We could be entering a new era of multiplayer shooters.
The writing is on the walls. Call of Duty is going through a change, and it may actually stick this time.
You can roughly map out the evolution of first-person shooters over the last 1.5 decades with the yearly Call of Duty releases. There was the era where everyone was super-into modern military shooters, followed by a few years when our boots lifted off the ground and started wallrunning or jetpacking. When hero shooters hit big, Treyarch responded with Black Ops 3's unique characters and ultimates.
If you haven't noticed, there are AI combatants all over Modern Warfare 2. In fact, literally every tentpole mode in Modern Warfare 2 is implementing AI in some way:Warzone 2.0: AI are littered across the new Al Mazrah in strongholds protecting rare lootRaids: Destiny-style co-op missions with complex AI encounters and combat puzzlesWe're getting our first taste of CoD's AI push during this weekend's.
I'm very interested in how Modern Warfare 2 will tackle raids. Infinity Ward is deliberately drawing comparisons to Destiny 2 in its description of raids as"cooperative engagement requiring teamwork and strategic, puzzle-solving thinking in-between bouts of intense combat." Destiny's raids are almost universally regarded as the best parts of those games, yet only a fraction of the people who play it ever see them because of level requirements.
If AI is little more than a distraction in battle royale, I hope it takes center stage in DMZ. My newfound love of extraction shooters may be coloring this a bit, but I get the sense DMZ is a big deal for Infinity Ward. There's a growing interest in the format that splits the difference between high-risk survival shooters and battle royale.