There’s an endearing earnestness to the world of monster trucks that has the capacity to turn any onlooker into a chuckling, five-year-old child. A purity of purpose, perhaps – if that’s not too weird of a phrase to apply to five-ton, 1500-horsepower, methanol-fuelled rigs that are regularly shaped like cartoon dogs and sharks. Giant, impractical, single-seaters exclusively designed to jump around, squish stuff, and… make people smile. It’s the motorsport equivalent of a kaiju movie.
Monster Truck Championship does a decent job of capturing this world – or, at least, an unlicensed, off-brand facsimile of it. The graphics are pretty rough at times and it’s lean on content, but Monster Truck Championship successfully fuses the over-the-top madness of monster trucks with an accessible, simulation-style approach that makes both the driving experience and pulling off wild stunts quite satisfying.
The first and most crucial piece of the puzzle in any racing game is the handling, and the good news is that it’s actually really good here. Teyon – the Polish team behind 2019’s Terminator: Resistance and 2014’s Rambo: The Video Game – has done well despite a distinct lack of racing games in its back catalogue. The trucks have an excellent sense of bulk, particularly as they squat back on three wheels during drifts, or slap off the ground after landing from huge air.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%20trucks%20have%20an%20excellent%20sense%20of%20bulk%2C%20particularly%20as%20they%20squat%20back%20on%20three%20wheels%20during%20drifts.”]The independent rear-wheel steering – controlled by the right stick – also adds a whole new dimension to the driving, and it’s essential to master it. It’s not just crucial to get your immense truck to make tight turns and perform aggressive donuts, it’s equally handy as a way to reduce the angle of a sketchy drift, or hastily correct a bad landing. The fact that these vehicles are so unlike the light, low, and nimble racing cars that star in most other motorsport sims makes for a fun and interesting change of pace.
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If Monster Truck Championship resembles any other contemporary racing game, it’d be Wreckfest – although not simply because destruction derbies and monster truck rallies share the same sort of spiritual link with Anytown, USA. It’s actually more superficial than that; in fact, scrolling through the menus I’d forgive you for assuming the two games shared a publisher. But they don’t and, as such, the general presentation is a little too derivative.
Progression is pretty plain, as well. Monster Truck Championship spreads its action across three championship tiers, each featuring 10 main events. Unfortunately, there’s not really any difference in the pomp and pageantry associated with any of the leagues; it’s all packed crowds, fireworks, and major stadiums from your debut event. Running events in the “Major League” doesn’t really feel any different from your initial events in the ostensibly entry-level “National League”, especially when you’re returning to the same cities and competing on the same courses. The atmosphere of these major stadium spectaculars may have been more impressive if I’d started my career wowing more modest crowds in small-town showgrounds or local fairs. As it stands, it’s all a bit one-note.
Monster Truck Championship features two types of racing – conventional circuit racing, and drag racing. The racing is fine but it gets a little clumsy when the trucks are too close to each other and a little boring when they’re too spread out. It’s also hampered by utterly broken timing; it’s never clear how far in front you are because the times fluctuate seemingly at random. The drag racing is probably my pick here. They’re not simple, straight-line dashes; rather, they’re tricky and technical 10-to 15-second sprints against an opponent tackling a separate albeit mirrored version of the same course. Drag racing rewards quick reaction times and skilful truck control and I found it quite addictive.
The other events are destruction, which is pretty self-explanatory, and freestyle, which is classic, stunt-centric monster truck mayhem and the highlight of the game for me. This is where Monster Truck Championship becomes Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in a truck, and the amount of different stunts and combos you can execute is surprisingly robust. Somersaults, backflips, wheelies – all kinds of wild stunts are accommodated by the physics here.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=There%E2%80%99s%20a%20surprising%20amount%20of%20scenery%20pop-in%20on%20the%20race%20tracks%20and%20the%20dirt%20and%20dust%20effects%20aren%E2%80%99t%20going%20to%20knock%20any%20socks%20off%20in%202020.”]Just know that it’s not especially pretty – there’s a surprising amount of scenery pop-in on the race tracks and the dirt and dust effects aren’t going to knock any socks off in 2020. Truck detail is largely fine, although the entirely static flags are a dud inclusion – they look quite awful frozen rigid as your truck blazes around the arenas. There’s a decent array of truck bodies but only really a handful of pre-set monikers and themes, which is a shame considering there’s no editor to give your truck a custom name.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a game full of surprises for new players and series veterans alike, but one thing is a constant: The game only really begins when you are free to explore the city at your leisure. The game starts you off in Tokyo’s Kamurocho district (a common location across all Yakuza games) for the first two chapters, but don’t get too comfortable here–it’s basically a big tutorial for learning the basics of combat and exploration. Come Chapter 3, you’ll be dumped in Yokohama’s Isezaki Ijincho region, where the bulk of the game will take place, and in Chapter 4, you’ll become free to explore this sprawling map in full.
But it’s rough: Hero Kasuga Ichiban has barely any money or possessions to his name and needs to work his way up from rock bottom. To help you tackle the opening sections of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, we’ve compiled some tips on how to better make money, get around, and obtain the resources you need to fight some of the more challenging battles that lie ahead.
Just because the battles are turn-based doesn’t mean you won’t be delivering some serious and painful beatdowns! Since your skills are limited early on, you’ll mostly be reliant on the skills of your team’s default jobs, but you should still pay attention when an enemy’s weakness is indicated. There are three types of physical attacks (bash, slash, and pierce) and three types of “magic” damage (fire, water, and electric), and enemies can have a combination of resistances and weaknesses to all of these. Pay attention to the properties of your attacks, and once you find an enemy’s weakness, use similar techniques to hammer away at their health!
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Also, when an enemy is downed, follow up on your next turn with a normal attack as soon as you can! If you wait too long–even just stalling at the command menu–they might get up. Downed enemies cannot counter and will always take critical damage. However, if you use a skill attack on a foe, you won’t get the damage bonus, so it’s best to use skills to get knockdowns, then use normal attacks on downed foes to follow up. (It saves on MP, too!)
Finally, if your character is standing far away from an enemy and you have more than one foe on field, it’s best to use skills to attack them rather than normal strikes — you run the risk of having your target’s buddies interrupt your attack with a counter otherwise. If you’re dealing with a particularly large group of combatants, consider using some AOE skills (indicated by an in-menu target description as “Enemy Area”) to take them down. AOE skills do the most damage when targeting a character who is closely surrounded by his comrades.
Open Up The Pawnshop ASAP
Chapter 4 sees most of Ijincho open up to you, and while exploring is great, you can’t do too much without some yen in your pocket. There are some solid ways to get extra scratch–we’ll get to those in a bit–but they’ll require you to unlock Benten Pawn, which you can find in the commercial district.
Benten Pawn is a great place to sell your unwanted and valuable items for some extra scratch.
When you first walk by this location a little ways into Chapter 4, a cutscene plays where you’ll notice that the store’s entrance is completely blocked by garbage. Come back to the same location a bit later and you’ll see another cutscene, followed by a battle. From this point on, Benten Pawn will be open for business. This will be your hub to sell unwanted and valuable items for a good chunk of the game and is indispensable during the early chapters. You can get some basic gear there, too, which will be useful for the big-time battles near the end of Chapters 4, 5, and most of 6.
Focus on Substories for Early-Game Funds
Most of the low-level punks you’ll be pummeling around at this point in the game don’t reward you much in terms of money, which makes finding alternative means of earning scratch important. While you can scrounge up some change (and occasionally a valuable item to pawn) by “treasure hunting” around vending machines and garbage piles, the most valuable rewards in Chapter 4 come from the handful of substories that are available to discover and complete. In particular, the “Baby Don’t Cry” substory (which becomes available near Otohime Land after completing the mandatory Poundmates substory mid-chapter) rewards you with 20,000 yen in funds–enough for a nice weapon and some additional armor, which you’ll need in order to progress.
Go Bug Hunting!
If you’ve done a bunch of Chapter 4’s available substories but still need some money, why not take a walk in the park? Hamakita park in the northeast part of the map is filled with big, grassy fields where you can find and collect insects. Some of these bugs are surprisingly valuable, too–particularly beetles and scorpions, which can sell for upwards of 1,000 yen each at the pawnshop. A few creepy crawlers you trade in can fund the purchase of an additional piece of basic gear!
Yes, there are scorpions in this park.
If you need a little more spending money, bug collecting can be an easy way to line your pockets. (You can also claim bugs as trade-in prizes from playing the Can Quest minigame, if you prefer.) Just be careful, because Hamakita Park has some high-level enemies roaming around–either do your best to avoid them or run for the hills if you do get into a fight.
Grab Some Basic Gear
Most of the game’s weapon and armor shops will be available starting from Chapter 4, but you’ll find prices in several of them to be way out of your league. For now, stick with getting weapons and armor from Love Magic, Benten Pawn, and Hustle Boutique. The gear is affordable and will help immensely during the climactic battles in this chapter–and even a bit into the next couple of major encounters. You’ll need to be geared up before beginning chapter 4’s climactic battle, so make sure you’re decked out!
Be sure to keep your party outfitted with the proper gear.
Chapter 5: The Hero Everyone Needs
Towards the beginning of Chapter 5, you’ll learn about the Part-Time Hero service, where you can do item-collection and rescue quests to earn items and money. Doing these missions can help bolster your funds significantly at this point. The SOS quests are particularly valuable, as they offer upwards of 10,000 yen and provide rewards immediately rather than having to report to an agent. Most of the fights you’ll get into during these SOS rescues aren’t much harder than your standard encounters, though you may run into a particularly tank-y foe every once in a while, so don’t engage them unprepared.
The SOS quests are particularly valuable, as they offer upwards of 10,000 yen and provide rewards immediately rather than having to report to an agent.
The business management mini-game opens up during this chapter as well. It’s very time-consuming but can yield a lot of additional funds if you’re willing to put the main story on hold for a while. However, as the game progresses and more substories and recruits appear on the streets, the more potential employees and investment opportunities you’ll have, so you might want to wait a couple more chapters before really digging into it.
Start Accumulating Taxi Fast Travel Locations
Taxis act as fast-travel in Yakuza: Like a Dragon–once you’ve used a taxi, you can warp to that point on the map from any other taxi. However, each taxi ride costs 730 yen, meaning that it can be tough to start registering taxi locations in Chapter 4, where the money is tighter. Funds become a bit more readily available come Chapter 5, so wait until then before you start creating your fast-travel taxi network around Ijincho–you’ll be using it plenty later on!
It’s best to wait until Chapter 5 to start establishing your fast-travel network around Ijincho.
Upgrade Your Gear At Romance Workshop
Adachi will introduce you to Romance Workshop during Chapter 5. Here, you can upgrade the potency of certain weapons and gear using the materials you’ve gathered. It’s nice to be able to give your gear some little boosts–however, before you spend the money and materials to do so, you should check to make sure that the upgraded piece will actually outperform anything else you might have equipped or sitting around in your inventory. Also, you can craft several weapon and armor items outright at the workshop, including some extremely potent weapons for jobs that open up during Chapter 5. You might be surprised at how cheap a high-quality crafted weapon can be.
Should You Change Jobs?
You’ll be able to change the jobs of your characters starting around the middle of Chapter 5. While getting a new set of abilities for your team is a fun prospect, keep in mind that all of the new jobs start from level 1 and often require new gear to be purchased. You’ll need to do quite a few battles before the jobs you’d swap to offer as many combat abilities as the ones you’ve been using from the outset, so a bit of grinding for experience is in order.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that the end of Chapter 5 and most of Chapter 6 features a string of challenging battles and dungeon areas that you can’t exit from until they’re done. If your new jobs aren’t properly leveled, you could be in for a very rough time. It may be worth waiting a bit before changing if you’re comfortable with the default team–and also because more job options open up at level 20 and with teammate bonds.
One class change we can recommend at this point is putting Saeko in the Idol job. Idol is a fantastic support class with great healing skills and the ability to lock down enemies with the charm status ailment. It’s also easy to obtain gear to enhance damage and status-affliction odds for the Idol. This job will be useful right away and only get better over time, plus Saeko won’t suffer from the switch-over as much as the other party members at this point.
Raise Your Party Bond Levels ASAP
From Chapter 5 onward, you have a four-person party, and you’ll be earning a lot more bond points for your crew from eating out, fighting battles, playing mini-games, and engaging in party conversations. However, in order to “uncap” each bond level, you’ll need to go back to the Survive bar and have a conversation with your teammate once your bond points reach a certain threshold. If you don’t do this ASAP, bond points that could go toward building another level will simply go to waste, so it’s best to hightail it to the bar when you see your buddies’ bond gauges stuck at the lock.
To “uncap” a party member’s bond level, you’ll need to go back to the Survive bar and have a conversation with them once your bond points reach a certain threshold.
Adachi and Saeko can both be leveled up to level 5–the maximum–fairly quickly this way. Once they are at max level, new tag-team skills will open up for both of them, giving you more options in battle. Namba, unfortunately, can’t be advanced past level 2 until a certain story event, but you may as well advance your other two teammates as far as you can early on.
Be Prepared For Chapter 6
The end of Chapter 5 begins when you leave through Jinnai Station for the second time. This will begin a very long stretch where you will have several challenging fights alongside a very lengthy dungeon crawl. You won’t be able to return to town for a while once events are in motion, so be sure you’re adequately geared and stocked up before you buy that train ticket. (And maybe make an extra save file, too!)
Mortal Kombat 11 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S along with Kombat Pack 2, featuring Rain, Milenna, and Rambo. Now Netherealm has announced that from November 17, when the next-gen upgrade hits for current system owners, all Xbox and PlayStation players will be able to fight each other regardless of what console (or konsole, if you prefer) they’re on.
On this date, they promise, Kross Play becomes “Kross Generation”. This means that if you own the game on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, or Xbox One, you will be able to fight against players on all of these other systems. Kasual matches and “designated online rooms” will allow for total cross-console, cross-generation fights.
This feature will not be available for the PC and Switch versions, unfortunately.
On Nov 17, Krossplay will become Kross Generation for Playstation & Xbox players. Toggle the feature in settings to play Casual matches w/ players on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series XIS, & Xbox One, as well as in designated Online Rooms. This feature will not be available on Switch or PC. pic.twitter.com/kDWMz5mUG9
The retail version of Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate won’t be out until January, but the game will be available digitally from November 17. If you own the game on the previous system within the same console family, you can upgrade for free–but you’ll still need to buy any DLC you don’t have.
Shenmue III came out on PS4 and the Epic Games Store on November 19, 2019, continuing a saga that began almost 20 years earlier on the Sega Dreamcast. Now, a year after that, players who have been waiting for the game to release on Steam will finally be able to play it.
The game, which was exclusive to Epic for a year, will come to Steam on November 19, 2020. Shenmue III’s rollout onto PC was pretty messy, with some Kickstarter backers claiming refunds instead of taking codes for Epic or waiting a year.
This means that players who backed the game’s Kickstarter and then opted to accept a Steam code instead of an Epic code will be able to play the game soon. In a new update, Ys Net reports that codes for the game and in-game rewards will be available just before release. “Applicable backers will be able to claim their codes through the ‘Downloads and Download Codes’ section of your survey,” the update says.
The game is still not available on Xbox or Switch, although Xbox One owners can purchase the first two games, both of which are available on the console.
This might not be the end for Shenmue, with director Yu Suzuki still intending to make Shenmue 4. The third game received a 5/10 from GameSpot, although many hardcore fans of the series were happy to see series hero Ryo Hazuki return.
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For the first time ever, an OLED TV has reached a price that’s within mortal reach. Best Buy has a 55″ OLED TV for $899.99. You absolutely will not find a better, less expensive OLED deal that this one. That’s not all that’s new this week. The Apple Airpods Pro have dropped yet again to a new price low. The Apple Watch SE discount has been extended to all colors. And the super popular Calvin and Hobbes hardcover box set has dropped in price only the second time this year (it’s almost sold out). Check these deals out and the rest of the top ten Black Friday deals below.
#1: Vizio 55″ 4K OLED Smartcast TV for $899.99
To see this price, you need to log into your My Best Buy Members account (free to join)
This is a HUGE discount on a recently released 2020 OLED TV. It’s a full $500 cheaper than LG’s 55″ OLED TV and the lowest price we’ve ever seen for any OLED TV. OLEDs have the best image quality out of any TV, and if price has been the only thing that’s shied you away, this will change your mind.
To see this price, you need to log into your My Best Buy Members account (free to join)
#2: Apple AirPods Pro Noise Cancelling Earphones for $194.99
This is the lowest price we’ve seen for the excellent active noise cancelling variant of the AirPods, so if you’ve somehow held out this long, now might be your time.
Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.
Fans of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) have reason to celebrate as there are multiple AEW games in development.
As reported by HeelByNature, AEW’s Tony Khan confirmed that an AEW console game is in the works alongside another that will let players take the role of a general manager.
“We’re making multiple games, we’re working on more than one game” Khan stated. “We’re going to cater to different platforms, we’re going to cater to different kinds of games, and different interests. We’ll put a title out that’s a console game, that is best in class, we’re really excited about it, there’s some’s [sp] big surprises to come in 2020, I just can’t say that enough, there’s still time in 2020.”
In August 2020, AEW quietly launched a Facebook page named All Elite GM that was quickly changed to AEW Games. The following month, AEW filed the trademarks for both All Elite Wrestling General Manager and Elite GM. These were “filed for use in game software, including mobile phones, handheld computers, and mobile gaming devices.”
“We’re going to put something out that’s for those people like myself, who love putting wrestling cards together,” Khan said of the GM game. “It will allow somebody to do the job I do, be the General Manager of AEW, handbook cards.”
These comments were made prior to the launch of AEW Games on November 10, 2020, at 6pm ET on YouTube.
While it may be a little bit until you can play a AEW wrestling game, WWE 2K Battlegrounds recently released and features some of the most iconic wrestlers of all-time battling it out in an arcade-style game.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
A new update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the battle royale game Warzone is coming very soon, and it sounds like it will make some welcome changes. [Update: the patch is now live, and you can see the patch notes below]
Starting off, the update shrinks the file size of Modern Warfare and Warzone by around 25GB on each platform, Infinity Ward’s Paul Haile said on Twitter. Players will be able to download high-resolution textures, but these will be optional. And on PC, a new option is being added that gives you the ability to stream high-resolution assets dynamically, Haile said.
In addition to these changes, the update for Modern Warfare and Warzone includes the first upgrades for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Haile did not share any details on these improvements, however, but this should all become clear very soon.
The full patch notes are available now, and they also mention various bug fixes across modes. Additionally, a new Private Warzone mode is now available in beta. Players can invite friends for a private Warzone experience across battle royale, plunder, and mini royale. You can see the full patch notes down below, as shared by Infinity Ward on their website.
tonight’s update will shrink the size of MW/WZ considerably on all platforms (25+ GB). if you’re interested in high resolution textures, they’ve been moved to a new high res pack for consoles. on PC a new option has been added to stream high res assets dynamically, if desired.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare/Warzone November 9 Patch Notes
PLAYLIST UPDATE:
MODERN WARFARE:
Ground War
Gunfight
TDM Snipers Only
Hardpoint Hills and Kills
Shipment 24/7
Shoot House 24/7
WARZONE:
BR Solos, Duos, Trios, Quads
Plunder Trios
PRIVATE WARZONE
We’re excited to launch a beta version of Private Warzone matches! This requires various player counts to start the match and we have three modes available:
BR – 50 players required to start (also has squad variations)
Plunder – 30 players required to start (also has squad variations)
Mini BR – 24 players required
Please share any bugs you encounter along with your feedback!
GENERAL FIXES:
Fix for a bug where, when reviving a fallen teammate as the round ends in Survival, users can become stuck in third person
Fixed an issue where some players were seeing the error code: “HK:s=373408m=54293536:10635584”
Fix for the Gaz Operator challenge where players are unable to complete the first objective in the Season 4 Gaz Operator Bundle Mission “win 3 Gulag fights as Gaz”
Fix for an issue where officer challenges 90 – 100 have been resetting after completion, preventing players from getting the last Season 6 Emblem
In the Safehouse Finale of SP, at the Killstreak Chopper checkpoint, when using the zoom button the camera will zoom in and out
Players using the Juggernaut will not hear the drilling audio when hit by the Phlembotomizer throwing knife. This has been fixed
Fixed a bug where the player could have the Spotter Scope effect when not ADSing with it by picking up 2 weapons while looking with the scope
Fixed a bug where helicopters could spin and float in the air after progressing in Survival
Fixes to help prevent players from going AFK in Gunfight
LMGs, Sniper Rifles, and Marksmen Rifles will now rotate as intended in Gunfight
Fix for an issue where players that die right before an HQ is disabled and watch the full killcam do not spawn in as intended
WEAPONS:
M4 Tombstone: Fix for a bug where adding the .458 SOCOM or the 9mm Para 32-Round Mags removes them from the weapon model
Tracer Pack: Sakura Edition- Maruyama – The dynamic icon appears to have a minor gap between the barrel and body of the weapon when the Compensator is equipped on the FTAC 13.5″ Compact barrel. This has been fixed
PC:
To help with patch sizes and disk space, high-resolution textures will now be downloaded while playing, using On-Demand Textures Streaming:
On-Demand Textures Streaming is located in the Options, under the Graphics tab and in the Details & Textures section.
It will only kick-in for users playing with Texture Resolution set to High.
It streams textures for Operators and Weapons.
You can control the daily texture streaming limit and the size of your cache
Fix for a bug where a Premium user with only Warzone installed, can select a trial on a MP map, which can result in a crash
Fix for a bug where PC players were able to select a custom loadout in Snipers Only
Fixes for an issue where some Activision account names were being applied to different profiles in the friends list
Survival mode now has its own DLC package. To access Survival, a player has to install both Special Ops and Survival
WARZONE:
Fixes to help fight against weapon corruption while in Spectator mode
The gas from the Gas Grenade can sometimes obscure or completely hide players from thermal scopes
Fixed an exploit near the Lozoff Pass Metro Station
Armored Royale: Fixed a bug where dropping a truck redeployment flare into the service entrance of the subway can cause the truck to parachute underground
While in Plunder, players parachutes will now auto deploy to help prevent against exploits
Fix for an exploit with the Durable Gas Mask
Fixed an audio bug where no overheat audio was playing when using the minigun on the helicopter
When the player is using Bumper Ping as their button layout, the player will be unable to switch between the Gas Grenade and EMP Blast, resulting in them only able to use the gas grenade. This has been fixed
When sitting in passenger seat of a helicopter and using the minigun, priming a lethal while simultaneously switching seats will break the players viewmodel. This has been fixed
Fix for a bug where players are unable to equip other War Tracks after selecting “Random”
Removed Juggernauts from Bunker puzzles
Due to their popularity, Modern Warfare and Warzone will continue to receive new updates when Black Ops Cold War launches on November 13. In fact, the games will become more closely connected than ever before, as there will be “synchronized” XP and leveling across each game, so progress you make in one title applies to the others.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the latest game in Ubisoft’s open-world series, and it’s available on a wide range of platforms, spanning current and next gen. But what kind of improvements can you expect to see if you play it on Xbox Series X vs. Xbox One X?
The video above demonstrates some of the benefits of upgrading to the next-gen version–which you’ll get access to for free by purchasing the Xbox One version (the same is true with the PS4 and PS5 versions). We start out by showcasing the improved visuals, including the impressive lighting and shadow effects you’ll enjoy on Series X. From there, we take a look at load times, specifically as we fast travel to England. On Series X, this takes 17 seconds, whereas the same task takes more than four times as long to complete on Xbox One.
You can watch the video for much more on what to expect between the two versions, and be sure to check out GameSpot for our full Assassin’s Creed Valhalla review and much more next-gen coverage.
The Call of Duty franchise is in a unique position currently with multiple games in the franchise–Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare–continuing to perform very well, and a third, Black Ops Cold War, scheduled for release very soon (and this is to say nothing of Call of Duty Mobile which is hugely popular, too). Due in part to the gigantic success of the free-to-play battle royale game Warzone, Activision is introducing a new “synchronized” levelling system where XP and levels apply to all three games.
We recently had the chance to speak with Black Ops Cold War lead designer Tony Flame about this new approach where earning XP in one game applies to all three, and he shed some light on why and how Black Ops will become baked into Warzone.
“Warzone is a 2020 game. It’s not even a year old; it’s barely half a year old. And people are still really highly engaged with it,” Flame said. “So we didn’t want to be splitting players with a game that wasn’t even a year old and has a lot of steam. So we decided to double down on Warzone and make our battle royale experience for Cold War within Warzone. So you’re going to have Cold War guns, you’re going to have a Cold War story.”
The “explosion” wording is intriguing given that the ongoing rumor is that a nuke will explode in Warzone and the game will re-launch with an updated Cold War-style map. This is not confirmed for now, but it’s an intriguing thought.
The idea to earn XP in one game that applies to all three was the only way forward, Flame said, and there was already precedent for it with Modern Warfare and Warzone sharing progression.
“When we realized that people were going to be coming and going between both games, there just wasn’t any other solution to it,” Flame said. “We had to incentive people to play, and it was already there. The precedent was already set with Modern Warfare and Warzone, so we had to meet that precedent. And it was a lot of work.”
There will be cross-game challenges, Flame said, and these posed a technical challenge for the developers. Additionally, weapons can be used across games, and this poses some interesting challenges and considerations, given Black Ops Cold War is set in the ’80s and Modern Warfare and Warzone take place in the current day.
Warzone is a playpen of sorts where the three games combine.
“In Warzone you have Modern Warfare guns and Cold War guns. And they have different attachments; they might even have different level counts,” Flame said. “So all of these we had to account for, but at the end of the day, what the player gets is a continuous experience whether they’re working on their battle pass and unlocking things, they’re going to be unlocking that content across games, and they can play whatever game they want. So what it really feels like is you’re just getting more Call of Duty.”
It’s been reported that Warzone will not change game engines when Black Ops Cold War becomes integrated into it in December. I asked Flame directly if there would be an engine change, and his wording suggests there won’t be. “Warzone will be a continuous experience for players with Black Ops layered into it,” Flame said.
What this means in practice is not immediately clear. Given what we’ve learned from the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer beta, the game has different systems than Modern Warfare/Warzone–for example, you cannot open doors or mount weapons in Black Ops Cold War. Here’s to hoping we learn more about the integration soon.
