This year’s highly successful action series Call of Duty has a somewhat controversial aura around it, as according to the research of the source files of last year’s installment, it was apparently supposed to be an expansion (DLC) for Modern Warfare 2. But apparently, during the “last minute” development, Activision decided to release the game as full new title at full price. Although, according to the publisher, it is supposed to be a “premium product loaded with content”, some aspects of the game do not indicate this very much – among other things, for example, a very short (even by the standards of the COD series) story campaign or the absence of a platinum trophy.
Platform: PS5 (reviewed), PS4, PC, X1, XSX/S
Date of publication: 11/10/2023 Manufacturer: Sledgehammer Games (USA) Genre: FPS
Czech localization: it is
Multiplayer: yes, up to 18 players Downloadable data: 150+ GB
Game Time: 3+ hours
Cena: 2099 CZK (PS Store)
Campaign borrowed from Warzone
If you pre-ordered the game digitally, you could get early access to the story campaign a week early as one of the rewards. You may have been a bit surprised by the installation circumstances (on PS5 you need 100 GB for the “main COD series menu”, to which you still need to download 50 GB of files for the campaign itself). However, after starting the campaign itself, you will get a relatively pleasant first impression: the opening mission is a classic “cinematic” built corridor that, with an impressive set and atmosphere, leads you through carefully constructed scenes full of well-paced events. The problem, however, is that this traditional campaign model is abandoned in the second mission in favor of something significantly different.
They’re calling this new format “Open Combat Mission” and it’s an “open environment” mission where you have to go around and complete several tasks like “find three stations” or “kill the commander and take his key”. The problem is that these missions practically lack that “cinematic” dramaturgy that is the source of the great flow of the story missions of most of the COD series. In addition, their environment is “borrowed” from the Warzone map, so the individual locations are not even original or interesting (and are even littered with Warzone armor pickups or boxes with rifles). But the worst thing about them is the fact that if you are spotted by any of the deployed enemies, an alarm will go off and enemies will start spawning indefinitely, which noticeably breaks the design and structure of the mission. These missions make up about half of the three-hour campaign and unfortunately lack not only the style, but mainly the quality and setting of what we were used to in COD campaigns.
They call this new format “Open Combat Mission”.
However, the individual missions are traditionally connected by cinematic sequences that tell the finale of the trilogy with favorite characters, so at least the story could be worth it, you say… unfortunately, the campaign did not work on this front either, partly due to the rush of the story, but mainly because it ends open-ended – it is not yet clear whether the story will continue only in seasonal content or in the entire next game. Still, it can’t be said that the whole campaign was completely bad. Some of the traditional missions are actually good, the design is also good in places (see screenshots), the gunplay and overall gameplay is already pretty reliably fun for this series, and it also runs great, as usual (you can also turn on 120Hz mode on PS5) . Overall, though, it’s very hard not to feel that this is a half-baked affair, compromised by a rushed full-price release.
Partial rating (campaign): 4/10
The evaluation of multiplayer and zombies will be added after their release, together with the overall verdict.
2023-11-05 19:00:13
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