Sledgehammer Games is making the next Call of Duty right now, but the developer's collective mind is 40 years in the future.

If 2014’s military weapons, tech, and prototypes were given another 40 years of development, what would they look like? We probably won’t be teleporting, shapeshifting, or traveling through time, but would exoskeletons be out of the picture? Or directed energy weapons? That’s the future of combat Sledgehammer Games has in mind for Advanced Warfare, and it's had a huge impact on multiplayer.

For September's IGN First, we visited Sledgehammer's studio for some extended hands-on time with Advanced Warfare's various multiplayer maps and modes – including some new ones. We're diving right in with a full preview, but keep checking back throughout the month for multiplayer map reveals, footage of new game modes, new campaign details, a developer Q&A, and much more.

Jump Around

Year in and year out, despite additions and tweaks and changes, Call of Duty always feels like, well, Call of Duty. It is the “favorite pair of jeans” of video games – familiar, comfortable, and exactly what you’d expect. Advanced Warfare is like that too... if the jeans had attached rocket boosters.

Everybody in multiplayer, from the perched sniper to the frontline shotgunner, can move with speed never before seen in Call of Duty, courtesy of the “Exo” suit. You can dash to the side, leap high into the air, slide along the ground, and change direction mid-jump.

Because it’s so easy to use and included in every loadout, it fundamentally changes the way you think about movement. And in a game as kinetic as Call of Duty, that means it changes the way you think about firefights, objectives, spawn points, “safe” areas, and pretty much everything else.

The Exo doesn’t replace the Call of Duty feel. In a bizarre way, it almost turns combat into a puzzle. The first step is to get the drop on our outmaneuver your enemy using the Exo, and once you have that upper hand, the smooth 60 FPS gunplay is there to help secure the kill. Once you get a handle on the Exo, you'll constantly plan and pull off amazing kills in seconds. I boosted through a glass ceiling, jutted backwards, and killed an enemy who'd rounded the corner behind me, which felt great and couldn't have happened in past Call of Duty games.

Once you’re in someone’s sights, it’s traditionally been tough to escape. Look at a game like Halo, for example. In most modes, you’ll have to wear down someone’s shields before going for the kill, and a player under fire often has time to react, get away, or turn the fight around. Call of Duty encounters often end quickly because bullets really, really hurt. Bullets still really, really hurt, but in Advanced Warfare, quick reflexes and Exo movements can give you a fighting chance in situations that would otherwise be nigh unwinnable.

The Exo suit is the most important addition to Call of Duty since perks in Modern Warfare. It's easy to use, accessible to everyone, and meshes excellently with the typical Call of Duty formula.

It Goes to 2013

The “Pick 10” system from Black Ops II is back, but as you might expect from its new title, Pick 13 offers three more slots to play around with. In case you missed it last time, here’s a quick primer:

Every loadout offers you 13 slots to fill with whichever weapons, attachments, perks, exo abilities, and score streaks you choose. So, if you’re not great at the game, and there’s no chance of you earning a fancy, devastating score streak, you can get rid of a potential air strike and replace that slot with a guaranteed weapon attachment. It keeps you from entering combat with something you'll never have any use for.



The real stars here are the new Exo abilities. These differ from the Exo’s movement powers, which are standard on every character. One ability knocks away a limited number of projectiles once activated. Another turns you invisible for a short time.

One of my favorites is “Hover,” which has a ton of uses I’ve only begun to discover. A great tactic is to run through a doorway when you know you’re being chased. Once you’re out of sight, jump, activate Hover, and wait for the poor sucker to run through the door after you. A shotgun blast to the top of the head ends that pretty quickly.

Score streaks are back, but in Advanced Warfare you have more options to make them your own. Let’s say a UAV requires you to rack up 400 consecutive points. You can leave it at that, or you can add extra benefits and abilities to your score streak. The cost? Your 400 point score streak might become an 800 point score streak or higher.

It’s a smart way to reward great players for their skill, while also putting them at a higher risk of failure. Plus, the score streak customizations don’t count against your 13 slots, so you can tweak without sacrificing your other equipment.

Shiny Guns and Sunglasses

Call of Duty multiplayer rewards those who put in the time, but the rewards usually aren't all that surprising. A traditional XP unlock system lays out exactly what you'll unlock at which level, or exactly what you'll earn for completing specific weapon challenges.

Advanced Warfare still does this, but it also introduces an element of randomness and taps into the loot-obsessed part of the brain (look it up!) with supply drops. They're earned as you play, and they contain both functional items and cosmetic gifts. Opening a supply drop nets you three items, and those items are sorted by rarity – enlisted, professional, and elite, from common to rare (exactly like Diablo's magic, rare, and legendary items, basically).

To me, the most exciting drops are weapon variants. There are over 350 of them, and they look and play differently than their standard counterparts. For example, a fancy supply-drop assault rifle might trade in fire rate for more damage. Stat modifications like these can be achieved with attachments as well, but with weapon variants, there's no need to use up one of your limited 13 slots.

One of my favorite assault rifles fires a four-round burst. As I mentioned in the example above, the variant I unlocked for it sacrificed the fire rate for more damage. It doesn't seem like a huge change, but it did affect how I thought about engagements. Running through cramped areas is already not the smartest idea with a burst fire rifle, but with my new weapon, it became nearly impossible. Instead, I hung back more often and took mid-range fights whenever possible.

If you unlock a new weapon between rounds and you want to see what it's all about, you can press one button from the lobby and you're instantly inside a firing range using "Face Hammer" or "Desecrator" or whatever crazy gun you have.

You can jump in and out and alter your loadout at will, meaning you'll never ruin a match by experimenting with an attachment you dislike. It's such an obvious solution that it feels like it should have been implemented sooner, but it's welcome nonetheless.

Supply drops can also contain cosmetic items for your operator, from sunglasses to knee pads. Of course, rarer drops are flashier and more intricate. Once you've amassed a nice collection of gear, you can show it off easily to your teammates and opponents in the new virtual lobby.

A La Mode

Advanced Warfare has plenty of fun with its multiplayer modes. It will ship with 12 of them, including irreplaceable classics like Hardpoint, Capture the Flag, and Domination, but new additions like Uplink feel fresh, fun, and a bit silly. In short: it's sort of like Quidditch from Harry Potter, but with a lot more murder.

There are fancy terms for everything, but the long and short of it is that a ball spawns on the map, and your team must get the ball into the enemy goal. Throwing the ball in earns you one point, whereas jumping in while holding the ball nets you two. The catch? While holding the ball you're unable to fire.

Good players will pass the ball to their teammates and keep the enemy guessing. Great players will throw the ball into an enemy's hands, disarming the would-be killer for a moment. I tried this a few times, missed, and got destroyed. It's more difficult than it seems.

We're showing off a new game mode later this month, so keep checking back for more.

A Safe Space to Play

The Call of Duty crowd can be, let’s say, a bit hostile toward new and inexperienced players. Insults over voice chat are stressful to deal with alone, but when combined with constant beatdowns in matchmaking, it can be enough to drive people far, far away.

To welcome new folks, Sledgehammer created what might be the least stressful version of online multiplayer ever. It’s called the Combat Readiness Program (CRP), and it works by stripping away any semblance of stakes or consequences.

In CRP, you can’t rank up. You don’t earn XP. There’s no chat. You don’t see killcams, which can add insult to injury, nor do you see a scoreboard at the end of the round. Most interestingly, every 12-person match includes a mixture of humans and bots, and player names are hidden to protect identities.

So if someone lands a crazy headshot on you, you won’t know who did it, you won’t have to see it again (in slow motion), it won’t contribute to any kind of recorded K/D ratio, and nobody can taunt you or scream obscenities into your ears.

“There’s nothing to remind you that you’re new,” said Sledgehammer co-studio head Michael Condrey. “There’s everything to make sure you’re having a fun time.”

CRP won’t support every map and mode, but Sledgehammer says there will be enough variety to keep it from feeling stale. For those of you who may have once enjoyed Call of Duty multiplayer but abandoned it for various reasons – for instance, being intimidated by hardcore players who spend full-time hours dominating the game – CRP should provide a stress-free way of having a good time in Call of Duty again without all of the, ahem, online wild cards that await in the wild.

​Don't miss the rest of our Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare coverage for IGN First in September, including multiplayer map reveals, new modes, campaign details, and more!