Here are some of the coolest new features of the redesigned multiplayer version of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, as revealed by Activision Blizzard’s Treyarch game studio today. These are the sort of details that make fans of the combat game series, which sells more than $1 billion worth at retail every year, come back.
1. Hardpoint mode: In this version of multiplayer, teams converge on one site in an attempt to control it. You either attack the Hardpoint or defend it. Every player has to converge on the same part of the map. It’s a super-lethal, intense mode where you’ll die or kill over and over. It’s like playing King of the Hill.
2. Score Streaks replace Kill Streaks so that less experienced players can still earn rewards that help them play better in the game. Now everybody helps with the war effort, even those who are lame shots.
3. If you’re good and earn a lot of challenges, you get more ways to uniquely identify yourself to other players in combat. You can design your own emblem as you like, using editing tools that leave a lot of room for creativity.
4. You can play matches with multiple teams all shooting at each other in a free-for-all, with up to six teams playing at once.
5. Custom games are really custom. You can set up any sort of rules you like.
6. New players can learn how to play the more difficult matches by playing with artificial intelligence characters, or bots. Bots don’t yell at you if you mess up.
7. The highlight reel option lets you create a video of a match with a press of a button. It instantly takes your best acts in the match and merges them together into a much shorter film.
8. You can go back to a video of a match and add your own voice narrative to it. This “shoutcasting” video will then include all of your trash talk, and you can share it with your friends.
9. Once you go through all 55 levels of multiplayer, you earn Prestige. But you don’t have to give up all of your rewards and weapon upgrades when you start over at level one. Now you get to keep those winnings. Once you hit Prestige 10, you become a Prestige Master.
10. Zombies mode is going to be a huge open world with moving vehicles and zombies attacking from all directions (including vertically).