Call of Duty Ghosts Quick-Scoping

It's no secret that most die-hard Call of Duty fans spend the vast majority of their time playing the military shooter in competitive multiplayer matches. Infinity Ward has undeniably spent plenty of time carefully crafting the multiplayer offerings for Call of Duty: Ghosts, but the developer is also dedicating resources and energy to improving the first-person shooter's campaign mode.

Ghosts will offer some larger, less linear campaign levels to switch things up for players. CoD veterans are well-aware of the typical campaign formula that takes players through a clear route from one level to the next, but that will presumably change this year.

According to Infinity Ward Community Manager Tina Palacios, this time around the developer is interested in appealing to players who are growing bored of the narrow, linear single-player levels:

"It was important for the design team to take into account a lot of the feedback we received for our previous projects...

"We also focused on feedback we received in terms of people feeling like they were going down just one corridor. So we wanted to add a variety in terms of the way you felt when you were playing the game."

The increased level sizes are designed to place players in a position where there's no clear pathway to follow. If the new level structure functions as intended, a few campaign missions should leave gamers feeling completely lost.

That may not sound too groundbreaking, but it would certainly be an out of the ordinary scenario in the middle of a CoD campaign. Despite the goal to design Ghosts with fun rather than innovation in mind, this new strategy in level design could be a big change for the CoD franchise.

Call of Duty Ghosts Riley Helicopter

The move towards larger levels in Ghosts could be the CoD franchise's first step towards evolving into a first-person shooter model that embraces open environments and more choices for players. Nobody expects to see as many side missions as Borderlands 2 in upcoming installments in the CoD franchise, but a bit more exploration and choice would help flesh out the usual speedy run through story mode, before players move on to endless hours of multiplayer. The financial and critical success of the CoD franchise definitely prove that it doesn't need to change much to stay on top (despite Battlefield's impressive efforts), but the usually short campaign mode could stand to benefit from a few tweaks.

One of the other additions to the campaign mode is an increased emphasis on stealth. That said, Infinity Ward has no intention of punishing trigger-happy players who don't embrace the new stealth aspects of the game. In most situations there will be no penalty for charging in with guns blazing.

Players may also notice some changes to the narrative's pace that are designed to help increase intensity. The action-packed cinematic trailer for the game gives a good sneak peek at the kind of intensity Ghosts has to offer.

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Call of Duty: Ghosts releases November 5, 2013 for the PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360. The PS4 version will follow on November 15 and the Xbox One version on November 22.

Follow Denny on Twitter @The_DFC.

Source: Eurogamer