Sign up to FREE email alerts from Daily Star - Gaming Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

(Image: ACTIVISION)

Call of Duty: WW2 could be the start of a whole new chapter of Call of Duty social experiences, according to Sledgehammer co-founder Michael Condrey.

The game's Headquarters Mode is an in-game social hub that supports up to 48 players at any one time.

It's a far more sophisticated social area than anything Call of Duty has seen before - an evolved version of Advanced Warfare's virtual lobby that's often been compared to Destiny's Tower.

And rightly so, there are certainly shared elements: from the gunsmith that allows you to customise your weapons, to the various daily/weekly bounty vendors in the area, it certainly feels like Destiny in some ways.

But it's also a deeper experience than you'll find in Activision's other FPS: there are competitive elements in HQ (Firing Ranges, the 1v1 game mode 'Pit' arena and a Killstreak practice range, for example) as well as more social ones, such as a theatre where you can watch other live matches, or a platform where you get to witness other players' Prestige ceremonies.

But Sledgehammer co-founder Michael Condrey suggests that this is just the start of Call of Duty's social revolution.

*** Take a look at some new Call of Duty WW2 screenshots in the gallery below ***

"I think we all recognise the gaming today is as much about the second-to-second experience as it is about the social experience and community," Condrey explained.

"Gamers love to be social in many different ways and that’s something we’ve been putting together for six years, and in six years so much has changed."What we knew six years ago was that there was no social interaction in multiplayer. If you go back to Modern Warfare 3, your entire expression as a player was your Gamertag and your rank. That’s it.

"All that investment, all that time - it all came down to your Gamertag, your K/D ratio, your rank. We recognised we weren’t servicing the community in a way we could and so in Advanced Warfare, we bought that character alive for the first time.

"This was the first time you could virtually represent yourself in CoD: we have a virtual lobby, we brought in loot rewards meant to show off your personal accomplishments.

"We had the virtual firing range where you could compete. That was the staging grounds for [Headquarters]: taking your character into a community full of like-minded people."That's where Headquarters began, but apparently, that's just the beginning for the series take on social gaming.

Delving deeper into Headquarters, it looks like Activision might be looking to another of their massively successful multiplayer games to help influence where the Call of Duty social space goes next.

"Headquarters is just a springboard into greater things we want to do, too," Condrey reveals."It’s been a long journey. As a gamer wanting to be social with my friends in more innovative and more immersive ways, we look back to the early days of World of Warcraft."This was a beautiful world, where I had my character and my accomplishments. I’m out questing, doing all these things, then that first time you walk into Orgrimmar, and you realise there’s this entire world of people here, of community and self-expression.

"That imprinted in us that we need something like that for Call of Duty".

*** Take a look at some new Call of Duty WW2 Zombie screenshots in the gallery below ***

You can read more from our interview with Michael Condrey below:

• Call of Duty's next eSports season "will be the most competitive yet"

• Why Call of Duty: WW2's Gridiron is "better than Uplink", according to the game's creator

• Call of Duty: WW2 is a 'complete creative reset' for Sledgehammer

Call of Duty: WW2 releases for PS4, Xbox One and PC on November 3.