Call of Duty is arguably the most popular FPS game franchise in the world with a massive fanbase and as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gears up for its release this November, players can’t contain their excitement. Modern Warfare 3 will continue the story in MW2 with new features, original maps, and a Zombie mode that will appear for the first time in the Modern Warfare franchise.
Each entry in the franchise brings much more action and adventure coupled with immersive narratives. The MW series has the Special Ops unit, Task Force 141 on the center stage led by Captain John Price, with Vladimir Makarov as the antagonist, who will be back again with the latest entry, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Activision brings a new CoD game every year and according to reports, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was already drawn out while Infinity Ward was working on Modern Warfare 2.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Plans Had Begun While Another CoD Game was in Making
The last game in the series, Modern Warfare 2 was developed by Infinity Ward and this year’s upcoming Modern Warfare 3 is helmed by Sledgehammer. As per The Guardian, Sledgehammer already started working on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 while Infinity Ward was developing MW 2. As strange as it sounds, creative director Dave Swenson said that developers planned out the ending for Modern Warfare 2 and how they would continue it with the next sequel. He said,
“We partnered with Infinity Ward and spent a lot of time coordinating. We set everything up in Modern Warfare II to be able to pay things off in Modern Warfare III. It was all very purposeful.”
According to Svenson, Sledgehammer and Infinity Ward partnered to work things out and how they would make the ends and the start for Modern Warfare 3 meet that it all makes sense.
Narrative designer Shelby Carleton said that the team members used a lot of whiteboards and stick note so that everything is easily accessible to the staff. She said,
“A lot of whiteboards and a lot sticky notes! We stuck on notes containing the story beats we wanted for the different characters, the plot points we wanted to hit, the cool level ideas. You start with your core sticky notes, and from there we were like, OK, this is how we’re going to get from point A to point B.”
Carleton further added,
“It’s like you have a puzzle in front of you. I think this is partially why working on a sequel is interesting, because you’re picking up threads. You’re not working from the ground up. But the stories are always changing, they’re always evolving … you shuffle things around as you go.”
Carleton said that it is very important to understand the structure of the game as the the game is not being built from scratch and design the set pieces according to that to make it equally quiet and loud and when players are playing they’re just immersed and not overthinking the structure of the game.
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Sledgehammer on Writing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Cast
During the writing process of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Sledgehammer had military advisers present at the studio to aid in understanding how these military men work to make the gameplay sticky to reality. Svenson said that the gameplay demo shown at the recently concluded Gamescom was discussed with these advisers and developed.
In the gameplay video, the Special Ops unit is doing a raid in the night on a gulag. Svenson stated that they talked about the scene with advisers and asked them how would they do the mission and then the advisers shared their opinion as how they would break into the gulag, have a backup, and more. These things resonated with the developers and they implemented it all in the game.
Dave Swenson also said that the actors also bring their ideas and state what they feel should be done with a particular scene. He appreciated the cast and said that after writing the scene, when actors perform they’re impressed with how well they do it. He added that although they have played hundreds of games, a new element makes them happy. Carleton concluded that while it is exciting to have an idea or a story sharing it with the community is what makes their jobs special.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be released on November 10, 2023, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.
Source: The Guardian
