Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is easily the best entry into the series in a long time. While I'm not a huge fan of zombies, the campaign is easily my favorite Call of Duty has had to offer while the multiplayer is still a blast. If you want a lot of bang for your buck, Infinite Warfare has a ton to offer

Infinite Warfare's multiplayer may lack new ideas, but it's still first-rate, and its stunning sci-fi campaign is Call of Duty's best in years.

Any idea what 3,332,441 represents? That is the amount of dislikes (at the time of writing) the Infinite Warfare reveal trailer received when it dropped 5-months ago. Think about that for a second. That is more than the entire population of Vancouver, where the bulk of our writers live. It’s a massive number and one that speaks to the amount of internet anger directed towards the franchise on a yearly basis. You just need to look at our YouTube page and, as you would guess, CoD vids have the most dislikes. I have my theories why that is but I don’t try hard to understand it. It is what it is. ...

Yet, it's still awesome, and I personally hope to see a sequel in the future. We never got a Wing Commander VI, but I'd be very glad to play an Infinite Warfare 2.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is the first product of Activision’s new three-year production cycle on Call of Duty titles, and the extra time taken on it shows. While Infinity Ward might have played it a little too safe when it came to the competitive multiplayer mode, the improvements in the single-player campaign and Call of Duty: Zombies are substantial. The single-player campaign, in particular, hooked me, and I hope that future campaigns in the Call of Duty universe get the same care.

There's a massive amount of content in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, though especially if you played Black Ops 3 last year there’s little of it that’s particularly impressive. The campaign is ignorable and the multiplayer needs a little technical work to be as good as last year’s, but the overly silly Zombies mode keeps me coming back. It may not stand out in a year that’s been crowded with great shooters, but it still produces that familiar Call of Duty action.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare does just enough to stay above the curve and somewhat make up for the appropriately soulless Ghosts. The zombies team did an incredible job with Spaceland, and the multiplayer still ticks all of the right boxes with an ample locomotion system that has since been surpassed by Titanfall. But if you were expecting anything totally new, including the non-inventive space campaign, look elsewhere. Or, look directly to the inside of your slipcase and enter the code for Modern Warfare Remastered.

Those looking to jump right back into a tight, predictable multiplayer experience will find exactly that with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. A lack of focus overall puts this year’s outing in the driver’s seat over the shark, but Zombies and some saving graces in the campaign keep this from being a total loss.

A stifling campaign and under-populated multiplayer fail to reinvigorate CoD.

As for Infinite Warfare. Its sin is the same sin that the series has always committed: that of being uninventive. Like I say, we’ll have more detailed thoughts on the multiplayer later - I’ve only played a bit. As far as the campaign is concerned, an incredible amount of hard work and money has gone into it, creating explosive spectacles and heavy gunfights. But that doesn’t stop it from being a hollow chassis, a tin man of a game – shiny, impressive, with absolutely no heart.

It’s not easy to judge a Call of Duty game. Some of you might think so. Some of you already have your opinions of Infinite Warfare without even reading this review or playing it yourself. That opinion might be based on the series name alone. It might be based on Infinite Warfare’s futuristic setting. It may even be based on the multiplayer beta or comparisons to other shooters recently on the market. Some of you may be right, and some of you may be way off the mark, but Call of Duty should be looked at as a sum of the whole. Not just a name. Not just a setting.

An awkward mishmash of the innovative and the overly familiar, that in the end represents no clear step forward for the franchise.