Infinity Ward’s Design for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – Fun Over Balance
According to Geoffrey Smith, the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Multiplayer Design Director, Infinity Ward won’t make balancing the game’s multiplayer their top priority. While it will remain important, ensuring that the multiplayer is fun is apparently a higher priority for the design team. Smith’s statement comes from the latest issue (#166) of the PlayStation Official Magazine.
Balancing in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Multiplayer
“I think somewhere along the lines these games have tried to get so balanced, maybe it was eSports, it’s kind of just boiled the fun out of the things when you try to super-balance everything,” says Smith; “We’re just having fun. We want to just be able to climb around and have fun interactions.”
Of course, balancing is an important aspect of designing a successful multiplayer. However, Smith and his team seem to be focusing more on solving problems through mobility than weapon balance. He went on to state; “If I can creatively problem-solve this firefight, instead of having me forced down the hallway, I can use my brain better. I can get a different advantage. And it’s kind of a, you know, a puzzle-platform approach. We just want to create a more dynamic interaction.”
Fans recently got their first experience with this sort of design in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer Alpha. Indeed, the five maps provided in the Alpha did all feature multiple pathways and different levels of elevation. In fact, the 2v2 Gunfight mode may be an excellent example of how Infinity Ward approached designing the new multiplayer. “We’ve boiled it down to this micro level of one-on-one combat,” explains Smith; “and what we can do to add variability to the outcome of that, from climbing around you to running inside and closing a door that causes you to make a choice…”
Fans will have the chance to experience this design on a larger scale when the Multiplayer Open Beta starts later this month. The decision to deprioritise multiplayer balance may be controversial to some. However, it’s unlikely that Infinity Ward is making no effort at all to do so. Rather, in all likelihood, the studio is making a reasonable effort to balance, just not doing so at all costs.