With Modern Warfare 4’s development apparently at a standstill, this seemed like the perfect time to pitch an idea for a Shadow Company spin-off within the modern warfare universe.

Proposal:

Call of Duty: Shadow Company

First let me preface by saying this:

There is so much to love about Call of Duty. There is no other first person shooter that can rival the smooth mechanics and gameplay of the franchise. With its unique proprietary engine, the possibilities are nearly endless to what the franchise can achieve. I’ve been playing Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 2007, and I’ve played every title since. However, it wasn’t until Modern Warfare 2019 came out, combined with high refresh rates on consoles, that the franchise truly felt reinvigorated. That game captured the true feeling of what a tactical arcade shooter should feel like. It also felt like a true next-gen leap for console players. Both the campaign and multiplayer were gritty and everything felt grounded with top notch graphics, fidelity, animations and sound design.

 

I believe a large part of the success of MW2019 was due to its movement mechanics. But let’s look into why that potentially was. If you remember, MW2019 introduced gunfight, a 2v2 competitive round-based multiplayer mode where the maps were small, focused, and the gunplay was tense. It was initially advertised as the next big competitive mode within the multiplayer suite. This 2v2 map design also forced a certain linear style of gameplay, which is in part, what call of duty is best at. So, what if we finally introduced a co-op campaign?

 

Getting back to the mechanics of MW2019, in order to achieve the proper pacing, movement had to be slowed down to give a more tactical feel, which worked for the game as a whole and subsequently was brought to warzone. I personally loved all of the multiplayer maps as they seemed designed around that same gunfight philosophy. An extreme example of this was Azhir Cave where there was an exterior lane with lots of cover, and verticality to fight from with a cave that was slightly more open but still maintained a level of complexity with multiple lanes to fight from. Notably, every map felt like you had a tactical decision to make. In Warzone, this movement translated well for an open-world, battle royale with limited cover because it forced the player to use the built-in slower tactical mechanics and heavier movement than we were accustomed to in past call of duty titles. The balance of needing trying to get to cover using tactical movement whilst being shot at forced players to find unique ways to utilize those movement mechanics, which was a large part of what made MW2019 so special. 

 

In Modern Warfare 2 (MWII) released in 2022, we saw an excellent campaign that showed a more complete picture of Shadow Company, a private military contractor made up of elite, faceless soldiers who would see combat all over the world and essentially carried out missions they were paid to do, for better or worse. This is a highly interesting storyline with the potential for unique character development in that of Shadow Company Commander Graves, Roze, Velikan and it creates the space for the ultimate silent protagonist, unable to comment on the story at hand or the politics in question since Shadow Company is usually recognized by a masked, highly-tactical soldier. This seems to be the perfect time to give shadow company their own storyline.

This unique group of soldiers could be tasked with some of the darkest, grittiest and most covert missions the franchise has ever seen. A good example is the level design and atmosphere of the mission Alone from MWII which has you playing as a wounded and unarmed Soap navigating through a dark marketplace as shadow company searches for you while interrogating locals for more information. This mission highlights  also creates an opportunity for some unique villains and good guys, alike, both tasking Shadow Company with missions that make the player question right and wrong, keeping the action  tight, close-quarters, covert, tactical and ethically murky gameplay. This brought some serious edge back to the franchise and there are many players that would love to see this return to form. 

After the events that took place in Modern Warfare Zombies (MWZ) and Shadow Company‘s unique ability to go wherever the money takes them, it would seem more than appropriate that the unit could be involved in the story of the Dark Aether on a larger scale.

Infinity Ward is the studio that can make this game possible, having a keen eye for detail, beautiful animations, and ability to create dark, gritty atmospheres. It is our hope that this is the next installment in the Modern Warfare series; to not only bring the franchise back to its roots, but also push the envelope in storytelling, atmosphere, and competitive, tactical multiplayer gameplay. 

 

Omni movement and how to make that work within a modern warfare title:

 

If infinity Ward isn’t happy with the Omni-movement system, I truly believe it is a matter of simply slowing it down, just as movement was slowed down in MW2019. In every campaign, the movement, even while sprinting, is slowed down to maintain pacing of the story and to make sure you don’t finish the mission too fast, therefore, I think it’s a matter of taking that same philosophy and applying it the current Omni movement system to make it feel less action-hero esque and more elite-tactical soldier. You should still be able to jump, slide, and sprint backwards and forwards, but at a heavier, slightly slower, more realistic pace.

 

With MW4’s development at standstill and with Infinity Ward seemingly unhappy with the narrative of the story and mechanics of omnimovement, it is the perfect time for a Shadow Company spin-off. Also, as last-gen consoles are becoming less viable and as the new iteration of Warzone is undoubtedly brought in with the next Modern Warfare title, this would allow for the developers at Infinity Ward to truly push the graphics, mechanics and fidelity to their limits and be an appropriate transition given the aforementioned move to the next iteration of warzone.