Let us not kid ourselves. We are all stoked and chomping at the bit for some playtime with the drone in GRW. So let’s investigate this flying death toy of happiness and see if we can figure out what exactly might be coming our way.



First, let may lay down a little disclaimer: this information is based strictly off what I’ve gathered from the trailers. It might not be totally accurate or be what we find in the final product.



Ok so one observation to be made is the night vision capabilities with the drone. It’s obvious to all of us that the ability to toggle night vision will definitely be in the game. It was in the first trailer and low and behold it made it to the second trailer a year later. Yay!



Second…or third for those keeping track, let’s take a look at two snapshots from the first trailer…

http://imgur.com/opjjk2H

http://imgur.com/Cq38SdB

Look at the top right corner of the first of these two pictures. The top line of the HUD (Heads Up Display) there reads, “HTR DVR On”. Does this mean we will be given the opportunity to record our captured feed and play it back later as a means of gathering intel and planning a raid? It sounds too righteous to be true.



Below the DVR reads, “NVG” which we all know is the night vision. And then under that is “Zoom x1″. Yes indeed the drone has a zoom lens - as those with a keen eye may have caught in the trailer. But concerning how much zoom we do not know yet.



Now focus your attention to the bottom left corner of the same picture. “Energy” is what you’ll find there above a battery bar, indicating we will only be able to fly the drone for a limited period of time.



Now compare the overall HUD of picture 1 with that of picture 2. The HUD looks different. Why? My guess is because the DVR is not recording in the second picture according to the HUD…or lack thereof. I believe that is why the first pic’s HUD looks more like a camera lens. But this begs the question as to why the energy bar does not show up in the second picture.



Something new is now in the lower left hand corner of the second picture - a detonation prompt. We saw it in action in the trailer. Also notice the icons above the heads of the tangos on screen and the chopper icon to the left. The drone has the capability of highlighting targets of interest as we will further see in the images below.



These are two screenshots taken from the second trailer (released a year later). Have a look…

http://imgur.com/xMWFIps

http://imgur.com/j7sVIxU

The three things to notice right away from these pictures are that night vision stayed in the game’s development, along with the targeting system and zoom capability.



*Updated*

What’s also interesting is that the drone gives you the range of what it’s targeting (HUD right side). I had to go back and study this closely to confirm my suspicions that this might actually be the case. So these numbers are not the range of the drone itself (which is good because 126 meters isn’t a very far distance for only 2 reception bars). The first image shows this poor reception of 2 bars. The second image shows zero bars and this screenshot was taken as the camera feed cut off and went static in the video. Sorry guys, but you can’t fly the drone all the way across the map to do your recon work for you. Gosh darn it! Besides, there is another issue that prevents prolonged flight time. It seems battery life has also stayed in the game’s development per the 4 white dots on the HUD in both images above. But I can only speculate that’s what that is. Maybe the reception bars are the indication of battery life instead of drone range, at this point we don’t know which it is or if it’s both.



But what happened to the self-destruct mechanism? I’m glad you asked, because I have no idea. It didn’t show up at all in the new trailer. But hopefully it’s still around. And what of the DVR? Same thing, hopefully it didn’t get put on the chopping block.

There you have it all you drone enthusiasts. I hope you found this particular post of value. And you’re welcome ;)