Game news Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: Super realistic visuals yes, but why?
Published on 10/30/2022 at 09:10
Even before its release, this October 28, 2022, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is causing a stir! It’s simple, a tour on social networks allows you to see a scene in Amsterdam, more real than life. Has Infinity Ward invented a new technical standard? We go around the subject.
Modern Warfare 2, larger than life
Clearly, giving Modern Warfare 2 single player access a week early is a stroke of genius – hats off to the marketing! Yes, since October 21, players who have pre-ordered the digital version of the new Call of Duty can discover its main campaign before anyone else, by early access. A way to encourage the public to buy the game in advance, unlocking bonuses for multiplayer (available at the official release – October 28). But the operation turns out to be above all a great advertisement for Activision and the Infinity Ward studio! On Twitter, several Internet users shared a scene taking place in Amsterdam, taken from the fourth mission of Modern Warfare 2. And the least we can say is that it’s pretty. The post of a certain Juan was particularly relayed a lot:
“Oh my god Amsterdam is incredibly realistic in the latest Call of Duty. I can hardly believe this is a video game” -Juan, on Twitter
A truly impeccable technique?
In this extract, the heroes Price, Laswell and Gaz have a Mexican cartel in their sights. They have to kidnap one of its members to get information – never mind if it has to be done in broad daylight, in the middle of the crowd. Casually, on the sidelines of the high-flying technique, it is the frame that plays here on our impression of reality. As Nat Clayton, designer for Inkle Studio notes (via Kotaku), we don’t often see “deeply mundane, normal, and real” places in video games. “When it does, it’s often a large open world trying to capture the spirit of a place (Edinburgh Forza; Chicago, San Fransisco, Watch Dogs’ London)”.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – Notre capture d’Amsterdam (PS5, 4K)
Casually, it’s a bit as if Infinity Ward offered us a kind of technical demo here. As usual: in Modern Warfare 2, each mission – there are 16 in total – is isolated from each other with lots of scripted events, giving the team all the freedom in the world to put the package on the visuals. Moreover, when we stop on the latter, we realize that not everything is perfect. The NPCs have a somewhat mechanical behavior and on PS5, we see aliasing in the background. Despite everything, the scene is strikingly realistic, in particular thanks to a blur that appears when the center of the screen is directed towards a character (this is not the case with a weapon in hand). Enough to reproduce the defects of the human eye and peripheral vision.
Not the visuals, the effects of a camera
If you are still looking to be convinced, several videos compare the vision of Infinity Ward with the city of Amsterdam in flesh and bricks. What to notice that another thing can deceive us and make believe in reality. Yes, the camera. As noted by media outlet Kotaku, Juan’s clip looks like something filmed by hand, thanks to its slow, neat movements. You also probably know this syndrome, as a gamer: wanting everything to be perfect before recording a game capture! That, plus Twitter’s video compression, makes everything look better.
Always thanks to the knowledge of Kotaku, this craze is not unlike that reserved for the motorcycle game Ride 4 – in 2021. This time, it was a simple race in the rain that caused the stir. Beyond a frankly impressive technique, the experts of Digital Foundry estimated that it is above all camera angle who did most of the work! The excerpt in question is reminiscent of other videos of the genre, on two wheels, a GoPro screwed on the head. But you should know one thing, here, the angle is the one chosen by the computer during a replay, not the player during his run. Like what, the games are full of tricks to reinforce their impact.
About Call of Duty Modern Warfare II
