The Call of Duty series is known for the scripted action of its single-player campaigns but the next games in the series will feature more of an open-world flavour.
Insider Gaming reports Call of Duty: Black Ops – Gulf War and future titles in the series will feature open environments large enough to merit the use of fast travel and vehicles for transport.
This is reportedly part of a new direction for the series, and one that will bring about new styles of play. However, linear missions aren’t gone for good. You can still expect those set pieces we know the series for.
There’s no firm release date for Call of Duty Black Ops – Gulf War but the game is expected later this year.
It is being developed by Raven Software, in collaboration with Treyarch. Both development teams are long-term Call of Duty veterans. There’s no new blood developer bringing open world game experience to the project, bar new hires.
However, the last Call of Duty game, 2023’s Modern Warfare III (read our 3/5 review), did include some open-world missions of its own. These were often criticised for being lazy re-hashes of multiplayer maps.
An ill omen for this move in future games? It all depends on whether the open-world setting of Call of Duty: Black Ops - Gulf War is used to explore interesting gameplay avenues with this style of environment. Or to further bring together the multiplayer and single player campaign components of the series, which is one reason Modern Warfare III's single-player campaign is seen as a dud.
According to a Windows Central report from last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops – Gulf War will focus on the CIA’s activities during the first Gulf war in the early 1990s, which was triggered by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
The international response, which involved a coalition of 42 countries among them the US and UK, included the biggest mobilisation of UK troops since the second world war. More than 50,000 were involved.
Call of Duty has not focused on this conflict before but other games have, including 2010’s Splinter Cell: Conviction and 2002’s Conflict: Desert Storm.
