Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the latest game in the cult Call of Duty series. Among its small band of dedicated followers, some will no doubt be mildly interested in the upcoming shooter's online multiplayer offering. Okay, now read that sentence again, this time replacing "cult" with "gargantuan", "small band" with "vast army", "some" with "many", and "mildly interested in" with "positively kicking their way past small animals and children in a rabid attempt to find any information about".

For all its many faults, new information about the series is a Big Deal. It's fitting, then, that Gamescom 2014 is kicking off with a Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare multiplayer reveal event. It's due start soon, at 6pm BST, 7pm CET, 10am PDT or 1pm EDT. You can see the full thing here.

Yes, men will be shot, but the more vital question is: will there be a robo-dog kill-streak reward? Tune in to find out.

Some would argue that paid-for personalisation packs are endemic in the games industry chronic, even. But is there anything wrong with showing off some style while high at the top of a leaderboard. Infinity Ward are no dopes, they know how to hit their target markets. Presented with a money making opportunity, they're not going to make a hash of it. And so, some Call of Duty developers embarked on a skunkworks mission to create the Blunt Force Character Pack a marijuana-themed DLC release.



The DLC, priced $1.99, is one of three new character packs now available for the Xbox version of the game. The other two character packs are themed as "Inferno" and "Bling". Infinity Ward definitely know their audience.

Each character pack contains a uniform and two helmets. In addition, the recent DLC drop also makes available six new 'Personalisation' packs and two new weapons. You can see the full round-up here. Expect all items to arrive on PC after the standard Xbox-exclusivity period expires likely next month.



Of course, maybe you're thinking, "but why can't I re-skin my gun in a garish cannabis pattern?" Don't worry, you already can!

Thanks, PCGamesN.

You know, I've been genuinely inspired by the new Call of Duty: Ghosts DLC announcement. Invasion contains among other things a "refreshed" version of the Modern Warfare 2 map Favela. In that spirit, I'm going to similarly "refresh" an old Call of Duty news post...

Why do Call of Duty characters hate each other so much? Yes, they're at war that I can understand but the lengths they'll go to annihilate their enemy is almost sadistic. In , one of the four maps included in the DLC, somebody has gone through the time, danger and expense of . It's as if Infinity Ward have created an fiction in which every person is a .



Other deathtraps include the standard military issue , and some weird device called . Whatever will they think of next?

In addition to the four maps, players will also get the episode of "the Extinction saga" co-op campaign, and .

All this will be available sometime after 3rd, which is the date the Xbox lot start their exclusive access period. It's annoying, sure, but if they don't get first dibs, they'll spend the rest of the year saying mean things about your mum.

The Call of Duty series has become somewhat infamous for hiding the bulk of its additional content inside paid-for DLC. A new PC patch for Call of Duty: Ghosts contains the rare bonus of a new, and entirely free, game mode. Chaos has been added to Extinction co-op multiplayer, providing a variation of the game type last seen as part of Modern Warfare 3's Spec-Ops mode.

In it, players battle never-ending waves of enemies. So far, so every co-op mode released since Gears of War, but the twist comes in the additional bonuses. By chaining together kills, players unlock power-ups to help them battle on. It certainly sounds like a chaotic variant of Extinction. As opposed to the orderly, subdued extinctions we're so used to.

Want to see a big ol' dump of patch notes? You're in luck:

Weapon Balance


MTAR-X: Reduced head-shot damage multiplier.


eSports


Restrict DLC weapons for clan v clan & esports mode.


Anti-Cheat


Fixes dock exploit area in Whiteout.
Fixed map exploit on Freight so deployable boxes no longer stick to the gate.
Fixed map exploit on Warhawk so deployables no longer stick to the fence.
Overall anti-cheat improvements.


Additional Fixes


Adjusted Domination spawn logic to make it less likely for defenders to spawn near a flag if it is being captured.
Fix for 4096 error.
Fix for wiretap perk to work properly in Hardcore modes.
Fixed issue that classified non-sliding kills as sliding kills if the user died mid-slide.
Fix to default killstreak highlight to last one selected.
Fixed issue that allowed the user to navigate menus while accepting a clan invite.
Fixed flare audio after player leaves helo gunner.
Fixed hardcore audio alias for kill confirmed.
Added proper friendly alias for blitz friendly scoring.
Fix to properly show a popup dialog if a user tries to join on someone from the recently met player list that is a blocked user.
Added killcam for Night Owl deaths.
Fixed character scene offset causing misalignment of some characters.


New Features


"Chaos Mode" for Extinction.


Extinction


Stability and performance improvements.
Fixed challenges that were providing more than one skill point.
Casual mode does not write to leaderboards.
Fixed issue where player models could appear stuck when taking large amounts of damage at once.
Improvements to drill placement logic.
Armor is now invulnerable when the Tank Class skill is active.


Nightfall


Late joining, spectating and players in Last Stand will now be teleported to the final Breeder fight if triggered without them.
Fixed case where players could prevent the Breeder from spawning on Nightfall.


Mayday


Improved alien navigation and pathing.
Improved wall and ceiling navigation for aliens.
Updated Kraken smash and cool down logic.
Fixed ingredient issue where some combinations prevented creation.
Fixed cases where players could not turn a Rhino into a pet when using a Relic.
Improvements to clipping to prevent players from getting to undesirable locations.
Improvements to the Tesla Traps behavior.
Improved clipping to prevent players from placing the drill in undesirable locations.
MAAWS stability and tracking improvements.
Drill cannot be removed from the Drillbot after being placed.
Replaced the Drill waypoint icon after completing the defend from afar sequence.
Late joining, spectating players and players in Last Stand will now be teleported to the Kraken fight if triggered without them.
Improvements to pillage locations.
Deployed items in the lower portion of the ship are removed allowing for new item placement on the top deck of Mayday.
Friendly Seeder Turrets no longer prevent the gas sequence from triggering.
Intel audio snippets now play in game after being collected.
EMP effect from the Kraken no longer impacts skill point menu access.
Fixed crafting scoring exploit where players would mistakenly receive funds when canceling crafting.


PC Specific Update


Fixed rare crash.
Fixed invites not being processed properly during a loading screen in Multiplayer.
Fix to return user to the barracks after leaving clan through clan details.


The patch is out now for PC, and will download automatically through Steam.

Ta, CVG.

The Devastation map pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts will include four multiplayer maps and part two of the increasingly mad Extinction mode. The co-op players vs. NPC aliens aside is set on a "high-tech ghost ship" besieged by a "skyscraper-sized" sea monster and infested with dog-like alien creatures. The trailer also teases the inclusion of the Predator. The actual Predator, from the films. I haven't paid attention to Call of Duty in a while, so it feels like returning to a familiar old house I thought I knew, to find it full of dinosaurs.

The shooting will be familiar enough, I'm sure, even with the addition of the "Ripper 2-in-1 SMG/AR", pronounced "Ripper two-in-one Smgaargh". Multiplayer maps include Behemoth, set on the walkways of a vast mining machine, Ruins, set in a Mexican jungle near an erupting volcano, Unearthed, a map "inspired by" Modern Warfare 3's Dome, and Collision, set on a cargo ship that's crashed into a New York bridge.

The Predator's a tease. Is he playable in a new mode? Is there a map-specific killstreak that sends him after the enemy team? XBox live players will find out on April 3. PC players will probably get it a month later. It'll cost $15 / 10. Find out more on the Call of Duty site, and get a look at the new maps, and the famous monster, in this trailer.

Reinstall invites you to join us in revisiting classics of PC gaming days gone by. This week, editor Sam Roberts returns to the fury of Call of Duty 4's singleplayer campaign.

With Titanfall jettisoning the idea of a traditional single-player mode and Battlefield 4 s campaign inducing widespread sighs, this has become a disposable bolt on to most of today s big shooters. Titanfall is able to create much of the drama of a single-player game in the midst of its impressive systems, but it s worth remembering that the old Infinity Ward were really good at making campaigns, too.

But it might be that Titanfall s lack of a true single-player mode is a sign of the times: COD s rigid campaign formula has been exhausted. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was its peak.

The single-player is, in levels without a significant story beat, a slog to get through today. Perhaps this is because its ideas have been mercilessly recycled in the last seven years by both copycat action developers and Call Of Duty s own teams not really successfully expanding on that formula (full disclosure: I haven t played Ghosts doggy campaign, though I ve completed all of them prior to that).



How many times have we seen that moment when your character gets knocked to his feet by a blast and his vision blurred, before you re picked up by an NPC and finally handed back control of the game? It s in the first mission of COD4 as the tanker is bombarded by MiGs. Every variation of this and many other scripted set pieces borrowed from Modern Warfare, and it s not COD4 s fault that people ripped that off. It just turned out to be pervasively influential.

I think the lack of self-expression offered by its linear structure is a bit too cloying by today s standards. There is some extraordinary visual design in Modern Warfare s real-world environments, but wander too far out of the intended path and you always find dead spots in detail or convenient fences and barbed wire. I forgot you don t have the power to open doors in Call Of Duty you have to wait for the NPCs to do it for you. The lack of interactivity reduces the value of replaying a COD campaign, admittedly, which is probably part of the reason it s become a disposable aside in multiplayer-heavy FPSs generally.

COD4 s success hinges on the quality of replaying those scripted moments, and they are still pretty decent even when you know Infinity Ward s tricks. The storyline isn t particularly entertaining, but it s a lot sharper than the increasingly ludicrous sequels are, and benefits from not overdosing on silly. Individual moments still excel and highlight the developers narrative chops.



You know the ones I mean. When the pilot rescue goes awry during Shock and Awe and your player character is consumed by a surprise nuclear blast, you crawl through the rubble for a minute before your character dies alone in a horrific blast zone. Having played that twice before, I thought the impact would wear off. It doesn t. Yes, you re basically just crawling in a straight line out of a helicopter, but struggling through this blood red wasteland is a scripted moment of real design merit. The sound effects of your character s death are a bit more disturbing than I remember, too.

Then there s the level everyone talked about in 2007. Breathlessly sneaking through the irradiated landscape of Pripyat in All Ghillied Up demonstrates the real craft of a linear story-driven FPS; it remains Modern Warfare s strongest level, and has a nice arc that begins with stealth encounters before escalating into a brilliant last stand. The abandoned backdrop is strikingly beautiful.

Playing it today, I m reminded that DayZ has thrown up a number of equally dramatic scenarios as Ghillied through its systems at random, while also allowing scope for personality and freeform set pieces. Ghillied is just following a guy down a linear path, as impressively paced and scripted as it is. You can t repeat it and have a different experience that s a problem with replaying any Call Of Duty title. But even without the feeling of newness that it had in 2007, you can see why other developers tried to emulate Infinity Ward s storytelling sensibilities.



I realise I sound a bit down in revisiting Call Of Duty 4 s story mode there s a reason for that. Before replaying the game, I considered the idea that the single-player part of an FPS might be becoming a lost art, but I actually think it s just this very specific type of linear shooter that s becoming irrelevant. And that might not be a bad thing. COD4 s memorable tutorial of running through a fake cargo ship of pop-up wooden enemies isn t far off what playing a COD campaign actually feels like today. When you know the beats inside and out, there s not a great capacity for surprise.

It s part of the reason why Titanfall only has a story mode functioning as a multiplayer framework, in my opinion. After Call Of Duty 4, I m not sure this type of single-player experience ever really improved in pacing or storytelling. It had a finite lifespan that has perhaps reached its end with the failure of Medal Of Honor, the broad apathy towards Battlefield 4 s campaign and COD s dog-related sagas.

Modern Warfare s impact was all in the multiplayer, of course. After many yearly Call Of Duty sequels it s hard to recall or appreciate how refreshing Modern Warfare s progression-based multiplayer was Titanfall is getting a similar response now, in that it reworked a genre we maybe didn t realise needed a rethink in the first place.

Maybe COD4 s campaign is just a relic, then but it s still a fun one.

Why do Call of Duty characters hate each other so much? Yes, they're at war - that I can understand - but the lengths they'll go to annihilate their enemy is almost sadistic. In Ruins, one of the four maps added through the Devastation DLC, somebody has gone through the time, danger and expense of rigging a volcano to explode on command. It's as if Infinity Ward have created an fiction in which every person is a Bond villain.



Other deathtraps include the standard military issue aliens, and some weird device called "helicopters". Whatever will they think of next?

In addition to the four maps, players will also get the second episode of "the Extinction saga" co-op campaign, and a new gun. It's called the Ripper, and can switch between SMG and an Assault Rifle modes.

All this will be available sometime after April 3rd, which is the date when the Xbox lot start their exclusive access period. It's annoying, sure, but if they don't get first dibs, they'll spend the rest of the year saying even meaner things about your mums.

After yesterday's Instagram teaser, today Infinity Ward have released a more fleshed out promo for Call of Duty: Ghosts' first DLC campaign. Onslaught follows the traditional COD DLC pattern: containing four maps and a few extra bits. This time, the extra bits include a gun that's actually two guns, and a new episode of Extinction.

The most notable of the new maps is Fog. To go along with its horror-themed setting, players who complete a Field Order are transformed into Michael Myers, tearing up the map with his trademark axe and mask. It's a pretty weird bonus, but not as strange as if you'd been transformed into Mike Myers and forced to act out scenes from The Love Guru. On second thoughts, that would probably be more horrifying.

CoD Ghosts: Onslaught is out on Xboxes at the end of the month. The PC release date will likely be announced soon after.

Infinity Ward have announced their first DLC pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts. In an ideal world, this would update the campaign with even more animal followers. Personally, I'd love to see the addition of a stealth-friendly attack owl, a Worms-inspired exploding Sheep, and a bagful of hedgehogs to be thrown spines-first into the exposed faces of enemy soldiers. Alas, with the Onslaught DLC the Activision studio are instead sticking to the formula that guarantees them a truckload of money: four new multiplayer maps and some extra bits.

The teaser comes soon after the more traditional CoD DLC announcement route: a retail outlet poster. Spotted by Twitterer Ser6_Vick, the poster reveals that the added multiplayer battlespaces will be called Fog, Bayview, Containment and Ignition. As for the extras, it promises a new Maverick AR/Sniper Rifle, and another episode of the Extinction game mode, titled Nightfall.

It's that latter addition that the official Infinity Ward teaser focused on. And naturally, because you've gotta fill that Social Media Engagement quota, the announcement was made via Instagram.



Hidden in the teaser's accompanying onslaught of hashtags was the reveal, "something menacing is coming Jan. 28". Of course, as this is Call of Duty, it's not quite that simple. In an agreement that feels like it pre-dates the Treaty of Versailles, the DLC will appear as a timed exclusive on the Xbox Arbitrary Number. A PC release will follow later: sometime between a few weeks and the heat-death of the Universe.

Given that, as with all Call of Duty posts, the comments will likely gravitate towards an argument over whether the series is responsible for the death of all that is good and right about gaming, let's do something fun instead. What animal companion would you like to see added to the campaign? As well as the above examples, I'd also quite like a gruff but lovable honey badger, possibly voiced by Danny Dyer.

Thanks, CVG.

Previously, I'd assumed Call of Duty: Ghosts' heavy RAM requirement was there because loading a nice dog was a memory intensive procedure. Either that's not the case or canine computer tech is becoming increasingly advanced, because a new multiplayer patch has lowered the game's 6GB RAM restriction. Now you'll only need 4GB of memory juice to access the multiplayer portion, which should naturally mean more dogs chewing on more throats. Hooray?

The exact purpose of the update isn't entirely clear, with Infinity Ward planning to release the official patch notes later today. What the community have found is that, not only is the game mysteriously less RAM intensive, but that the e-sports features - originally thought to appear as part of the next MLG Championship - have made an early appearance.

Both Blitz and Search & Destroy modes have been updated with hard-coded rulesets, available to use in private matches. Players are also given the ability to set weapon, equipment and perk restrictions while using the e-sports functionality. In addition, a Broadcaster mode provides access to a new set of camera tools, including first-person, third-person and over-the-shoulder viewing modes.

Thanks, MP1st.