Above: Call of Duty: Black Ops III has fast-action close combat.
GamesBeat: One impression that players might have is that if they played Black Ops II multiplayer, they’re ready for Black Ops III. It seems like that’s not quite true.
Vonderhaar: I don’t know if I agree with that observation, to be honest. I’ve seen Black Ops II players make the leap to Black Ops III in less time than I would have expected. It depends on what level of Black Ops II player you were, or even Advanced Warfare.
The core mechanics of the game, despite the differences in their design strategy and the features they offer — that core skill set exists from II to III, to be honest. The very basic concept of equipping and loading out, putting yourself in the best position for your play style to win the fight.
GamesBeat: What are your favorites — weapons, maps, modes, specialists?
Vonderhaar: This happens to me every day. David, what’s your favorite? But you can’t ask a design director of multiplayer game to kiss and tell. My job is to not have favorites. My job is to be sure there’s diversity in the game. When something becomes my favorite I have to look very carefully at why that is, to make sure that favoritism over a particular weapon or mode doesn’t become more important than creating this rich, deep game that lots of different people from lots of walks of life and lots of skill sets enjoy.
This has come up. I’ve watched people change their answers. I’m on record here. Battery is my favorite specialist. I use Battery. It’s the one I’m leveling up. I have a personal connection to that character. If you look back at any interview I’ve done where this question got asked, I’ve said, “The answer is still Battery.” Final answer.
GamesBeat: That’s the one I’ve been playing too. My reason is, unashamedly, I want the grenade launcher, the noob tube, so I can do better.
Vonderhaar: Battery’s war machine is a very accessible weapon, which is why it appeals to people like you and I. You aim it, grenades bounce, people explode, it’s satisfying. It’s not difficult to understand. The ping-pong sound of the grenades, the pineapple-style sound, it’s satisfying. It’s limited — limited ammo, limited time — but it’s satisfying and it’s easy to understand.
Every specialist has a different approach. Some require a different level of skill than others. Battery has resonated with a lot of people. It’s fun to play the badass woman character, too.
GamesBeat: There are a lot of people playing the women characters. Did you deliberately decide to match them up with certain capabilities?
Vonderhaar: Not at all. The archetype’s intention is what drives the abilities or weapons they have. Before the specialists were men or women, before they had names and personalities and identities, before we cast the voice actors and wrote dialogue, they were just stick figures with abilities. I was never in a conversation where we said, “We need to give Outrider the Sparrow because she’s a woman.” It didn’t work that way.
It was about the personality stuff. The character concepts, the gender identity, those things emerged from the system-level design of these things, as it should be. I don’t think you want to get into trying to describe any kind of archetype from a gender point of view. It seems like the wrong approach to me. It’s a question of what makes sense for a personality.
GamesBeat: I want the Outrider just because I want the bow with the exploding arrows.
Vonderhaar: The Sparrow, when it bounces somebody back and they explode into little bits, that’s pretty satisfying.
As far the as gender balance online, we’ve seen about 50-50, plus the one unknown. The Reaper is obviously sexless, since he or she is a robot. And then Spectre, we don’t know. Spectre could be a man or a woman or a robot. I don’t think we know.
If there was a goal, sure, it was diversity. We wanted to have a mix — he, she, and other. It was important to us.
Above: Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
GamesBeat: People have noticed that the knife has gone away until something like level 40. That used to be more of a default option, using the knife in melee.
Vonderhaar: You still have an equippable combat knife. The real thing, though, is what makes sense for one-hit kills in melee. One-hit weapons, snipers and shotguns and melee weapons, have always been difficult to make work in the context of a game. We make you spend a point to equip a shotgun that can blow somebody away at close range. We also make you spend a point to take a sniper rifle that can blow somebody away from long range. It made sense in the context of create-a-class and pick 10 and our evolution from Black Ops II to make you spend a point to have a one-hit melee weapon.
It’s also more satisfying. There’s a term for it in the community. I don’t like the term, but it gets used and as a guy in this position I don’t ignore how the community names these things. It’s called panic knifing. The idea that if someone’s in your face, you have to stop having skill and just press the button to swipe at them without aiming. The term originated from the idea that, well, I panicked because a guy was in front of me so I hit the button and slashed my knife and died while he shot me. There’s been many jokes and memes made about players running through a hail of bullets to stab you with a knife.
I’m very satisfied with this decision. It was also fun to bring back the gun butt, which we hadn’t seen in a while, where you swipe with your gun. You haven’t seen that before World at War. It was fun to use that mechanic again and make it matter. If you melee somebody it’ll put you at risk, unless you equip more.