After Gameloft’s extensive live stream of the singleplayer campaign of the new Modern Combat: Blackout, we now have some new information and clarification about many of the game’s features and changes, along with some things to compare with previous games in the series.
The game will feature three game modes:
Campaign – the standard story based missions
Spec-ops – shorter “challenge” missions
Online multiplayer (with a list of separate game modes just like the previous games)
A thing that was specifically mentioned was that the length of the story missions has been changed to accommodate gaming on the go, so expect to need between 10-15 minutes to complete a story mission. There hasn’t been any specific mention on the number of missions. Spec-ops missions on the other hand take between 2 and 5 minutes to beat.
One thing showcased that got my attention in particular were drones you can pick up and activate, which will allow you to see where enemies are located (you’ll see outlines behind walls or cover) or help you find bombs you need to defuse. The fans of QTEs (quick time events) might also be happy to know that those also make a comeback here, in a similar fashion how they were used in Modern Combat 3 (screen swiping). Another neat thing we were told about is that there will be multiple types of vehicles in the game; however you’ll not be able to drive them, only use their mounted guns.
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the latest released information about the game, you probably already know of the different classes they implemented in the game, some of which you have to unlock, like the “heavy”. In this showcase we saw some difference in the classes, more specifically the perks they get, such as the ability to carry more grenades with the assault class. Each perk can be leveled up multiple times (twice in the case on the grenade one). To level up a perk, you need to spend SP on it, which you get by beating missions (while it hasn’t been mentioned, it’s safe to assume you can unlock them in multiplayer aswell).
Moving to the multiplayer, it’s revealed that the multiplayer mode can be played only through a WiFi connection (3G and 4G are left out it seems) and there was no mention of local multiplayer (though the existence of it hasn’t been discarded either). Weather conditions will also be used in the multiplayer games, more specifically, on certain maps there will be fog at times, which will impact the player’s visibility. One thing that might disappoint the series’ fans is that this game will also not feature cross-platform multiplayer, it will remain the same way Modern Combat 4 was (iOS with iOS and Android with Android). Live chat has also been confirmed to be in the game along with a Squad option (while it wasn’t made specifically clear, it seems to be like a “friends” list to filter from the general chat).
Graphically, there was a lot going on in the preview, showing a nice improvement over Modern Combat 4. Environments now have destructible elements along with pretty good lighting and weather effects. At times what we were shown actually looked impressive, with a lot of things going on at the same time and barely any slowdown.
The final technical info you might be interested to know is that the game will feature cloud saving (Facebook was mentioned specifically, no info on Google Play Games yet) and an interesting way to download the game. They made it so you have to download a “base” of the game, which is 800MB approximately, with the rest of the game getting downloaded as you go. This “base” will include a couple of missions, while the rest have to be downloaded at a later time (free of charge of course). Personally I don’t find this necessary seeing how modern internet speeds are fast enough to allow even 2GB download in a few minutes, and 3G/4G download of a 800MB game would be ridiculous to begin with, but it does make sense for people with slower connections or ones that don’t have much free space left. The total size of the game wasn’t mentioned but we were assured it will be smaller than Modern Combat 4.
Release-wise, we know that the game will be released for iOS, Android and Windows Phone at some point in the summer, with a more exact date to be revealed at E3. For compatibility on Android, nothing was mentioned, but after seeing the iOS devices that will support it, you should expect a Samsung Galaxy S2-class device to be around the minimum (1GHz dual-core, 1GB RAM, Mali-400MP GPU or similar).
That’s all the information we have for now, we’ll keep a lookout and provide any additional information as it becomes available.
