Infinity Ward isn’t known for its co-op campaigns, and Modern Warfare 2 will be no exception. Despite lacking a co-op story, there will be a new two-player mode known as “Special Ops,” which is designed to be infinitely replayable. The fact of the matter is, Infinity Ward doesn’t believe in putting co-op into a main story campaign.
“We don’t do co-op in our story because we’re crafting a very specific experience and we don’t want to ruin that by cramming co-op into it,” offers IW’s Robert Bowling. “We take the moments that work really well with co-op, we bring them out and we put them in Special Ops.
“Story’s all about pacing. Sometimes moments get toned down because they don’t fit with the pacing of the experience you’re trying to deliver. There (in Special Ops) it’s all about fun. It’s about playing over and over again, getting a better time — you’ll have a time at the end of it — it’s about challenging a friend going in on co-op and trying to beat it on veteran.”
Bowling also explains why Special Ops will be two-player and not four-player: “Two player seemed to be the magic number for co-op. That’s when it stayed really fun and intense without becoming a clusterf**k of things. We just found that two-players was the most fun.”
On the subject of co-op in a story campaign, I definitely agree with Bowling. It’s become very chic to cram co-op into everything, but when you’ve got a headset on or are worrying about another player’s status, it becomes difficult to follow the actual story. I really hope single-player games are hear to stay, because it could seriously kill the idea of games as a storytelling medium if co-op is forced into everything.
