I learned many things at the hands-off Call of Duty: Ghosts presentation I attended at E3. First, the titular “Ghosts” are the people you’re fighting against in the wake of a catastrophic mass event that decimates the United States of America. Second, Riley the dog is great addition to the Call of Duty franchise. More important than those tidbits, though, is that Infinity Ward is throwing so much next-gen stuff into the game… but most of the time, you won’t even actively notice it.
One of those pieces of next-gen technology you’ll take for granted is called SubD, and it allows Infinity Ward the opportunity to create perfect circles in-game by rounding and smoothing polygons. Looking down the scope rifle, you probably won’t notice the lack of minute, jagged little polygons that have been combined to make make the circle of the scope. But, trust me, they’re there in all current-gen games. Hell, they’ll even be on the 360 and PS3 versions of Ghosts, ones stepped down from the powerhouse PC and next-gen console builds of the game. In those next-gen versions, the jaggies are gone.
Massive improvements to lighting mean that you’re essentially looking at the game with in-game retinas that adjust between bright lights and shadows like your own do. You don’t see the effect in games, but you’re used to it happening in real-life. It was a real eye-opener (pun intended) to have the effect pointed out after you realise it’s being handled by the game rather than you. That attention to details is extended into environments that are fully rendered using 3D geometry in real-time; rocks actually protrude from the ground rather than begin on top of it. Mountains are sculpted by the engine rather than someone doing a copy/paste job, and when you focus on those aspect of the game’s map, it shows.
Even with these amazing improvements right in your face, you’ll be too busy shooting at baddies, or commanding Riley to stealth up to an enemy and attack — which was awesome, by the way (he’s such an obedient dog!) — to notice them. You might be aware of the coarse arm hair on your character; you may pick up on the scars on Riley’s face, earned from crawling under a barbed-wire fence. You’ll definitely notice that the game looks phenomenal. Movie-like cinema quality phenomenal, in fact, which really suits a game that’s constantly being celebrated for over-the-top movie set-pieces
If you don’t believe me, why don’t you check out the following videos and look for that detail yourself?
Call of Duty: Ghosts will release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on 5 November, and on Xbox One and PS4 later in the year.
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