"Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare" was revealed in an announcement trailer way last May, but while it was completely in-engine, it wasn't a very good glimpse at what the gameplay would be like. At Sony's E3 PlayStation event, we got a better glimpse at gameplay mechanics through an edited 8-minute segment of the single-player campaign that took the audience on a wild ride through space.
The trailer opened with a non-combat segment from the perspective of Captain Nick Reyes, commander of the UNSA ship "Retribution," as he walked to the bridge of his ship. A pop-up message indicated that new intel was available in the "Captain's Operations Office," where a prompt to set a waypoint was displayed. This seems to indicate that "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare" will be making use of the" Retribution" as a kind of hub world where players can check out gathered information and start missions, just like "Black Ops III" did. The view moved to a holotank, where a mission to assault an enemy ship was selected.
From there, the view changed to a hangar, where various crewmembers and huge walking mechs milled about, as Reyes made his way to a space fighter. A launch sequence that gave an incredible sense of speed ensued, launching players into a huge, chaotic, and visually stunning space dogfight, reminiscent of one of the latter missions in "Advanced Warfare" where players swooped around a canyon in a fighter, shooting down enemy craft and blowing up structures. It's not clear whether the player has any freedom of movement in this segment of "Infinite Warfare."
After some shooting, Reyes disembarked from his craft and landed on the hull of his target, where some incredible zero-g shooting took place. In this section, players can launch a grappling hook to latch onto surfaces or floating debris, keeping their feet on steady ground, as well as launch themselves off debris towards different parts of the ship. Players are oriented correctly based on the orientation of where they land, giving a real sense of three-dimensionality that would be more common in a space combat game or something unique like "Shattered Horizon."
Once Reyes made his way onto the ship, more conventional "Call of Duty" gameplay followed, though a few cool gadgets were shown off like a grenade that disabled gravity in a small area, causing enemies to float around haplessly, easily shot. The demo ended with Reyes and his teammates being picked up by their fighter, escaping the enemy vessel before it exploded in a brilliant flash.
"Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare" certainly looks nothing like any previous games in the series, with a greater sense of movement, unique zero-gravity combat, and even a dogfighting segment that all looked amazing. We're all excited to see how it really feels to play the campaign, as well as its multiplayer, when it comes out on November 4.
