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What's new with Call of Duty: Ghosts?
In keeping to its iconic, explosive and fast-paced first-person shooter gameplay and adding new features with each iteration, the Call of Duty fanbase has only grown larger and larger each year to make it one of the best-selling franchises it is today.
This year's Call of Duty title, Call of Duty: Ghosts, has been developed by Infinity Ward on their latest next-gen engine. As is widely known since its unveiling back in May, Infinity Ward's next-gen engine will provide a stunning and much higher fidelity of visuals, animations, audio and performance for the game while maintaining the fluidity and speed of 60 frames per second that the series is well-known for. Ghosts' Story campaign was scripted by Oscar-Winning writer, Stephen Gaghan and is bound to impress (especially with the addition of Riley the Dog as your squad member), while the online Multiplayer will feature more guns, killstreaks and perks. And there will also be a new contextual lean feature, new knee-sliding and mantling animations and some new dynamic map-changing elements in the online Multiplayer.
Most of the above is almost to be expected, however, given that we tend to see a similar measure of improvements and new changes to Call of Duty titles each year without diverging too much from the core gameplay mechanics. So the question is really, what are the newest and biggest changes that Call of Duty: Ghosts will be bringing to make the entire franchise feel fresh again in the wake of next-gen gaming?
Dedicated Servers Are Finally Here
First and foremost, the biggest change coming to Call of Duty: Ghosts by far is definitely the new and long-awaited dedicated server support across all platforms. The Call of Duty series has long depended on Player-to-Player (P2P) servers for matchmaking and player-hosted sessions, which was still arguably more than good enough for older Call of Duty titles up to and including Modern Warfare 2. As the community continued to grow and more complex features such as Theatre Mode have been added to more recent Call of Duty titles, however, developer tweaks to networking and lag compensation have not been able to completely eliminate the lag experienced by many players online and fans (past and present) of the series have long since pleaded for much better matchmaking and server network support.
Dedicated server support in Ghosts is looking to be the best solution to the laggy player-hosted server issues many of us will have experienced throughout the current-gen Call of Duty titles. This should hopefully and finally provide a much better and unhindered experience for all players online.
Create Your Own Soldier
Call of Duty: Ghosts expands upon the traditional "Create-A-Class" system with many more options to customise the appearance of your Soldier as well. Players will now be able to choose different heads, body-types and even the gender for up to ten preset soldier classes so far, along with the gear, skill and weapon loadouts. In addition to this, each of the created soldiers will also have their own individual maximum level progression, ranking and ability to prestige, which will definitely provide much more progressive replay value in the online Multiplayer modes.
New and Improved AI System
The core AI mechanics in Ghosts have been drastically changed to improve realism in the game both for the human AI soldiers and of course, the Fish AI. Jokes aside though, rather than simply attempt to increase or decrease the difficulty level like in many past Call of Duty and shooter titles, the Infinity Ward developers have opted to completely upgrade the human AI so that they will often act like real human Call of Duty players who perform dropshots, jump-shots and even camp in the corner among many other player tactics we know and love from Call of Duty Multiplayer. Whether you see this is as truly innovative to the game or just plain annoying, it is certainly a creative way to make playing against the Bots much more immersive, great for practice and hopefully more interesting and believable for the story campaign too if these new mechanics work well.
Squads
Borne from the extensive new Soldier customisations and the revamped human-like AI, the Call of Duty: Ghosts Squads brings together the best of both worlds in a brand new Multiplayer playlist. Your squad will consist of your uniquely customised soldiers that will be controlled by the AI and play on your team. This is just like partying up with friends except that you will have total control of what loadout and skills (or perks) that they each equip and which particular Soldiers you want to play for your team. Squad Mode shares the same levelling up system as the online Multiplayer and supports most game modes from the standard Multiplayer playlist (such as Team Deathmatch, Domination and Kill Confirmed).
The Squads playlist will have four of its own main game modes so far. These include:
War Games
In War Games, you and your squad or up to 5 friends will rally up and play against the AI Bots. You will be able to pick your squad members, control the difficulty of the AI and strategically change the loadouts of your squad to suit whatever type of map and game mode you choose to play. This would make for great practice games and just plain fun similar to the Combat Training mode in previous Call of Duty titles.
Safeguard
Safeguard is a new take on "Survival" mode from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. You will be able to play with up your actual friends as you attempt to fight and survive through waves and waves of enemies that become more and more difficult after each each round. This four-player co-op survival does not share the exact same mechanic of earning currency to purchase weapons and upgrades, but instead allows you to call in a friendly AI squad member for support throughout the game.
Squad vs Squad
Like the name suggests, Squad vs Squad enables you to test the skills of you and your squad against another player and their squad. This is essentially a 1v1 mode where your team mates are the AI-controlled soldiers and the outcome of the match is predominantly determined by how well each player has prepared and outfitted their respective teams for battle.
Squad Assault
Squad assault is an interesting new game mode that allows players to battle against another team's AI-controlled squad while they are away or offline - a real Ghost Squad if you will (pun not intended). This mode can be played in two ways: either forming a team of six players to challenge another player's AI squad, or being the defending team and having six of your hand-picked AI squadmates defend your chosen map and game mode while you are away.
As the attacking team, you can choose to play with your friends or with your squad as you battle it out against the Ghost AI team. The Squad Assault game mode will have its own matchmaking so that players can go in and randomly challenge another player's AI squad or even come in with friends and challenge people from your Friends List. Squad Assault sounds like it could be a tonne of fun to play and if the defending squad can successfully fend off the attackers then they could gain some good experience too. And to make things just a tad more interactive, the offline player will even get a notification when someone is attacking their squad too (most likely via the new Call of Duty App).
Call of Duty App and Elite Integration
The new Call of Duty App for mobile and tablet devices will allow you to stay connected to Call of Duty: Ghosts and engage in new experiences wherever you go. It will include some of the best and most popular features from Call of Duty Elite, including the ability to check your character stats, manage your clan and also track your friend's and any rival stats. You can even communicate via the new Rally Up and Clan Chat features to keep in touch with friends and clan members.
In addition to this, the second-screen functionality also aims to make interaction with your Call of Duty game much faster and more efficient. For instance, before starting a match you will be able to edit your squad, loadout and soldier customisations through the Call of Duty App, which could definitely make everything much easier to tweak and set up. Meanwhile, during a match you can have one-touch access to swap loadouts for your next spawn, and these are only a few examples of how the Call of Duty App has been designed to enhance your experiences in-game and not get in the way of playing.
The Call of Duty App will replace Call of Duty Elite in all its functions for Clan Management, support and interaction with Call of Duty: Ghosts. Call of Duty Elite will still support the current gen Call of Duty titles including Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 2, but it will then be phased out during early 2014.
Clans, Clan Wars and eSports Initiatives
Centred around the new Call of Duty App, Clan Wars is the brand new 24/7 clan-specific playlist that connects directly to the Call of Duty: Ghosts Multiplayer and is set to replace the popular League Play from Black Ops 2. It has been designed so that established clans can specifically compete against one another for additional XP and in-game content while playing from any and all popular game modes in the Clan vs Clan playlist, or in the exclusive new Clan Wars mode where seven evenly-matched clans attack and defend different locations in the Call of Duty App to earn Clan XP and even more in-game rewards.
Existing Clans are currently required to re-register their clan on the official Call of Duty: Ghosts website in order to reserve their clan name before the Call of Duty App is launched alongside Ghosts on November 5th. Clan Leaders will have until October 25th to do so in the early registration period on a first come - first serve basis, otherwise any clan will be able to take and use that name after release. For more details on Clans, Clan Wars and the Call of Duty App integration, check out the official FAQs released by Activision in this link.
This new dedicated clan support will be a very welcome addition for many existing clans and players, especially due to how much of Call of Duty's focus on teamwork, eSports and competitive gaming has grown throughout the years. Ghosts will still continue to heavily support eSports initiatives with the official Call of Duty Championship returning in 2014 and with Major League Gaming (MLG) Circuit events expected to begin in Columbus during November this year.
Strike Packages Make A Comeback
Taking Ghosts back to the recent Modern Warfare roots, Infinity Ward will re-introduce Strike Packages as the main, fast-paced chain-kill and Pointstreak system from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Just like its IW predecessor, players will be able to use one of three Strike Packages (Assault, Support or Specialist) and activate up to three killstreak bonuses with points accumulated and awarded based on the number of consecutive kills and objective gameplay.
Have a look in this thread for a list of the confirmed killstreaks so far. As a summary for those who did not play or do not remember the killstreak system from Modern Warfare 3:
Assault
The Assault Strike Package suits aggressive players the most, offering more hostile and damaging Pointstreaks the more consecutive kills a player can make without dying. Some of these Pointstreaks will include the return of the I.M.S, a Guard Dog, plenty of air support and the new Juggernaut Maniac.
Support
Defensive and more objective-type players can enjoy more support-based Pointstreaks and reinforcements in the Support Strike Package. Along with making kills, extra points can be awarded for specifically attacking or defending objectives, which can then activate Pointstreaks such as Ballistic Vests, the Box of Guns, Ground Jammer (EMP), Support Squadmate and the Juggernaut Recon. For Support players, points from killtreaks will still carry over after death as well.
Specialist
The Specialist Strike Package is extremely simple and provides a great challenge and setup for the more lone-wolf style players. Although we do not know the exact details of how this will specifically work in Ghosts yet, back in Modern Warfare 3 players started with only the basic loadout and every two kills awarded an extra Perk that stacked up on top of the ones they had already equipped, whereby reaching a certain amount of kills unlocked all perks to use for their convenience. These extra perks then stayed with the player until he (or she) died in the match and their Pointstreak was reset.
The SAT COM Killstreak
Aside from having some new killstreaks in the Strike Packages, another slight change in Call of Duty: Ghosts is the replacement for the popular UAV killstreak present in most Call of Duty titles past. Instead of a UAV, a new ground-based SAT COM will act in the same way to detect and sweep the presence of enemies every few seconds. Having more stacked SAT COMs activated in your team will also increase its effectiveness and frequency of the radar sweeps.
A New Perks System
Call of Duty: Ghosts will offer 35 different perks from seven overarching skill groups to pick and enhance certain abilities for your player, like in previous Call of Duty titles. With the new Perk System, each perk will have its own individual base value in each of the skill groups that can then be mixed and matched to suit everyone's playstyle. Every player will have a total of 8 points to spend on these perks, which can also be increased to 11 points if they choose not to equip a secondary weapon or equipment.
As for the actual perks themselves, although many of them have carried over from previous Call of Duty titles in one form or another, there are still a few new perks that are unique to Ghosts' Multiplayer. Below is a quick summary of the perks in each of the overarching skill groups. For a full list of the actual Perks available in Ghosts, have a look in this thread here.
Speed Perks allow players to move quickly through the environment.
Handling Perks improve the player’s weapon handling abilities.
Stealth Perks enable players to move through the environment undetected.
Awareness Perks improve a player’s situational awareness and ability to detect enemy equipment.
Resistance Perks enhance a player’s ability to withstand damage and regenerate health faster.
Equipment Perks allow players to hold extra equipment, attachments and ammunition.
Elite Perks are sort of like wildcard perks that allow you to equip two primary weapons or offer the chance do more weapon damage when you are on a higher killstreak.
More Variety, More Fun
Along with the addition of Squads, Infinity Ward will introduce a host of other new and returning Multiplayer game modes to Ghosts on top of the standard Team Death match and Domination playlists. Among the few popular returning ones are Infected and Kill Confirmed, which were both first introduced into the series in Modern Warfare 3. Below are some general details about some of the new game modes coming to Ghosts Multiplayer plus two other modes known as Grind and Hunted which are yet to be fully revealed.
Blitz
Blitz is a fast-paced objective-based game mode where the goal is to breach the other team’s goal line while defending your own. Similar to Capture The Flag in spirit, once a team reaches the opposing team's portal and scores a point, the scorer will be teleported back to a different section of the map and the opposing team's goal will then be immune from breach for 10 seconds. Both teams will play a total of two rounds and each of those rounds will end when 10 minutes are up or when one side scores 8 points.
Cranked
Cranked is a new level of Team Deathmatch where getting a kill can give you new abilities. Those new abilities, however, are tied to a countdown timer and the player must keep up their killstreak in order to stay alive or else they will explode. In this hectic game mode, players not only end up competing against the competition, but also against the clock to survive and win.
Extinction
Extinction is rumoured to be Infinity Ward's new take on the classic Zombies Mode present in past Call of Duty titles developed by Treyarch. Only instead of zombies, Extinction will apparently have up to four players fight against aliens from outer space with similar concepts of survival, weapon upgrades and gameplay to Treyarch's Zombies. In addition, there will also be another mode that is likely to be objective-based and actually have an ending (as opposed to the horde-wave survival modes we are most familiar with in Call of Duty).
If this is indeed revealed to be true, then Extinction should undoubtedly provide a fresh new experience in the survival-genre if Infinity Ward can pull it off well for Call of Duty: Ghosts. Especially with the prospect of facing new types of enemies and different environment and setting altogether.
Search and Rescue
Search and Rescue is a new take on the classic Search & Destroy game mode combined with concepts from Kill Confirmed. The rules and gameplay are still very much the same as Search & Destroy, except that when a player is killed they will now drop a dog tag and can be revived if a team mate manages to pick up said tag. It is an interesting twist to a very hardcore and popular game mode and one that could become popular for those who love Search & Destroy but may not always enjoy becoming a spectator the rest of a match if they have been killed.
It's almost here...
Activision and Infinity Ward are clearly making some great improvements to ensure that Call of Duty series can continue stand up on its own against other other big titles and shooters during this special transition to next-gen consoles. Though the core gameplay is still expected be more or less the same as its predecessors, the brand new dedicated server support for Ghosts across all platforms is a huge step in the right direction for the franchise while the overhauled AI system, clan support, new game modes and the whole concept of Squads will be able to provide some fresh new and enjoyable experiences with friends and AI for both online and offline play.
Call of Duty: Ghosts will be released from November 5th on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U, from November 22nd for the Xbox One and on November 15th and 29th for the PlayStation 4 in North America and Europe respectively. These are exciting times for all gamers yet.
Author: I_live_4_fun
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. Those new game modes sound right interesting. Search and Rescue has a tonne of tactical potential, and will reward smart team-play 
. Blitz and Cranked sound crazy fun 
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