Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is coming this year, and it looks as if it’s going to do more than just capitalize on series nostalgia.
The devs over at Infinity Ward are planning on bringing back one of Call of Duty’s most iconic mechanics, Killstreaks.
Own the opposition – reap the rewards.
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) July 29, 2019
Killstreaks make a return in #ModernWarfare. Tune-in August 1st for the full Multiplayer Premiere. pic.twitter.com/dUy6ZrkNzJ
Instead of the Scorestreak system in-which players earn points toward their Scorestreaks through every in-game action, with the most points being earned through completing game mode objectives. That’s changing in 2019’s Modern Warfare.
Players will be earning their Killstreaks through killing.
The last Call of Duty game to use traditional Killstreaks was 2013’s Call of Duty Ghosts which used the Killstreak system introduced in Modern Warfare 3. Modern Warfare 3 allowed players to pick from 3 different Strike Package reward systems, Assault, Support, or Specialist.
The Assault Strike Package functioned just like you’d expect killstreaks to function. You get kills to earn the streak, but if you die the streak resets down to 0. The killstreaks earned in this list are powerful and earned the player more kills.
Some of the items earned in the Assault Strike Package include the Care Package, Predator Missile, Attack Helicopter, and AC130 Gunship.
Support Strike Package gave players the ability to earn killstreak rewards, but they could die without their streak resetting. Killstreaks earned in the support tier weren’t as powerful as the assault streaks.
Support Strike Package items included Ballistic Vests, Advanced UAV, and EMP.
Finally the Specialist Strike Package rewarded players with perks for getting kills. After completing 2, 4, 6, and then 8 kills the player would have every perk in the game all at once, making them a super-soldier on the battlefield.
It’s not currently confirmed whether or not Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will be bringing back the option to choose between Assault, Support, and Specialist streaks, but players will be glad to at least have normal Killstreaks back in the game.
Infinity Ward has also confirmed that players won’t have to worry about horribly blingy weapon skins invading Modern Warfare as in-game customization will be strictly realistic.
On the official Modern Warfare Reddit page, redditor u/Zerogws asked Infinity Ward to leave out “pink, rainbow, glowing, random unrealistic skins” from the game.
Infinity Ward’s Art Director, Joel Emslie, has responded to the post.
“Our North star. Realistic and relevant.”
It’s still to be seen whether or not Activision forces their hand on Infinity Ward to include outlandish skins for the micro-transaction shop that we can assume will be in the game somewhere.