1 Call of Duty Game Changers in Advanced Warfare

Sometimes, change is good.

The trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has dropped and it made one thing very apparent - Sledgehammer Games’ new first-person shooter is going to be a game changer. How so? Well, we collected 11 things from the trailer that have us more excited about Call of Duty than ever before. We still have a lot of questions like “will these be in multiplayer?” and “how will this affect balance?” but there’s no doubt about one thing: we cannot wait to find out. That said, here are 11 things to get excited about in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

1 The Exo Suit

The first thing you see in the trailer is an exo suit and it’s likely going to be a huge part of gameplay, both in terms of combat and mobility. Its basic function gives the player enhanced strength and the ability to jump extreme distances. Will you be able to do melee attacks from afar? Will we be able to re-create the freeway scene from The Matrix? We’re excited to discover the answer.

2 Wall Climbing

It’s not quite the wall running we’ve become accustomed to in Titanfall, but wall climbing is definitely going to change traversal as we know it in the Call of Duty series. It also gives the game designers a chance to add verticality to map design — something we’ve rarely seen from the franchise. However, this does have us wondering if wall hanging will also be a feature. Let’s try not to imagine what campers would do with that kind of power.

3 The Mech Suit

You’re already going to be in an exo suit, so what could the designers give you to one up another player? How about a mech suit with a gattling gun? We obviously don’t know if this will be in multiplayer, but it immediately made us think of the Last Titan Standing gametype in Titanfall. Or, perhaps Sledgehammer Games plans to use this bulked up mech as some form of juggernaut perk for multiplayer.

4 Invisibility

Camouflage that makes you invisible is hardly novel for the first-person shooter genre, but this is the first time that Call of Duty has gone far enough into the future for us to see it in-game. We’re not sure if it’ll be a perk or some other form of unlockable bonus, but we’re definitely interested in the possibilities.

5 Infrared Grenades

Now, this is a big departure from everything we know about infrared in games. We can only assume that a grenade will have a limited area of effect and last only briefly, but a player that can see through walls in a highly trafficked area is going to be a force to be reckoned with in multiplayer.

6 Light Net

This power was a little more ambiguous, but it appears as if it detects enemy movement, or at the very least, scans the terrain. While the exact benefits are unknown, it could be used to detect mines or equipment in an environment. We have more questions than answers for this one, but the blue light has us speculating and intrigued by it’s possible functions.

7 Deploy-able Cover

Now that you or a teammate can throw down cover almost anywhere, we’re guessing this will be essential to your survival on a hectic battlefield. Imagine a game of capture the flag with a few defenders using this ability. It’s going to make it a whole lot harder to score a point when your opponent is effectively using their cover to defend their flag, or having set up a nice little sniper spot for themselves.

8 Hoverbikes

Getting from point a) to point b) never looked so good. Not only do these bikes look fast, but they also look deadly when hurdling a barrage of bullets at anyone in the way. We haven’t seen mannable vehicles in Call of Duty multiplayer since World at War, so we’d be surprised to see hoverbikes made available to player online. Still, any big change to the series is a welcomed one in our book.

9 New Drones

Another addition is that of new drones. Although drones have appeared in the franchise before, Advanced Warfare seems to place considerable emphasis on unmanned vehicles. We saw groups of them being deployed in what looks like a singleplayer portion of the game, but there’s one sequence when a soldier tosses a turret drone into the air. That moment looks a lot more like something we’d see in multiplayer. Who doesn’t want a little buddy following them around that would fill enemies full of lead? No one that’s who.

10 Spider Tanks

Not only did we see hoverbikes in the trailer, but there was also a scene that showed a spider tank terrorizing anyone that got near it. Again, we don’t know if this would show up in multiplayer, but having a speedy hover bike go up against a slow but powerful tank sounds like something we’d like to experience online.

11 Kevin Spacey

We don’t expect Kevin Spacey will be telling us to prepare for any kind of “falls” in multiplayer, but we know that he’ll be a driving force behind the campaign. Having an actor of this caliber on the cast list gives us tremendous hope for what the story of Advanced Warfare is going to offer. We already know that Spacey can play a convincing and scary politician from his role on House of Cards, so we can’t wait to see what he brings to his role here as a villain. If it’s half as menacing as Frank Underwood then we’re all in for a treat.
The footage ends with the tagline “Power Changes Everything” and it looks like that’s definitely the case. We know the team at Sledgehammer Games is focused on Xbox One, PS4, and PC, but how much is the new Advanced Warfare going to change the winning Call of Duty formula? And will it be for the betterment of the franchise? Only time will tell.