Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare is a bad game. In its best moments, Infinity Ward’s return to the helm is a beacon of mediocrity, relying on beautiful scenery that we can get pretty much anywhere while failing to execute on the handful of new ideas it puts forth. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare isn’t the worst game released in 2016 -- some would still argue that honor goes to No Man’s Sky -- but Infinite Warfare wipes out any momentum the series regained in the three years since Ghosts left fans wondering where it all went wrong.
This year’s Call of Duty experience is split into its usual three sections: the campaign, competitive multiplayer and cooperative Zombies mode. As always, the multiplayer offerings remain the most popular, regardless of whether your prefer the breakneck pacing of PvP or mowing down waves of undead with a few buddies. But the campaign offers the best look at the changes introduced in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Sadly, it’s also the least interesting portion of the game, thanks, in no small part, to a litany of new ideas that must’ve seemed better on paper.
Players follow Nick Reyes, a Special Combat Air Recon (SCAR) lieutenant promoted to captain of the SATO Retribution after the Settlement Defense Front, a military faction comprised of people born on Mars, launch a surprise attack against the United Nations Space Alliance (UNSA) during Fleet Week. The ambush leaves Earth in bad shape, with just two carriers left, and Reyes with the monumental task of leading what’s left of the military to victory in a new war against the SDF. And that transition, from one soldier in the conflict to head of Earth’s fighting forces, was undoubtedly the inspiration for the game’s new mission selection screen. From the bridge of the Retribution, Cpt. Reyes can send what’s left of Earth’s military (himself included) where they’re needed most.
Sometimes that means boarding SDF capital ships to assassinate high-ranking targets; including this year’s guest athlete, Conor McGregor. Other missions task Reyes with hopping into a Jackal, the UNSA’s go-to dogfighting ship, and hunting down the Front’s top pilots. Most Wanted targets also appear in story missions, which tend to focus on disrupting the SDF’s operational capabilities; however, the only way to kill them all is by completing the game’s optional missions.
If the rest of the new ideas in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare had been executed as gracefully as the transition from mission select screen to explorable hub, we might be bigger fans of the campaign. But the rest of Infinity Ward’s new additions, from zero-G gunfights to dogfighting, were incredibly underwhelming. The former doesn’t feel much different than your average engagement, except players have a grappling hook they can use to quickly grab cover or close distance with an enemy. But combat usage is nullified by tight grouping of enemies, who tend not to move from their initial position, and proper cover leaves these segments feeling more like glorified shooting galleries than meaningful additions to the story.
Time spent in the Jackal is even more disappointing than zero-G combat. If I wanted to pretend I’m a space pilot, I’d happily fire up Elite Dangerous or EVE: Valkyrie , games built almost entirely around that experience. I don’t need Call of Duty trying to scratch that itch with dogfights slapped together so hastily that the devs decided it was easier to let players tail enemy craft with a click of the mouse instead of making them learn how to fly the ship they’re piloting for a significant portion of the story. The tediousness of the Jackal segments might be excusable if they offered something memorable in return. But those bits of the Infinite Warfare campaign fail to deliver the larger than life action we’ve come to expect from Call of Duty . Infinity Ward even squandered its signing of actor Kit Harington ( Game of Thrones ), relegating his appearances to short, sporadic monologues with little emotional resonance. The overarching story is a bit easier to follow than we’ve seen from previous games in the series, but will be forgotten before its outrageously long (and unskippable) credit sequence comes to an end.
There are fewer surprises from the game’s multiplayer content. Competitive multiplayer returns in Infinite Warfare , as it has in every Call of Duty since the series’ inception. But the smattering of match types in IW all feel watered down, thanks to a new 12-person player cap that leaves the action slow and uninteresting anytime the server isn’t full. And sometimes even when it is. A lack of interest in the current crop of multiplayer maps didn’t help either. Most encourage bottlenecks that require much larger player counts to be interesting. Those that do feature larger dimensions don’t do anything with the extra space to make them stand out. Even the game’s new mobility features, which should feel familiar to any Titanfall player, are mostly useless in multiplayer. Sure, there are walls to run on and jump over. But few situations when proper use of those abilities has a meaningful impact on the player’s performance.
Zombies mode remains largely unchanged, save for the shift from the Prohibition Era to a theme park in the ‘80s. Players scramble around the map, attempting to complete objectives and uncover hidden areas, while protecting themselves and their allies from the undead hordes flooding the park. Collected cash is used to unlock new sections of the map, along with buying new weapons and ammo, while Fate and Fortune cards replace the super-powered gumballs from Black Ops 3. The soundtrack is admittedly pretty great, featuring songs from period-appropriate artists like Run D.M.C. and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, but it’s not enough to keep Zombies interesting.
To deny some gamers still enjoy these well-worn concepts is to deny reality. Even with slumping sales, most developers would give their right arm for even the lowest number on a list of annual Call of Duty sales figures from the last few years. But lengthy queue times for Infinite Warfare’s first Zombies map, Zombies in Spaceland, suggest players won’t accept the stagnation anymore. Particularly at a time when great shooters are everywhere. And it’s hard to blame them. Zombies was never a strong addition to the series, despite a consistent presence in recent years, and we can only hope waning interest will force Activision to acknowledge its shortcomings.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare may not be the broken mess that we typically reserve lower ratings for. It’s certainly in better shape than Assassin’s Creed Unity was at launch and will undoubtedly find a bigger audience than WWE 2K17. But continued stagnation is making it easier to picture a world without CoD . There will always be some who buy it at launch, like Fallout, Madden, Mass Effect and other transcendent video game franchises. But the rise of new properties, like Titanfall and Overwatch, combined with resurgent properties, like Destiny or Battlefield, make it hard to justify the shrinking number of new ideas in Call of Duty. Those who purchased Infinite Warfare on day one may not relate to anything in this article. But those with less fondness for the franchise, or just expecting COD:IW to at least match the quality of Advanced Warfare or Black Ops 3, should probably turn their attention elsewhere.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
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