Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Campaign Features New Collateral Damage Scoring System

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's campaign will feature a new scoring system that will rank players based on how calculated and clinical they are during missions. The new gameplay system doesn't have an exact name, but Infinity Ward noted it's driven by how much collateral damage you unleash during any given mission. In the game's campaign, how many civilian casualties there are mostly -- and sometimes entirely -- are dependent on your actions. If you're really sloppy during a mission, you'll get a "F" rank once the mission is over. If you're professional and clinical, you'll earn an "A."

"Yeah, there are," said campaign gameplay director Jacob Minkoff when asked if there any consequences for civilian casualties. "Call of Duty has always had 'friendly fire will not be tolerated' warnings when you kill too many civilians. Obviously, we're trying to make things much more realistic, much more visceral this time, so that if you kill a single civilian you feel bad, because you might see a woman go for a gun but instead she's going to grab her baby. We want you to feel bad, and the characters around you will respond and react to what you did, too."

Minkoff continued:

"On top of this, we also have a collateral damage score that we give you after each mission, a rank A through to F score. We talk about 'unknowns' – an NPC is an unknown until they prove whether they're a threat or not. If you kill no innocents and you evaluate all unknowns correctly then you'll end up with a rank A, and if you kill more than three you will get a rank F. There are rewards associated with being as accurate with your threat assessment as possible."

Minkoff didn't go into detail about the rewards players will earn for earning high ranks each mission, but presumably it won't be anything too substantial. As for the system, it sounds interesting, but also sounds like it will only be realistic and impactful on the harder difficulties, where you can't afford to get shot and thus have to make split-second decisions about potential threats. On the lower difficulties you can presumably just wait and see if they have a gun, take a bullet, and then deal with the situation. In other words, it will be interesting to see how Infinity Ward blends this with difficulty.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and is scheduled to release on October 25, 2019. For more news, media, and information on the upcoming shooter, click here.

Source: PCGamesN