Activision's announcement for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has come and gone, but outside of a flashy trailer, it delivered very little in the way of hard information. Thankfully, a weekend release from the publisher helped shed a little bit of light on things.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Coming to Xbox 360, One, PS3, PS4, PC... but not Wii U?
As the trailer alluded to, one Mr. Jonathan Irons, CEO of the world's largest private military corporation, Atlas, is the game's central antagonist, played by Kevin Spacey. Spacey and his Atlas employees have struck out against the U.S. government, believing them to be too weak as the guiding force in the modern world of 2054. Especially after some cataclysmic "global attack on its military and infrastructure" has left the government "struggling to rebuild." Sound familiar?
Spacey unfortunately had little to offer on the character, saying only, "It's been a lot of fun working with the team to bring Jonathan Irons to life. The technology is truly remarkable and unlike anything I've done before. I'm excited to see where this goes."
We also learned that Advanced Warfare marks the first game in the Call of Duty franchise to have been created with a three-year development cycle, and the first with developer Sledgehammer Games at the helm. While Sledgehammer had worked on Modern Warfare 3, it did so in tandem with Infinity Ward.
Xbox Owners Will Be Getting The Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare DLC First...Again
With the game being set 40 years in the future, there's a delightful amount of next-gen toys the soldiers of tomorrow will get to play with: helicopters sporting light bending camoflauge, exo-suits allowing for bounding leaps and tremendous displays of strength, holographic displays, hover bikes, and more.
Sounds great, but how will this affect gameplay? Hard to say, as all we've heard in regards to the future gear came from Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg, who said "we’re shaking up the formula in several ways. New core gameplay mechanics with the exoskeleton suit...We’re having a lot of fun making this game, and we think the world is going to have even more fun playing it.”
Annnnnd....that was about it, sadly. The game's been set for a November release, so I'm sure more information will trickle out between now and then, and expect a hefty showing at this year's E3 to boot.
Check out the announcement trailer with Kevin Spacey's shades of Lex Luthor below: