Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is here. Set during a North Korean invasion of South Korea, the team behind the game, Infinity Ward, is promising a more grounded Call of Duty. Perhaps those promises are working, as the game's reveal trailer has now surpassed 46 million views in just two days.
Thanks to several posts on X (formerly Twitter), we now have a fresh look at the game's movement system. Since X embeds never seem to work, thanks Elon, I'll attach a YouTube video below instead.
As you can see from the gameplay above, movement appears much faster than in Modern Warfare 2 and noticeably smoother too. Players can jump, mantle, tac-sprint, and then slide almost immediately, while mantling doesn't seem to break momentum in any meaningful way.
While it doesn't look quite as extreme as omni-movement, it still appears to offer a fair amount of freedom, even when players are prone. One addition that particularly stood out to me was the ability to climb pipes, which adds a new layer to gameplay that we haven't really seen before and opens up new opportunities for flanking.
It does also appear that slide canceling has returned, but it does seem more restrictive than the previous game, which I’m sure is all part of Infinity Ward's efforts to make the game feel as responsive as possible without just making you move faster.
What I do also like is the new Create-a-Class. It's refreshing to get a redesign of a system we've been using for years, and I think it looks much better to me. It features a new vertical layout, as you can see, and interestingly, it appears you can now assign specific operators to individual classes. It also shows there are now three weapon slots: a primary, a secondary, and a dedicated melee weapon slot.
I also like how much cleaner the overall layout looks. Everything seems easier to read at a glance, and having killstreaks displayed alongside your loadout should make it quicker to see exactly how a class is set up before jumping into a match.
It's still early days, and my mind isn't quite made up on Modern Warfare 4 yet. The developers are promising a more grounded experience with "No Lady Gaga," as they put it, and after not really enjoying Black Ops 7, this could be the game that pulls me back in. Thankfully, I've got until October to make up my mind.
But what about you? Has Infinity Ward managed to pull you in, and what do you think of the movement changes and updates to Create-a-Class?
Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:
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