The first official in-game trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts has been revealed today alongside Microsoft’s Xbox One blowout, and it’s teasing a very different game world than previous instalments have delivered.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is aiming to put players in a world where the United States has been devastated by an unknown weapon of mass destruction delivered by a technologically superior super-force. Infinity Ward was plagued by the question of what would happen if America was the underdog, rather than a super power? How would this impact our lives and the way in which we engage in warfare? What would that gameplay experience be like?
Luckily, fans will be able to answer this question exactly when they assume the role of an American soldier who has grown up in the aftermath of America’s downfall ten to fifteen years after the devastating event.
Infinity Ward is hoping to invest you on a deeper level by enlisting the talent of Academy Award winning screenwriter, Stephen Gaghan, of Traffic and Syriana fame. Yet, why should anyone care that the gaming industry has managed to snag another Hollywood screenwriter to pen a script for their next big budget title when we’ve seen the same thing countless times in the past?
Well, Gaghan’s presence is an important factor for the narrative of Ghosts when we take a look at his personal investment into the project. Gaghan didn’t simply see himself as a contractor crafting another war story to give Call of Duty fans more reasons to test their trigger fingers. His part of the project took on a much more significant role as he attempted to truly understand how stories are told through the video game medium.
Mark Rubin shed some light on why the team ultimately decided to choose Gaghan:
“[H]e’s a great writer, no doubt about it and that’s fine, there are probably lots of great writers out there…We’ve had writers before, and they know how to write, but they don’t understand the game aspect of it. And I feel like with Gaghan, he really understood what we were trying to do. He asked more questions than try to sell himself…He was asking how things work and how we do things, and was really interested in how we craft the story, not from a writing standpoint but from the visuals and gameplay. He really was asking a lot of questions about the dev side, he really wanted to know more. I think that interest in what we were doing is really what drove us to him.”
Gaghan invested himself in expanding his understanding of game development and this is exactly why his involvement is significant for Ghosts. His curiosity not only allows him to understand gaming better but also permits him to truly master and overcome the limitations of storytelling in gaming. The more he understands how to collaborate with a development team to know what is and is not possible, the better the production will be. Infinity Ward in collaboration with Gaghan will be able to craft a story that seamlessly combines a powerful Hollywood style narrative with first person shooter action.
The narrative will focus on a specific set of soldiers, which will likely add to the impact of the story overall in comparison to the seemingly jumbled mess of multi-perspective storylines previous installments created. Interestingly, players will be accompanied by a Navy SEAL dog that is able to sniff out danger and aid the team as a type of companion AI for players. Just please don’t develop our emotional attachment to our SEAL dog and then take him away. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle that.
What do you make of Call of Duty: Ghosts‘ new direction? Will it be interesting to see America as the underdog? Be sure to leave us your thoughts in the comments and check out the new trailer below.
