While the radical departure from traditional Call of Duty mechanics failed to resonate with the majority of the COD community, resulting in one of the best space shooters since Halo 2 losing the majority of its playerbase within just three months of launching.
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
PvP Multiplayer.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s campaign is good enough to exist as a stand-alone title and would have easily sold very well as a stand-alone product due to its grounded human-centric science fiction plot that embraced space combat relying on aliens or fanatical encounters to move the narrative along, plot aside Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare features a stellar voice cast, with major actors such as Brian Bloom, Kit Harington, David Harewood, and Claudia Lee Black, who leave nothing on the bench when it comes to portraying their characters, adding a layer of depth that is rarely seen in a first-person shooter campaign.
Unfortunately, due to the community’s less-than-enthusiastic reception to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s multiplayer mode, the campaign’s narrative is unlikely to be continued, which is a real shame as I found both the characters and plot to be some of the best the franchise has even given to us and while falling short of the excellent which is Black Ops 2, comes very close to being the best campaign in the franchises 20-year history.
The singleplayer campaign was not the only part of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare to benefit from an all-star cast, with David Hasselhoff, Jay Pharoh, Ike Barinholtz and Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) voicing characters, helping to firmly establish the mode as more than something for “nerdy gamers” to enjoy.
Image credit Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Published by Activision and developed by Infinity Ward.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s reveal trailer was one of the most disliked videos in the history of Youtube at the time of release, with over 60% of its 600k user ratings being negative (dislike); what makes this all the more curious is despite not being a very good “Call of Duty title”, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was a brilliant first-person shooter and did not deserve the flood of negative ratings it received, many of which were from diehard fans of the franchise who were longing for a return to the boots on the ground style of combat that had made Call of Duty a household name and had little to do with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare itself.
As of 2023, the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Reveal trailer has a whopping 4 million dislikes and 656k likes, making it the 34th most-disliked video on YouTube.
Image credit Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Published by Activision and developed by Infinity Ward.
While there is nothing wrong with hopping on a trend and making it work (Call of Duty Warzone) time and time again, we have seen previously successful IPs struggle to retain their core fanbase when making radical gameplay changes to attract players away from rival titles.
While Activision is not alone in making this error, they have been one of the most consistent with it, having three times tried (and failed) to modify the core Call of Duty formula to compete with a rival shooter, only to bleed their fanbase as a result.
1) Advanced Warfare: Activision’s attempt to cash in on the success of Titanfall resulted in many Call of Duty players hating the emphasis on Exo suits, while very few Titanfall players were willing to leave behind a superior mech product for the relatively lacklustre Exo suits in Advanced Warfare.
2) Infinite Warfare: Activision’s second attempt to cash in on the success of Titanfall did little but further alienated its player base, who were eager for a return to the boots-on-the-ground warfare that made the series so popular, ironically, despite being a vastly inferior game. Infinite Warfare outsold Titanfall 2 by a wide margin, only to swiftly die off, while Titanfall 2, with its more moderate community, remains active to this day.
3) Black Ops 4: Live service titles are incredibly popular in 2023; however, that was not always the case, and when Activision prematurely attempted to turn Call of Duty into a buy-2-play Battle Royale competitor without crossplay, things got interesting, and while Black Ops 4 did very well for itself, its success was insignificant compared to free-2-play titles such as Fortnite and Apex Legends, titles which continue to dominate the genre.
Fortunately for Activision, 4th times the charm, and Call of Duty Warzone and its sequel would go on to become dominant forces in the genre, that while still unable to dislodge the market leaders, have captured a large enough share of the market to break into the top three, eventually overtaking PlayerUnknown Battleground in 2022.
Image credit Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Published by Activision and developed by Infinity Ward.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is a first person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, it was released on 4 November 2016 and retails for $59.99.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is no longer in active development, and the developers have moved on to other projects.
As of April 2024, around 1,500 people play Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on a fairly regular basis.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is essentially dead, and finding full lobbies in a reasonable amount of time is difficult in well-populated regions, and next to impossible in less populated regions.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is almost entirely dead on all platforms, with PC faring worse than the others due to multiplayer matchmaking being broken since May 2022; as a result, there is no way for players to engage in core multiplayer modes without adding friends manually and playing in custom lobbies.
The Zombies mode remains relatively active on all platforms due to its uniqueness and warm reception by the community. It is often the most played of the remaining modes, despite TDM playlists still seeing some activity on both Playstation and Xbox consoles.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare supports:
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is rated PEGI 18+ and contains:
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s campaign is fantastic in its own right and is well-worth players for fans of first-person narrative campaigns; however, due to the sorry state of multiplayer content, I suggest waiting for it to go on sale or, in the case of Xbox and PC users, wait till it is added to Game Pass in 2024.
