No, you can’t lower the quality of Modern Warfare 2’s fancy water tech to get an advantage

As the Call of Duty community got its first real glimpse of Modern Warfare 2 (and we’re expecting more later today at Summer Game Fest), a lot of questions were still left unanswered.

Fortunately, we got some new details from members of its Infinity Ward development team, courtesy of VentureBeat.

First, as described in Eurogamer’s preview yesterday, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the engine’s fancy new water tech.

One of the tricks previously used by PC players to gain a competitive advantage is to lower their graphical settings to see past cover, fog and other effects. Would the same issue affect Modern Warfare 2?

“We strive to not have that,” said multiplayer co-design director Joe Cecot.

“If your settings are low, we still want the same coverage, the same treatment of water.”

Multiplayer design director Geoffrey Smith added “Even when we first approached water, it was from the perspective that this should be an escape mechanic, not an attacking mechanic.”

“You should be able to jump in the water and swim away and players aren’t able to see you. It’s been something that’s gone back and forth… It’s been a fine balance between the cloudiness, being able to maybe see somebody’s bubbles, but not being able to see everything.”

They were also quizzed on whether current-gen and PC players will have an advantage over last-gen.

“I wouldn’t say there’s going to be an advantage,” said co-studio head Patrick Kelly.

“I’d say there are going to be some graphical – there’s going to be a fidelity change that’s inherent to the machine. But we go to great lengths to make sure that fairness, player to player, exists across that generation of machines.”

The team spoke a bit more about the campaign and its committment to realism with the story taking heavy inspiration from real-world events. Last night’s trailer showed Task Force 141 deploying for a special ops mission in Iran and later discovering a weapon which was supposedly supplied by Russia or the United States. It hits a little too close to reality.

The series also has a history with controversy, with Modern Warfare 2’s (2009) infamous “No Russian” mission seeing the player gun down civilians in an airport. Modern Warfare (2019) also saw encounters with civilians and suicide bombers in the “Townhouse” missions. Would Modern Warfare 2 have similar encounters?

“We’ve tried to have more of a focus on military operatives against military operatives,” said Kelly.

“You saw that in Night War and things like that. It has a more military vibe to it. That’s something we’ve endeavored to do throughout the game… I’m not going to tell you there aren’t places in the game where there are obviously civilians, things like that. But I can tell you that you’re not engaging them. We strongly discourage it at the point of failure if you decide you want to do that kind of thing.”

Finally, a cheeky question on the potential existence of a Zombies mode was quickly shut down by a PR rep: “There will be no Zombies.”