Call of Duty: Ghosts is out now; here’s our Call of Duty: Ghosts review.
If you’re going to navigate the new Call of Duty without offending its creators in Los Angeles, it’s imperative that you understand the different sorts of silly involved. There’s the po-faced silliness of single player, with the dogpunches and the lightning rods from space that you’re not allowed to laugh at. And then there’s the ho-ho, self-consciously pulpy bits with cowboy zombies and giant robots or, in this case, aliens.
I think you’re okay to do a laugh at them. So long as you try and make it wide-eyed and anticipatory rather than hollow and cynical.
First came this Instagram trailer from Activision, in which Ghosts’ skull-like emblem is bio-magically transformed into something with murderous appendages and too many eyes, like Sam Fisher:
Next came 17 unofficial images from an imgur user, nominally sourced from Ghosts’ new Extinction mode. They’ve variously revealed a loadout screen, some achievements, and a narrow view into Extinction’s environment – a national park overgrown with thick, Irn-Bru trunks that could be vines, could be tentacles.
The screens suggest that the aliens pour from a series of hives that players are tasked with destroying. Elsewhere, we’ll be charged with setting up and protecting a drill from the oncoming horde.
There’s just one clear image of a xenos beastie, but it’s a clear aesthetic match with the monster in Activision’s teaser:
These silly side shows are really the only outlets the creatively-constrained CoD development teams get to play with the template and try out new structures. So that’s nice for them. But is there room in your weekend for another co-op shooter variant?
Thanks, IGN.