Home Entertainment ‘Everybody gets their brief moment to shine’ in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

‘Everybody gets their brief moment to shine’ in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

4 min read
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Treyarch’s Call Of Duty games are usually ranked as the very best examples of the franchise. Call of Duty: Black Ops and its sequel introduced a range of mechanics and ideas to the formula, ideas which shaped the franchise for years to come.

This year, Treyarch returns with a third entry into the Black Ops franchise. And it’s a game which now includes new ideas and modes for the popular multiplayer that has defined the series. Including something as simple as swimming; an idea which has a massive impact on the gameplay.

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“We’re really big into this idea about a combat movement system. We’ve been trying to figure out how to put swimming in various Treyarch Call Of Duty games for a while,”studio design director David Vonderhaar explained over at E3 last week.

We’ve had water in levels, right? It’s like this whole universe under the map, that we haven’t been able to explore and what that means for traversing through the play-space.

 

The whole combat movement system in general, was really built for the fast and the fluid nature was built to reward players for moving and navigating through the world. But it’s very risky those moves, you can really be taken down, so risk and reward in the situation.

 

We actually think all those things have to work together: Unlimited sprint, the side-strafe and back-strafe mantles, the thrust-jump, the power slide and swimming. All of those things work in combination to make that system work, it’s not any one of them.

“It’s actually, it’s just cool. Swimming, going under water and having combat 360 degrees around you,” multiplayer game director Dan Bunting added.

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Everything behaves a little different around you, so if you throw a grenade, it has different physics. All of the explosions under water are a little different, there’s a lot of cool factor just in being able to swim.

 

We learned some things about swimming as we were going along and developing the feature, things that just helped with our map design. People are sort of using swimming as an emergent way to combat.

 

You can just drop into the water quickly, to duck out of combat and then you sort of turn the advantage around. If somebody has the advantage above water, you drop into water and you buy yourself some time to set up and get into a better position.

 

So there’s a  lot of emergent mechanics that are coming out of it, it’s just a lot of fun.

The biggest new feature in the game however? Specialists. Nine dedicated characters, each with their own unique ability which can be charged up and used to turn a match around in Call of Duty: Black Ops III. That new class-based system is what will keep the game fresh for regulars and newcomers.

“The Specialist is a brand new combat system, one that fits in the power band between the extreme of the reward system and the scorestreaks and the more traditional class-picked system,” Vonderhaar said.

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So this is a brand new combat system that Dan and I are huge fans of what we call “big chunky meaty gameplay” which is the idea that you can see this character.

 

And by looking at that character, you have a really good idea of what this character is capable of. But it doesn’t make it a class game either, because there’s still picks and there’s still scorestreaks and there’s these really big chunky choices of a weapon or an ability, and those are things  that everybody gets to participate in, because you’re always earning towards it even if you die.

 

So everybody gets their brief moment to shine as a specialist in a match. But it’s not free either, because if you get taken out while using it, it’s over, it’s done for you and you have to earn it again.

 

So the Specialist system is really entertaining for us to work on, and people have been reacting very strongly to it here at E3 with this concept of “Which of these nine people am I going to play as?” and from those nine, “which weapon or ability am I going to choose?”.

“My favourite part about specialists, is something that I wish I could say that we planned it out, but it sort of emerged out of the development process was that each of the specialists gameplay mechanics is really themed around the persona of that character,” Bunting said.

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And as you start to play with them more and more, you actually kind of take on the persona of that character. You start to change the way that you play a match. It’s interesting how it’s kind of really changed the way that people play, based on whatever their favourite Specialists are.

Last Updated: June 23, 2015

29 Comments

  1. Swimming? WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT??

    AMAZING!!

    HAI HAI HAI

    Reply

    • Pariah

      June 23, 2015 at 13:09

      And 4 years later, they can finally test just how advanced that fish ai really is.

      Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      June 23, 2015 at 13:28

      I don’t understand it either… But it’s always been like this, “Oh wow, we have a fish!” Next year “Oh Wow, we have a dog!! Holy mother of all things! He can actually bark! Traverse the terrain, but is simply useless!” Next year “Oh wow, Let’s introduce peeing!!”

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief's Adventure

        June 23, 2015 at 13:59

        You could pee in Postal 2. You could pee on people and make them vomit. You could taze them until they pee themselves

        Reply

        • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

          June 23, 2015 at 14:01

          That…That’s uhm… I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it really, a little disturbed, but it’s still a technical enhancement above that of CoD…

          Reply

        • HvR

          June 23, 2015 at 14:55

          But did they randomize the size of your todger?

          Reply

  2. Hammersteyn

    June 23, 2015 at 13:11

    What is this? Destiny?

    Reply

    • Pariah

      June 23, 2015 at 13:11

      Only if you have to grind for days to get that new shiny pistol for your engineer.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        June 23, 2015 at 13:20

        If the RNG doesn’t screw you over. I was reading about how every class now has a special ability.

        Reply

  3. Pariah

    June 23, 2015 at 13:11

    So CoD is now Team Fortress with Swimming Pools. Great. Any mention of their 5 or 6 hour single player campaign? Any unique hooks there?

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      June 23, 2015 at 13:30

      Yep! As much Deus Ex as you can find anywhere else!

      Reply

    • Dutch Matrix

      June 23, 2015 at 13:43

      Yes. You can romance fish.

      Reply

  4. aj_nator

    June 23, 2015 at 13:20

    Swimming is great and everything but what about the fish AI dammit!

    Reply

  5. Greylingad[CNFRMD]

    June 23, 2015 at 13:25

    Meh if Mehty, Mehck Ops Mehree….

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      June 23, 2015 at 13:35

      EA has Star Wars to work with, why cant Activision do Star Trek O_o

      Reply

      • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

        June 23, 2015 at 13:38

        OMF!! You’ve just blown my mind!! That would be awesome! Well a Star Trek game series…Aaah, that would really be cool…

        Reply

      • Dutch Matrix

        June 23, 2015 at 13:38

        ELITE FORCE!!!!!!!!!!!

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          June 23, 2015 at 13:39

          EXACTLY! Dammit that would actually kick ass

          Reply

  6. Dutch Matrix

    June 23, 2015 at 13:41

    But how big will my virtual dick be??

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      June 23, 2015 at 13:44

      HAHAHAHAHA!!! In this case that might be an issue, as it’d cause drag while swimming through the water!

      Reply

  7. RinceThis

    June 23, 2015 at 13:53

    So more swimming with the fish? BEEN DONE…

    Reply

  8. Ranting Raptor

    June 23, 2015 at 14:01

    The moment you truly shine? When you quit CoD and play a proper FPS……

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      June 23, 2015 at 14:02

      Like DOOM!!

      Reply

      • Ranting Raptor

        June 23, 2015 at 14:02

        Just like that!

        Reply

        • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

          June 23, 2015 at 14:04

          When it comes to FPSs, I think that the return to old school stuff is great, like what they did with Wolfenstein, but judging from that DOOM gameplay, it’s going to be quite amazing….

          Reply

    • Mossel

      June 23, 2015 at 14:27

      Didn’t I see you play CoD:AW the other day? xD

      Reply

      • Ranting Raptor

        June 23, 2015 at 15:17

        Nope. Don’t own it

        Reply

        • Mossel

          June 23, 2015 at 15:26

          Oh crap it wasn’t you! It was Crios, he also has a “Sir” in front of his name. Now it all makes sense.

          Reply

  9. LindaIGarcia

    June 23, 2015 at 14:06

    ….All time hit the lazygamer Find Here

    Reply

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