The Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer analyzed

Call of Duty keeps hurtling toward the future (look forward to Call of Duty: Heat Death in 2023) and CoD: Infinite Warfare finally throws us into proper spaceships. I thought the space bits were the best parts of the otherwise lackluster CoD: Ghosts campaign, so I’m all for it, though I’m a bit skeptical of what we’ve seen in the trailer: it looks like we’ll be piloting a sick fighter above Earth’s atmosphere, but CoD’s ‘piloting’ segments have typically been very nearly on-rails.

That aside, there’s a lot to unpack in the trailer, so I’ve pulled out some stills and tidbits from the announcement livestream to try to form a better picture of what the campaign might be like. However much there is to criticize about CoD campaigns, I still enjoy finding out what Activision and its trio of CoD developers (appropriately, it’s Infinity Ward this time) have been up to every year.

The biggest and most destructive war ever has begun, again. Infinite Warfare takes place in a future in which disgruntled, fascist space colonists, the Settlement Defense Front, are attacking the poor saps back on Earth who rely on the resources being mined up in space. As Captain Reyes, apparently a warship pilot, we’ll be leading the counterattack. 

I’m not sure we see it in the trailer, but according to The Verge, our battleship will act as a sort of home base, which they speculate might mean we get to hang out with our crew between missions. But not with this guy. This guy’s probably dead.

Who’s this? What the heck is that behind her? I do not know. 

On the livestream, narrative director Taylor Kurosaki referred to Call of Duty’s “authentic military feel” and “gritty, authentic war feel.” I’m not so sure about all that, but the approach to interplanetary combat is at least somewhat grounded. There are no aliens, and the technology is plausible enough—I assume we're looking at some kind of exoskeleton here, and while there's lots of space stuff in the trailer, design director Jacob Minkoff says CoD’s classic “boots on ground” combat hasn't been forgotten.

On the topic of future tech, one thing you’ll notice is that no one is shooting anyone with lasers. It’s all bullet guns for Infinite Warfare as far as we know. 

Yep, there are still lots of explosions, as well as people yelling “Go! Go! Go!” 

Time to go to space! This is a “convertible space fighter that switches between zero-G and atmospheric combat.” Like I said, I’m not sure if we’re really flying around all crazy, or if these segments will be the typical CoD semi-guided arcade vehicle segments. Either way, they sure look good.

It’s sort of hard to tell from the still, but this is a giant robot thing throwing some sort of tank. I’m not super keen on the designs here: both look a bit like imitation Transformers toys. I hope we get to pilot them, though.

There’s a strong Dead Space vibe in this scene, which brings me to another tidbit of info: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will be Infinity Ward’s first crack at the series’ popular Zombies mode. I do expect zero-G space zombies.

This guy gets grappled in the face before being murdered in the neck. According to Minkoff, at least one mission includes “fighting in zero-G, grappling around the outside of a ship that you’re trying to board.” 

This is possibly the grappling mission I mentioned in the last slide, as we look to be maneuvering around the outside of a ship. It’s hard to see, but we’re grabbing onto a robot-looking guy here, and I’m not sure if we’re trying to save him or not. 

Here’s a much better look at the big mech from a few slides ago. I’m not sure what sort of otherworldly environment this is, but it may be related to a mission mentioned in the livestream, in which we’re on an asteroid “spinning out of control close to the sun, where it’s 2000 degrees in the sunlight and -200 degrees in the shade.” In that mission, we’ll need to take cover from the sun to avoid being fried. Pretty standard videogame stuff. (This probably isn't it but it gave me an excuse to bring it up.)

Whoa, whoa, spoiler alert! Roxana dies?!

There’s another scene after this, but I figured I’d end with the prettiest view from the trailer, which reminds me of the good-looking Antarctica bit from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

That’s about all I can glean from the trailer, but let us know in the comments what you spotted or expect from the next CoD campaign. I admit I’ve been fairly disappointed by the previous wave of Call of Dutys, but maybe a fresh start in the much more distant future will do it good? Plus, Infinite Warfare will come with a remastered version of CoD 4: Modern Warfare, and I’m keen to go back to analyze why I liked that game so much at the time.