About the game
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a 2014 first-person shooter published by Activision. It is the eleventh major game in the Call of Duty series. Sledgehammer Games developed the PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One versions, High Moon Studios developed the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, and Raven Software developed the multiplayer and the Exo Zombies mode. It was Sledgehammer's first Call of Duty game as the lead developer.
The game is set between 2054 and 2061 and follows Jack Mitchell of the United States Marine Corps and his time with Atlas, a private military corporation that sells its services to the highest bidder. Mitchell is the only playable character in the campaign, and Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey play the two lead roles. After each mission you get upgrade points to spend on the Exo suit or on weapons.
There is no traditional heads-up display. Information is shown as holographic projections from the weapon you are holding. The Exo suit lets you boost, dash and sky jump, and it carries abilities such as Exo Cloak. It is the first Call of Duty that lets you pick between conventional guns and laser or directed energy weapons. Multiplayer uses a Pick 13 loadout system, an expansion of Black Ops II's Pick 10, and weapon variants bring the total to over 350 weapons. Supply drops hand out randomized gear.
Two co-op modes sit alongside multiplayer. Exo Survival is a wave-based mode for up to four players on the multiplayer maps, with 13 maps split into four tiers. Exo Zombies, announced in November 2014, is a four-player undead mode with its own story quest, and it arrived through the DLC packs, starting with Havoc.
Development began in late 2011, shortly before Modern Warfare 3 came out. Sledgehammer had been working on a Vietnam War game before that. Advanced Warfare is the first Call of Duty since Call of Duty 2 with a game engine that was mostly rewritten from scratch, and it moved the series to a three-year development cycle. Harry Gregson-Williams, who wrote the main theme for Call of Duty 4, returned, and audiomachine composed the score. The Day Zero Edition went out one day early, on November 3, 2014, and the game reached everyone else on November 4.
Reviews were positive. Review aggregate scores were 83 on PS4 and 81 on Xbox One, and critics praised the visuals, the voice acting, the fast pace and the campaign, while some found the plot predictable. It was the top-selling game at US retail in 2014. A button prompt at a funeral scene, 'Press F to pay respects' on PC, became a widely used internet meme. Later retrospectives usually place it in the top 10 of the series.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 81 out of 100 from 53 reviews (Xbox One). Metacritic 83 out of 100 (PlayStation 4). Metacritic 78 out of 100 (PC). Individual reviews: IGN 9.1/10, Game Informer 9/10, Electronic Gaming Monthly 9/10, Polygon 9/10, GameSpot 8/10, GameTrailers 8.7/10, Official Xbox Magazine UK 8/10, Giant Bomb 4/5.
Extra content
Four DLC map packs came out in 2015, each with new multiplayer maps and one Exo Zombies map. They came to Xbox consoles first. The Season Pass bundle is still listed on the Xbox store.
- Havoc: New multiplayer maps and the Exo Zombies mode with its first map, Outbreak.
- Ascendance: Four new maps, the second Exo Zombies map Infection and a grappling hook playlist.
- Supremacy: Four new maps and the third Exo Zombies map Carrier.
- Reckoning: New maps and the last Exo Zombies map, Descent.
- Season Pass: All four map packs in one purchase.
Good to know
- The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions were built by High Moon Studios, not Sledgehammer.
- Will Irons' funeral asks you to press a button to pay respects. The prompt turned into the 'Press F to pay respects' meme.
- It was the first main Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 2 in 2009 to skip a Nintendo console.
- Havoc and the following DLC packs arrived on Xbox first. Reckoning, the last one, ended the Xbox timed exclusivity when it came to other platforms on September 3, 2015.
- Microsoft released a 1 TB Xbox One bundle with a Sentinel Task Force design and a digital copy of the Day Zero Edition.
- The Atlas Limited and Atlas Pro editions came in a SteelBook case with the Advanced Soldier manual.
Made by
Director Glen Schofield, Director Michael Condrey, Director Bret Robbins, Producer Mike Mejia, Designer Daniel Bryner, Designer Greg Reisdorf, Programmer Jason Bell, Artist Joe Salud, Writer John MacInnes, Writer Eric Hirshberg.
