ADS Reload: The New Feature Coming to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
In many ways, Call of Duty will be returning to its roots with the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, a “soft reboot” of the classic Modern Warfare series. However, that doesn’t mean that Infinity Ward aren’t finding ways to innovate on the staple gameplay mechanics of Call of Duty. For example, the studio has revealed that the title will include a significant new gameplay feature; ADS reloading.
What is ADS Reload and How Does it Work?
The term “ADS reload,” refers to reloading a weapon while aiming down sights. In most first-person shooters, aiming down sights has become a standard gameplay feature, allowing players to aim more precisely than in the first-person shooters of years past. However, players typically cannot reload guns while aiming down sights. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, however, players will be able to do just that.
Writing in a recent Activision blog, animation director Mark Grigsby mentioned that ADS reload would feature in Modern Warfare; “one other thing we added this year is that Aiming Down Sights reload,” he writes; “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.”
Theoretically, this new feature will allow gunplay in Modern Warfare to be more fluid and precise than in previous titles. After all, players won’t have to re-aim after each reload. This could have a significant impact on multiplayer too, not just the single-player modes. Interestingly, Grigsby also mentioned that the game will feature variable reload animations for different types of magazine.
“In the past,” he writes; “we would never physically show the transition of one mag to another, but this time around, everything’s physical, so if you have an extended mag, like a drum perhaps, or a long magazine, all of the movements within every reload are visceral, strong, aggressive. […] After you’ve taken down five different dudes in a room – and you reload, you go ‘shit yeah, you’re done!”