Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, this year’s entry into the long-running franchise by Infinity Ward, will not have a zombies mode in favor of creating an “authentic, realistic” world.
This year’s Call of Duty will be “heavy on troubling, realistic emotional moments,” drawing inspiration from the highly controversial No Russian level from 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that allowed players, as an undercover CIA agent, to kill civilians to gain the trust of a Russian terrorist group.
It is this focus on realism that pushed Infinity Ward’s decision to skip zombies for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
In an interview with PlayStation Lifestyle, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s Campaign Gameplay Director Jacob Minkoff differentiated Infinity Ward’s approach to the franchise from that of Treyarch, which was the studio behind last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
“Because they focus on more of the stylized, graphic novel, super-hero experience, they can have the much more ‘out there’ different types of gameplay in their games,” said Minkoff. In comparison though, Infinity Ward is looking to deliver a much more grounded Call of Duty experience.
“But for us, we’re trying to create an authentic, realistic feeling world. We don’t have the flexibility to do something like put zombies in the game. That would compromise the feeling of playing in a world that feels realistic and authentic and relative to today’s conflicts and things we face,” Minkoff explained.
Among the three main studios that work on Call of Duty, Treyarch is the one that has spearheaded the addition of zombies in the first-person shooter franchise. Sledgehammer has joined the movement, and Infinity Ward tried it with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. However, with the direction of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it certainly appears that zombies will be out of place.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is set to launch for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25. The game, which will feature a campaign, multiplayer, and cooperative mode, will be dropping the season pass but will embrace cross-play support. The PC version will utilize ray tracing graphics rendering techniques for top-of-the-line video game visuals, though it remains to be seen if the technology will impress in the first-person shooter.
