You know something is ‘serious business’ when Activision wakes up and decides to get involved. With the release of games like Fortnite and ARK last year, console-like FPS experiences on mobile are getting more and more mainstream attention.
The fact that Activision announced Call of Duty: Mobile last night at Unity’s GDC Keynote speech is more proof that this is an up-and-coming genre, at least amongst the Free-to-Play crowd. As far as we’re concerned here at Pocket Tactics, I’ve long held the belief that these kinds of games offer way forward in trying to escape the more cynical free-to-play trappings, but so far the results have been mixed.
Of course, it also depends if you like Shooters in general. Before now it’s not been a ‘big’ genre and in many ways it still isn’t, what with Fortnite pretty much dominating the show at the moment. I used to play Call of Duty when I was younger but I later switched to Battlefield, and more recently, Rainbow Six: Siege. Still, one can see the appeal of a real attempt to bring this franchise to mobile devices in the same way Fortnite did.
The trailer doesn’t giveaway much – most of it is actually from the third-person perspective, which isn’t helpful, but it seems to be using in-engine footage (and you see some first-person stuff here and there). It looks pretty decent, all things considered. Activision have partnered with Tencent for the project, and the game is built in Unity, if that matters to you.
Looking at what’s been said, Call of Duty: Mobile is probably going to be a kind of ‘greatest hits’ amalgamation of maps, weapons, abilities etc… from all the COD games, and the free-to-play nature means that there’s probably going to be a longer progression path to unlocking a lot of these features (compared to the premium games, anyway). Real-world currency unlocks are likely, or at least, in-game currency will be available for purchase. Call of Duty has always been a robust franchise when it comes to the PvP experience so, provided they don’t get carried away perhaps it won’t fall down the ‘Pay-to-Win’ trap door that befalls others.
No word on a release date but pre-registration is available for both iOS and Android users on the official website. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one for the moment and we’ll let you know if we hear anything else.