11 Coolest Innovations in Call of Duty: Ghosts’ Multiplayer Mode

If you are the type of guy who is thinking about Call of Duty 24/7, Activision has you covered. They are releasing the Call of Duty App for iOS and Droid, which allows you to do everything short of playing the game on the road. Alter your loadouts, change your squad, and see how your clan is doing all from the comfort of your smartphone or tablet. It’s a great way to integrate your gaming obsession into your life and the first cool new innovation Call of Duty: Ghosts has to offer.

Activision is being serious about making their Clan environment one huge ongoing persistent world. Every week, clans will participate in tournament to take territory on a huge overworld map. Every win you get helps your clan out, and every lose you get makes them lose ground. Holding territory gives your clan bonuses, and it’s also really cool to be able to see your clans name on the COD leaderboards.

In Ghosts, you aren’t just making a generic soldier. You are actually making a person with a name, appearance, body type, and more. For the first time ever, you can be a female soldier in multiplayer, but more than that, you can customize your soldier’s skin, hair, face, and all the stuff you have come to expect from create a character modes in modern days. This is actually important, because soldiers have to be differentiated in the game’s new squad modes.

Infinity Ward is taking Killstreak rewards out of the air and putting them on the ground where players can interact with them. For example, the UAV spy plan has been taken out for the ground based Sat Com linkup, As long as you can keep your Sat Com online, you can see where your opponents are. If you can manage to get more than one Sat Com online, you’ll even be able to see the direction they are running and whether or not they are prone or crouching. You will also be able to call the infamous Call of Duty Dog, Riley, and become a massive armored juggernaut with a knife with these new on the ground Killstreak rewards.

The perk system has received a gigantic overhaul. Perks are now rated from one to five points and you can have as many perks as you like as long as you don’t exceed eight points total. Then again, you can also decide to go Rambo and give up your secondary weapons, grenades, and tactical items to get a higher perk point total, beefing it up to 11.

Instead of just having multiple loadouts in COD:G, you actually have a whole squad of characters, 10 maximum. Each character can prestige once, giving you 10 levels of prestige to earn. More importantly, your squad can then be used in modes such as wave defense and squad versus squad multiplayer simulations. Your squad will actually play with an A.I. tailored to your playstyle when used by the computer, and will even earn kills for your clan while you are away from the game.

Search and Rescue mode is a brand new multiplayer mode in COD:G that is kind of a spin on Kill Confirmed. When you are killed, your dog tags remain lying over your corpse. If an ally collects them, then you can respawn as normal. If an enemy collects them, you will be forced to sit out the round until it’s over. The objectives we were given were to bring bombs to certain points and defend them until they explode, making the whole mode feel a lot like a throwback to the olden days of Counter-Strike.

Whereas Search and Rescue feels like Counter-Strike, Cranks feels a bit like Borderlands 2, specifically the Psycho class. Cranked is essentially a riff on Team Deathmatch, except every time you score a kill you get faster, more accurate, and harder to kill. Also, you get a bomb strapped to your chest that will explode in 30 seconds unless you kill someone else. Each kill makes you a little bit more powerful, but resets the timer less and less, giving you no time to camp. It’s a mode that focuses on running and gunning, and is one of the coolest innovations that we saw at the Call of Duty event.

Call of Duty is taking a bit of a cue from Battlefield and making their maps incredibly interactive and destructible. While you can destroy some map objects with normal explosions and bullets, others can only be activated with special map exclusive Killstreaks. For example, one Killstreak was in a map that took place on downtown streets. The first person to reach the requisite number of kills was able to call in a firebombing which altered the entire layout of the map, turning it into a smoldering pile of rubble and killing everyone in the open in the process.

Squad Points are the new way to unlock guns, perks, and killstreaks in COD:G. Instead of leveling up to unlock items, you simply earn Squad Points every time you do anything cool with any member of your squad. You can then use these points to unlock just about everything from grenades to emblems, and even other members of your squad. It’s a lot like COD Points but without the redundant level requirements.

Infinity Ward finally figured out a way to fix quick scoping, make it part of the game! There is now an entirely new class of weapon called the Marksman Rifle. These rifles fire powerful single shot semi-auto rounds, and they bridge the gap between assault rifles and sniper rifles. They are entirely balanced for mid-range combat and make use of several high powered scopes. They also allow Infinity Ward to balance Quick Scoping in a way that makes everyone happy. Marksman Rifles have to be the coolest new innovation in all of Call of Duty: Ghosts' Multiplayer.