Gunsmith mechanic, making the endgame all the more satisfying.

While in the past, the attachments have had pre-set stats, the plan moving forward is that they will be fully customizable, so players will have even more control over how they want to tweak their build. When it comes to the endgame, you’ll still be able to keep customizing those attachments even after you’ve unlocked them all, making late game content feel more substantial than previous entries in the series.

A fully integrated anti-cheat system

Finally, Activision is addressing the rampant cheating problem that they’ve had to deal with in the series. It got so bad after release, they had to implement an anti-cheat system called Ricochet into both Warzone and the mainline games. This time around, Activision plans to implement Ricochet from the get-go on all of their releases, which will hopefully make for a much more enjoyable experience. No one likes a cheater.