Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 gets its very own Horde mode, Chris Schilling goes hands-on with the world’s most popular shooter
Confession time: I’m terrible at online shooters. Yet this fact apparently makes me the perfect guinea pig to test out Modern Warfare’s newest game mode. My host from Sledgehammer Games (co-developing the latest entry in the world’s biggest shooter franchise with original developers Infinity Ward) explains that Survivor is for those who want something akin to the multiplayer experience minus the ignominy of being shot every five seconds. After all, it can be hard to level up when you can barely stay alive long enough to fire off a round, let alone send anyone to the morgue. “We have 33 million players now,” I’m informed. “Naturally, some are better than others.”
Survival sees one or two players tackle increasingly difficult waves of enemies in a more realistic take on World at War’s Nazi Zombies mode. The one level here at GAMEfest takes place in a grey Parisian suburb, apparently cordoned off from the rest of the city for the purposes of urban warfare. It’s not the only gamey element in what otherwise seems like an authentic depiction of modern conflict – between rounds you can access laptops which offer weapons, armour, ammunition and tactical support options in return for the cash you’ve earned for every kill. You can still access them during each round, but you’ll need to put some space between you and the enemy, or get your partner to watch your back while you tap in your request for a holographic site and a few mags.
Wave 1 starts with a small group of shotgun-wielding attackers, and gradually the action escalates. Seven or eight waves in and you’ll be forced to take down a helicopter. Shortly afterwards a Juggernaut (basically a super-soldier with bomb-proof armour) appears on the scene. He’s fairly swiftly disposed of, thanks to our deployment of Delta Squad – a group of four soldiers dropped into battle to track the players’ every move and provide assistance in the close-quarters firefights. A mobile turret positioned on a car’s roof is enough to deal with the next wave of foes, though my partner is forced to revive me at one stage, while I return the favour shortly afterwards. Players can crawl slowly while bleeding out, but only the assistance of a team-mate will prevent death, and game over.
Yet this isn’t a war that can ever be truly won, with an infinite number of waves preventing even the most ardent Call of Duty fan from reaching the finish. I’m informed that the best Sledgehammer employees have managed is Wave 38, while a pair of expert players brought in to test the difficulty level apparently reached 57. Enemy groups won’t vary in size nor in their configuration, though their positioning will adjust according to the players’ locations, thus preventing sneaky players from camping at spawn points.
The Paris level, like all other Survival stages, is all but identical to the multiplayer map; indeed, every online level will be playable in this form. It’s likely to be one of the most compact maps in the entire game, with narrow streets and back-alleys keeping the action focused within a small area. It’s classic COD – slickly-presented skirmishes with intense bursts of roaring gunfire as bullets bite chunks out of Parisian masonry and thud into flesh. Friendly fire is turned on by default, but barring one minor incident involving a particularly feeble throw of a frag grenade the two of us reach Wave 11 without any serious problems.
