E3 2015: Changing The Game With ‘Call Of Duty: Black Ops III’
Is it safe to say we can add one thing to the things that are guaranteed in life? Along with death and taxes, an annual Call Of Duty is essentially a given at this point. When approaching an annual franchise such as this, the question that surely comes up is how to make it different from its predecessors while keeping the foundation of the wildly popular title intact. In Call Of Duty: Black Ops III, Treyarch seems up to the challenge, integrating some futuristic tech and insane, new abilities to the battlefield. At E3, we checked out the combat in the campaign to find out how much war has changed this year.
While the Black Ops sub series has typically focused on past wars like Vietnam while the main series shifted from WWII to more futuristic settings, this third game decided to play catch up. Taking place in a ruined future, your squad consists of a cybernetic team of enhanced soldiers with some powerful abilities to combat the army you’re up against. Featuring both split screen and online co-op play, each character can be fully customizable, including character creation options in campaign. Once the appearance is set, the load outs and abilities determine their offensive capabilities, which obviously affect how you approach battles.
On that subject, battle felt so much different compared to past games, Most COD games revolve around shooting, taking cover for about five seconds until your bullet wounds self heal, then pop out of cover to do it all again, with the occasional gadget or heavy weapon to mix things up. In Black Ops III, the team is looking to change that mentality, thanks to what’s being called the Cyber Core. This function allows players to change their abilities, tools and attacks on the fly, some of which are so crazy, you’ll wonder if you’re still playing Call Of Duty! From what we saw, soldiers will be able to remotely hack turrets and drones, point at enemies and make them explode Frieza style, ride mechs, destroy mechs, summon insects to tear enemies apart, sprint across the map to punch people out at high speed, and even drop a spiked disc on foes to rip them to shreds! What game is this again?
With friends being able to join your story combined with all of these new powers, the game had to evolve to compensate as well. One of the most noticeable changes was how big the campaign map on display was. Enemies were pouring out from all sides, making it easy to become overwhelmed. Abusing your new tools is a must, since the fights just seemed to flow so much better when the entire team was pulling their weight. Much more preferable over the typically useless AI, Black Ops III has a real chance of being the game to play with all your friends.
While this is one of the last things I expected coming in, I left feeling like this year’s Call Of Duty has a chance to be one of the biggest surprises of the year. It’s not every day that a long standing franchise changes its features up to such an extent, but I’m hoping that the risk pays off for the folks at Treyarch. Combining the campaign with the return of Zombie Mode and the online multiplayer that we’ve come to expect, and it looks like even the most seasoned soldiers will have to stay on their toes when Black Ops III releases this holiday.
