The October 25th release date for the newest Call of Duty title, Modern Warfare, is steadily approaching and developers Activision has revealed some new insight on some new weapon mechanics we can expect this year.
We've recently been covering the Modern Warfare 2019weapons, perks, maps and killstreaks that should return in October. Rumours and leaks have been circulating, in particular about the killstreaks and a battle royale mode, but we've been given some concrete information from Infinity Ward themselves! This revolves round the gunplay mechanics in Modern Warfare 2019.
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New Reload Mechanic!
Mark Grigsby, who is the animation director at Infinity Ward/Activision, posted some news on July 2nd on what players can expect come October 25th. The entire blog post can be found here, but these are the primary takeaways from this post!
In past Call of Duty titles, the reloading system was always the same if players were aiming down their sights (ADS for short), we would see them come off of this animation to begin the reload. Now, Grigsby has confirmed there will be a new animation for this motion, the new mechanic will differ based on how much ammunition is left in the player's clip and what attachments the player has chosen to equip to their weapon.
Grigsby notes:
“One other thing we added this year is the ADS [Aiming Down Sight] reload," Grigsby said. "In the past, if you’re ADS, and you’re shooting and you reload, the weapon would go off to the side, and you’d have to retrain to get to your target. This time if you reload, it stays on the target, so you can stay in the battle”.
This new mechanic will give players the opportunity to stay pincered in on their target without having to reset their aim, should they need to reload.
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Active Idle Animation Changes
The majority of mainstream fps titles have the players weapon at the time fixed on a certain camera position and never really dipping away even if the player is looking around corners or sprinting. Now, Grigsby has noted that a new animation style called “Active Idle” will be introduced into Modern Warfare.
“We developed a new level of model fidelity,” Grigsby tells us: “Back in the day, we saw a lot of idle [animations] that moved more like you were on the deck of a ship, swaying back and forth. You don’t usually stand still in Modern Warfare, but when you do, we wanted to make sure it looked natural; real quick movements using your muscles. We call this the ‘Active Idle’. When you go up the stairs, we added a bit of movement on the weapon to make it look like it’s not bolted to the camera. When you look around, we wanted to do a little bit of leading with the head, and then the gun travels behind. Our previous Call of Duty games had a bit of that, but we’ve actually deep-dived into it this time around.”
This mechanic seems very promising as it seems Infinity Ward are going for a more realistic Call of Duty, similar to EA’s Battlefield titles and evidently trying a new format out.
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New Weapon Aspects
Call of Duty is constantly trying to implement new and unique weapons into their modernized and futuristic titles, such as this year's Black Ops 4 and past titles such as Advanced Warfare. Now, it seems as they are more so trying to get back to their roots with an attempt at getting more realistic, authentic and believable weapons.
Grigsby claims:
“The animation team spent months crafting, learning, and perfecting every single weapon movement in the game: “We used a lot of reference with our Navy SEALs advisors; how would they actually reload these weapons?” The answers they gave lead the team to the results you see in the game itself.”
Read More: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 Maps: 10 Classic Arenas To Return In This Year's Game
What do you think of these new and unique animations coming to Call of Duty? Tweet us!
Gamescom 2019 will be filled with Modern Warfare 2019 information! Read more about Gamescom here.
Written ByNick Farrell@NickFarrell91