Major Changes to Black Ops II Multiplayer

Sun shines, grass grows and Call of Duty multiplayer remains unchanged. Well, not anymore. Since the release of the first Modern Warfare, Call of Duty online multiplayer has remained in pretty much the same state in every incarnation of the release. Players run around shooting one another and earn ‘killstreaks rewards’ for getting a number of kills without dying in a match. The tides are turning through with the release of Black Ops II this November.

First off, they’re doing away with the killstreak awards altogether (well, not really). Instead they are being replaced with Score Streaks. If you’ve ever played a recent Call of Duty game online, you’ll have notices that you get points for nearly every action you perform, assists, kills, blocking shots with a riot shield. Now, instead of kills counting towards your score.

Once your individual or team score reach a certain number, the new score awards will become available. Now, because Black Ops II is set in the nearish future of 2025, there will be a number of futuristic gadgets to make use of, including a microwave emitter that slows enemies down to a crawl as well as mods that can see through cover and easier friend of foe detection.

It seems to me that this was done in aid of balancing out the multiplayer between the highly skilled players and the normal to low skilled ones. Rather than the best players dominating with the high number of kill streaks they get, now it’s mainly a team effort and more of an even playing field.

Another change to the norm is the alternative character class creation the game is introducing. Rather than having a number of slots for perks and mods that you unlocked from levelling up and regular play, the game now using something they call a 10 point system. Players will 10 points that they can distribute amongst their class however they want. The same points can be used to give your class a perk or a weapon mod.

This means that there is some choice in making your character in either making them almost superhuman in their perks, but have a minimal weapon load out, or to pass on the perks and have the most heavily modded weapon seen since Ratchet and Clank.

While the game has changed the two most fundamental and recognisable things from the past three Call of Duty games, it isn’t done yet. Because the developers want their players to share their experiences online with more ease. There are options in the game that allow players to livestream their games online without the need of any additional equipment. This is often seen on PC games, but Black Ops II will support it on both PC and console.

Not only that, the game offers player the opportunity to enter a random game as an observer and create commentary for the live stream ala shoutcast. This, in conjunction with the new leagues and skill level tracking the game is making use of could create an even bigger online community than Call of Duty already has.

People complain about the Call of Duty series getting repetitive, but here the series is defiantly changing things up. If it’s for the better, is yet to be seen, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see another record smashed when this comes out.