The game will continue to be dominated by hardcore fans

Sep 6, 2014 16:25 GMT  ·  By

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the next installment in the huge first-person shooter franchise from Activision, and the success of the launch will be mostly linked to the way new developer Sledgehammer Games manages to both innovate and to remain somewhat classic in its approach at the same time.

One of the major new concepts introduced by the new title is called Supply Drops and aims to level the playing field for a period and make sure that newcomers are able to jump into multiplayer matches and get access to some cool items and weapons to play with.

For most shooters that have a clear competitive side and complex mechanics for choosing loadouts and for in-match rewards, the biggest problem is the way players who have time to play a lot soon after launch quickly gain a competitive advantage over everyone else.

Because most equipment rewards tend to be linked to levels, those who play the single-player campaign first and then engage in some cooperative multiplayer tend to be disadvantaged.

Supply Drops can be earned in all game modes included in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and that means that it’s possible for all players to get access to some decent weapons to equip and use once they try out competitive experiences.

Sledgehammer Games has the right idea but I doubt that their concept will fundamentally change the first-person shooter series.

The company does want to include as many players as possible because that translates into more sales and more profit, but getting access to a Supply Drop based on play time will not allow anyone to stay truly competitive.

The development team needs to find a simple way of allowing those who lack multiplayer experience powerful characters to play with for a limited time, so that they are able to see the level they might reach and to create a long-term goal for them to reach.

Maybe the company could select high-level players and introduce a mechanics to allow them to lend out their builds to those less experienced when they are not online, in exchange for a small boost in the experience gain rate.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be launched on November 4 of this year, and there’s a Day Zero edition which gives players access one day earlier and also delivers double experience, on the PC, the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One and last-gen consoles.