Activision and Tencent are bringing Call of Duty to mobile devices in the West with Call of Duty: Mobile, a free-to-play game that will draw inspiration from the Black Ops and Modern Warfare franchises.
Call of Duty: Mobile is being developed by Tencent’s Timi studio for Android and iOS devices. Activision promises competitive multiplayer modes from the Call of Duty franchise, including Search and Destroy and Free-For-All, on series staple maps like Nuketown, Crash, and Hijacked. Call of Duty: Mobile players will “earn and unlock classic Call of Duty characters, weapons, scorestreaks and other gear to equip and customize their loadouts,” Activision said in a press release.
A peek at those multiplayer modes, maps, and character customization can be seen in the trailer above. Teases for future modes and content, including zombies, are tucked in at the end.
Call of Duty: Mobile was revealed during today’s Unity keynote at GDC. The game will offer a “definitive” Call of Duty experience on mobile, Activision VP of mobile Chris Plummer said in a release. “Together with the amazing team at Tencent, we’re bringing together a collection of the most beloved maps, competitive modes, familiar characters and signature weapons from across this storied franchise into one epic experience for the first time on mobile,” Plummer said.
Players can register for Call of Duty: Mobile at the game’s official website. A public beta is coming this summer in “select regions,” but an official release date was not announced.
Activision is bringing a new Call of Duty game to mobile devices, and now what appears to be the first trailer for the title has come online. The game, which appears to be simply titled Call of Duty: Mobile, is a free-to-play game that promises “heart-pounding, adrenaline-fueled action of Call of Duty with you wherever you go.”
The game features “multiple game modes” across a number of different maps, including popular ones like Nuketown and Crash. According to Activision, the game is “optimised for mobile,” but it’s not exactly clear what that means in practice. At the end of the video, it appears Activision is teasing a battle royale mode, but it’s not confirmed at this stage.
Call of Duty: Mobile also includes weapons and characters from previous Call of Duty games, including Black Ops and Modern Warfare. However, it’s described as a standalone game that is not directly connected to any previous entry.
Activision is making Call of Duty: Mobile with “high-end” phones in mind, but the studio is also working to allow it to be “broadly accessible for as many other devices as well.”
Call of Duty: Mobile is coming to Android and iOS, and you can pre-register now. Signing up gets you access to the opportunity to earn in-game rewards and learn about upcoming beta tests, which are set to begin later this year.
Last year, Activision announced a new Call of Duty mobile game for China that it was developing alongside Tencent. This is that same game, developed by Tencent’s studio Timi, but now it’s being expanded to other regions like North America, South America, Europe, and other places.
Call of Duty: Mobile isn’t the only new Call of Duty title coming this year. This year’s mainline instalment is on the way, and it’s expected to feature a campaign mode which is notable since 2018’s Black Ops 4 left it out. The game is rumoured to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 from developer Infinity Ward, but this is not confirmed.
Since Modern Warfare Remastered is free this month on PlayStation Plus, I decided to revisit some classic Call of Duty. This remake of 2007’s groundbreaking shooter is reminding me how a Call of Duty game can make a loot box system feel more rewarding and less like a money grab.
It’s no secret that as of late, Call of Duty’s Supply Drops have been a nightmare of poor microtransaction choices that have left players feeling either hustled for desired cosmetics or at a disadvantage on the playing field.
2016’s Call of Duty:Infinite Warfare, which initially launched with Modern Warfare Remastered bundled inside its special editions, gave us overpowered weapons that mostly had to be obtained by the luck of Supply Drops. Infinite Warfare didn’t have the cosmetics-only approach of the later games, and players could easily end up losing gunfights to more powerful versions of the gun equipped in their own loadout. Some gun variants could be crafted through currency earned by grinding the game, but there were few options compared to the abundance achieved through the power of luck in Supply Drops.
The next year, Call of Duty: WWII took away the frustrations of stat-based variants, but the game became so flooded with low-end items that the odds were incredibly stacked against you. Sure, you could easily earn Supply Drops by playing and completing daily and weekly challenges, but you still probably weren’t going to get the items you wanted. I was banking about 25-30 Supply Drops a week from doing challenges during WWII’s special events, which earned me more unwanted reticles and pistol grips than anything else.
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Currently, in Black Ops 4, there’s a Fortnite-style tier system for earning gear by simply playing, but there’s a lot of junk items thrown in amongst the top-tier skins and weapons DLC. And now, sought-after items from the latest “Grand Heist” event are hidden by the luck of Supply Drops.
There is a way for loot boxes and satisfying rewards to coexist fairly, and Modern Warfare Remastered proves it. The game contains cosmetics as well as new DLC guns, but there aren’t any overpowered variant weapons, and you can actually choose what items you want to work towards unlocking.
It doesn’t feel completely fair to have DLC weapons added to the grind, but they are all obtainable either by Supply Drop luck or through enough playtime to unlock the desired collection. There will probably always be players who drop cash on COD Points to get more Supply Drops and unlock items faster, but Modern Warfare Remastered’s system allows everyone to have the items within reach without needing to drop any extra dough.
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Separate from COD Points, which cost actual money, there are two currencies easily earned while playing Modern Warfare Remastered. Depot Credits are awarded simply by playing matches, and they can be used to purchase Supply Drops. I typically earn 1-4 Credits per match, and it costs 10 credits for a common and 20 for a rare drop. Parts are the currency used to buy DLC items, and they’re earned through rare Supply Drops or awarded in place of a duplicate item within a Supply Drop.
Modern Warfare Remastered has over 1500 pieces of DLC. Every DLC item is a part of a Collection, and each item has a Parts value. All of the DLC Collections are easily displayed for you to determine which items are worth your time to unlock, and you can calculate how much it will cost to unlock them with Parts. Some Collections are just crammed with fancy gun reticles, so I don’t even worry with those sets. Personally, I prefer to focus on the ones that unlock pretty camos or new weapons, and it’s nice to have the choice.
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Of course, this isn’t a perfect system. Casual players are most hindered by the sheer grind of unlocking all the smaller cosmetic items in a Collection to get to the weapons. The system could easily be improved by adding in extra ways to earn Supply Drops, especially combining WWII’s style of daily and weekly challenges to help out players with limited game time.
Regardless, Modern Warfare Remastered’s system makes loot boxes feel less dirty. I’d much rather work specifically towards items I want than earn a bunch of junk.
PEGI may have taken down a listing for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2Campaign Remastered but its brief appearance, plus the swift removal, probably means it’s on the way. Activision has yet to announce any such thing, though.
It’s more likely that a remastered Modern Warfare 2 would be part whatever the next Call of Duty is — many expect it to be Modern Warfare 4 as it’s Infinity Ward’s turn with the series this year, the last two games were part of the series’ World War II and Black Ops heritage, and the futuristic timeline pretty much ended with Infinite Warfare.
2019 is also the 10th anniversary of Modern Warfare 2’s launch, “No Russian” foofaraw and all. Cole Hamels is still in the league, too, maybe he’ll come back to promote it with another droll P.S.A.
Activision usually announces the next Call of Duty in mid-spring; WWII was revealed in mid-April 2017 and Black Ops 4 got a showcase in May 2018. So we’ll probably find out what’s up then.
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