Just because we weren't the biggest fans of Call of Duty: Ghosts doesn't mean it isn't still immensely popular. It has a huge, highly competitive following, big enough to serve as a primary attraction to Major League Gaming's eSports streaming service, MLG.TV. Those players care passionately about details in the game the average player won't even notice, which would explain why Infinity Ward's latest update focuses on eSports and balancing.
As the only first-person shooter in MLG's 2014 season, it's also a big opportunity for Call of Duty to claim a spot in the growing business of eSports, currently dominated by MOBAs like League of Legends , Dota 2 , and real-time strategy with StarCraft 2 .
Some of the patch notes specific to eSports and MLG in this latest update include:
- Improvements to MLG Broadcast mode for highlighted players.
- Prevent eSports players (except COD Caster) from switching to 3rd Person Spectate cam.
- Better team identification in the MLG hud.
- Added killstreak count to eSports scoreboard.
- Added team names to in-game scoreboard for Broadcast mode.
- Restrict Ghillie Suits when eSports rules enabled (replaces with different game models).
- Add a kill feed to Broadcaster mode.
Improvements that non-pro players might care about include five new prestige ranks in Extinction mode, the addition of "Create a soldier" to Extinction mode, the return of the Gun Game mode to multiplayer, and many (many) other little balancing and performance tweaks.
The patch came out shortly after Infinity Ward announced what it will include in Onslaught , the first of four DLC packs for the game. It has yet to announce when the DLC will be available on PC.
You can read further details on fixes and additions in this latest patch on the official Call of Duty: Ghosts forums .
