Expect larger, more open campaign levels in Call of Duty: Ghosts
"You may find yourself in a mission or two where we don't tell you where to go."
Expect larger, more open campaign levels in Call of Duty: Ghosts than in previous games in the series, Infinity Ward has said.
The shooter is known for its linear single-player, with narrow levels funneling players along what are essentially interlinked corridors. Ghosts, though, takes a different approach.
"It was important for the design team to take into account a lot of the feedback we received for our previous projects," Infinity Ward community manager Tina Palacios told Eurogamer.
"We even looked to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare for the pacing. In other games it's usually 11 across the board. It's always intense. But for this one we wanted to change the pacing of it.
"We also focused on feedback we received in terms of people feeling like they were going down just one corridor. So we wanted to add a variety in terms of the way you felt when you were playing the game."
Without wanting to spoil the story, Palacios added: "One thing I can tease is you may find yourself in a mission or two where we don't tell you where to go, where you don't feel like there's a pathway to follow, and you sometimes feel completely lost."
Elsewhere, Ghosts will emphasise stealth more so than previous Call of Duty games. One level already shown off, Federation Day, highlights this, with players abseiling down a skyscraper before sneaking around inside the interior.
But, according to Palacios, stealth is just one option available to players. "We wanted to add more stealth missions," she said, "but at any time, if players don't want to go into stealth they can just break it and go crazy."
Story-wise, Ghosts is set in an all new universe 10 years after a catastrophic event decimates North America.
You play Logan, who alongside his brother Hesh and dog Riley fight back against The Federation, a South American group and the world's new superpower.
At a recent event in London, Palacios unveiled new story details, as well as demoing the game's Odin mission, which reveals how the catastrophic event came to be.
According to Ghosts' backstory, North America creates a weapon in space called the Orbital Defence Initiative (ODIN). It contains huge rods that are dropped onto the earth, causing the same blast power as a nuclear weapon but without the radiation. ODIN was created to protect the US from threats. This plan backfires.
"You may find yourself in a mission or two where we don't tell you where to go, where you don't feel like there's a pathway to follow, and you sometimes feel completely lost."
Infinity Ward community manager Tina Palacios
THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD.
In the ODIN mission you play an astronaut maintaining the installation when it is attacked by The Federation. All hell breaks loose, you fire a rifle in space and kill some bad guys before the rods are fired on US cities. You and an astronaut pal do your best to minimise the devastation by destroying ODIN - and, in the process, yourself.
After the mission the game jumps ahead 10 years, and we join Logan and Hesh, who have grown up in this changed, devastated, North America. "This is a first for us," Palacios said. "We've never really given an origin story to our characters before, but we really wanted to go for it this time around."
The pair are members of the Ghosts, a small squad that leads the resistance against The Federation. The secretive team operate behind enemy lines, hence the masks and face paint. They pose the biggest threat to The Federation, and eventually become a beacon of hope to US citizens.
