Earlier this month, we brought you word that Infinity Ward were actively working on new multiplayer maps for Call of Duty 4. At the time, Infinity Ward's community manager, Robert Bowling was guarded about details, only teasing fans with the idea.
Today, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Robert about the upcoming maps, hoping to get some more detailed information. The bad news -- Infinity Ward still aren't talking specifics. I was, however, able to get a few hints and some new details on the new maps, which should be available this spring.
Hit the jump for the first morsels of details on the upcoming Call of Duty 4 map packs for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
While Bowling was hesitant to talk specifics, he was able to confirm that the first maps will be available in a pack of three. In terms of what gamers can expect from the maps, he insists that the theme here is variety, taking cues from what their community has asked for.
"We're fortunate to have a very big community," says Bowling, "so they're the ones who know what's getting old, or what they want to see."
Overwhelming, the community was interested in three key elements -- more open, larger scale maps; open maps with close quarters; more buildings with no closed doors; and completely new locales. When pushed for specifics, Bowling only relies on this criteria to drop hints.
"People who want open maps are going to be happy with this map pack," he says. "People who want more indoor locales are going to be happy with this map pack. People who want something completely different from what they're currently playing are going to be happy with this map pack."
He also notes that the team are working on a number of different concepts, and is clear that even more content can be expecting in the future.
"We plan on supporting our game for a very long time," he tells me. "As I said, we have a large community. We're currently number one on Xbox LIVE, so we have a lot of people playing. So we're going to continue to support the community that keeps supporting us. We have a lot of cool ideas that we're working on, and we're going to keep making maps until we're done."
When asked about the possibilities of future perks or weapons via downloadable content, Bowling tells me that the idea had been "thrown around," but that there are currently no plans.
I also asked him if the inevitable release Call of Duty 5 would be a roadblock to future content, and he was clear that wouldn't be the case.
"We don't dictate how much we update our game based on what other studios do," he says, almost certainly confirming Infinity Ward's lack of participation in the upcoming sequel. "So if another game comes out, that doesn't mean we stop supporting ours."
Contest:
3:00 PM on 02.20.2008
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If by amazing you mean amazingly shitty, then yes, I agree with you. The map is too open, that's my problem with it.
you disgust me.
Also, Overgrown does suck. It only works when playing Ground War, because I feel like you have to have more than the maximum of 12 in TDM/Domination. And oh yeah...Bowling’s right; they should keep supporting this game for a long time, because Call of Duty 5 — assuming it’s being developed by Treyarch and set in WWII — is going to suck.
WIN WIN WIN
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Treyarch can lick my knuttes
Also the picture caption made me rofl-fucking-copter.
Amen to that, I've had this issue more with the M14 is it, the single shot assault rifle. Dude could be standing still, me 10 feet away working my weapon xp, I aim, fire, and no hit registers. I've seen it more recently when I go sniper, rarely, but yea there have been a few occasions of "what the hell, I know I hit that guy in the face and he didn't die," and no juggernaut doesn't and shouldn't protect against head shots from a sniper rifle.
Hey buddy, you're right. I just got the golden AK47. To get that I had to get 150 headshots with each rifle. It can take up to 3 bullets at pointblank for it to register, and each bullet hit him.
Today I played my first hardcore match and got the MVP. Killing is so much easier and its very exciting. Give hardcore team deathmatch a try. One bullet to the head is instant death.
Hardcore is the way to go. People don't take a whole clip to die. Even with juggernaut they take a couple, but the same well placed burst is death.
Amen!
I would like to see a map really high ground mixed with low (maybe with tunnels or valleys connecting or something). So that one team has an obvious advantage having the higher ground but not so much that the other team can't make a comeback. Similar to the single player levels. Though i admit that it may not translate so well to multiplayer (especially if you're on the team getting sniped).
I'm so tired of WWII, that why I purchased CoD4. Nice to see some extra maps at last though.
PS: Needs co-op. =(
K could that be any more broad?
Overgrown is a very good map. Too open you say? What do you want.. generic grey buildings to hide in all the time? Its called variety and if you don't like that then i guess you can just keep on bitching.
Im happy that there's gonna be some bigger maps and more expansive indoor fighting. I bet there is a night time level.. night vision isn't needed at all online at the moment.
Looking forward to it!
Unless the map pack is 5 bucks or less, I'll be passing. It's bad enough that Bungie screwed us with a half-assed map pack for $10. I was expecting COD4's pack to have at least 5 maps and cost $10 (as all the map packs for COD2 and 3 were). They better not start pulling the same crap.
$5 for 3 maps would be fair but come on, after 5 months all they can come up with is 3 maps?