Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 features co-op campaign, augment-fuelled multiplayer
Treyarch's latest to get public beta for those who pre-order. Full trailer within.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will feature four-player co-op throughout its campaign, while its multiplayer introduces wall-running as part of a new movement system.
Black Ops 3 will be the result of three years of work when it comes out on November 6th, the longest time that developer Treyarch has ever focused on a single Call of Duty.
Its story is set in the aftermath of Black Ops 2's 21st century cold war, in a future where soldiers are heavily augmented with cybernetic limbs.
The campaign will be fully playable in co-op, with players able to dive into any level in order to play alongside their friends.
"We're taking the mentality of, if you buy a DVD, you can skip to the end," campaign director Jason Blundell told Eurogamer. "You'll miss out on the story, but if you want to play with your friends."
Black Ops 3 will also see a move away from the branching storylines of its immediate predecessor as it focuses on co-operative play. "Rather than going for the multiple storyline concept, we've gone for a more layered approach," said Blundell. "There's reasons why going back to the campaign multiple times, with new perspectives, new stuff can be learned. We've put our time and energies into our writing and our character development and the visual sequences there to hold up for multiple analysis, multiple revisits, that's where we put the energy this time."
In order to accommodate co-op, Black Op 3's levels are more open, and feature adaptive and emergent AI. Campaign characters are now also customisable, and come complete with their own progression system.
Black Ops 3's multiplayer is built around the new movement system developed by Treyarch which takes a different approach to the exo-suits seen in last year's Advanced Warfare. Mantling objects is now quicker, and players can run along walls as well as power-sliding - a move that replaces Black Ops 2's dive to prone. Swimming and underwater combat are also introduced.
Alongside those changes, there are now 'Specialist' characters, nine different soldiers that can be levelled up independently. Acting like character classes, the Specialists feature their own weapon and ability that can be selected prior to a match and that is available for a short time after filling up a meter. Four have been initially revealed: Ruin, who can pound spikes into the ground for a strong area effect; Seraph, who has access to a high-calibre revolver; Outrider, who wields a compound bow and finally Reaper, a robot who can use a mini-gun for a short time.
Gunsmith, meanwhile, is a new weapon customisation tool for Black Ops 3, in which players can equip an optic and five attachments, and where they can create their own camos and emblems.
Finally, Zombies will be returning with its own XP-based progression system, though further details currently remain a little scarce.
For the first time in the series since Call of Duty: World at War there will be a beta for this year's game, with limited access to Black Ops 3's multiplayer coming at an unspecified point later this year for those who pre-order the game.
We'll have full impressions on Black Ops 3 and more detail from the developers in a feature early tomorrow morning.