The eleventh entry to Activision’s prized cash cow Call of Duty is only three months away from release, and in spite of this, developer Sledgehammer Games have yet to reveal any details or footage of the franchise’s most important component, multiplayer. This will change on August 11 at the Gamescom convention.
Advanced Warfare is the first CoD game to be developed by Sledgehammer Games. Previously, Activision owned studios Infinity Ward and Treyarch took turns developing games for the franchise, but the addition of Sledgehammer Games now means that there are three studios churning out a Call of Duty game every year.
So far, Sledgehammer have put a lot of emphasis in showing off the game’s single player component, which has often been regarded by many as a pointless element of Call of Duty games that few people actually played. This time, Advanced Warfare’s single player mode features eye-watering new graphics and Hollywood star Kevin Spacey in Sledgehammer’s attempt to advertise the game’s story, which takes place in the near-future when private militaries, drones, and exoskeletons dominate warfare.
Meanwhile, there has been close to nothing revealed about the game’s multiplayer, save for the fact that players will still be able to specify their avatar’s gender, a feature first introduced in Ghosts, and that the augmented powers afforded by the game’s exoskeletons will play a huge role in gameplay. This will change on August 11, 1 pm EST at the Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany, where a live presentation of Advanced Warfare‘s multiplayer will be shown off, along with interviews with the developers. This will all be broadcasted live over Xbox Live for the 99.9% of fans who won’t be physically there. The exclusivity of the live stream to Xbox users follows news that Advanced Warfare‘s DLC will arrive on the Xbox One before any other platform.
A very, very brief glimpse of the game’s multiplayer, in which soldiers blast one another while prancing about in their exoskeletons, can be seen in the recent story trailer.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be arriving on the PC, PlayStation 3 and 4 and Xbox One and 360 on November 4 2014.