- Hello friends, I'm here at Infinity Ward
to learn about the new Call
of Duty: Modern Warfare.
We're going to talk to the
studio narrative director,
the campaign gameplay director
and the studio art director
of Infinity Ward to learn
all about the new game.
(upbeat music)
- So when we started this game,
we wanted to bring Modern Warfare back.
We kind of looked at
it like a Casino Royale
or a re imagining of the universe
and we wanted to make it more relatable,
something that you could
kind of take for granted
because you see it everyday.
It should be part of our world today.
It's a very contemporary take on
the Modern Warfare universe.
- [Patrick] In terms of
representing that in a game then
how are you getting these
visuals to make it look
you know, the way it actually
looks in the real world?
- It's crazy, the process
has started three years ago
and we went heavy into photogrammetry.
Photogrammetry is a process
of taking hundreds of pictures
of an actual physical
object in the real world
and then feeding those
images into the computer,
into some software and then we'll kick out
like a mesh, a model that
represents that real world asset.
We went from making things up,
like actually looking
at an object and then
trying to interpret it
by hand into the game
but now we're doing things like we have to
make the design physically
and you know dirty it up,
maybe it's a pair of old shoes,
we would want to buy the
shoes and then wear them out
and then you take that into the studio,
we give it to our scan team,
which we also had to develop.
So it's a really, it's an
insanely layered process
of getting really good at reality capture
and then getting really good
at getting it into the game
and making it look
right so what you get is
a really believable
immerse of environment.
- So one of my questions was
then if it is photo realism
and that's how you get to, how
do you also make it artistic
because it's your interpretation
of what these things are
at the same time right?
- Yeah, I mean it's as
artistic as any prop designer
or production designer
would be in Hollywood.
You know it just comes down to
what's the tone and taste of the story,
the universe that we're creating
and you know, you do tend to
take some artistic liberties
and once in awhile, we'll
embellish something on a costume
cause we want someone's face to pop.
It's really fun to have
physical restrictions
of the real world and work within those
I think that's when art
reaches it's highest level,
when you actually have
some boundaries around you
and you're having to be very creative.
I think some of the best forms of art
always kind of happen under
a little bit of adversity.
- For a game like Modern
Warfare that's you know,
trying to rip from the headlines and
trying to make it real and gritty.
I mean how important is it then to have
that type of photo realism
and have the technology
to be able to do this now?
- It's crucial, you know.
If we're actually going
to make something new
but it's something that you know and love,
you have to be able to
really raise the bar
and we did that with the
visuals and I think that was key
to actually delivering
something that was really
fresh and exciting.
- Now Joel we talked
about a lot of the stuff
but you also have these beautiful monitors
and all this awesome artwork.
Is there any way you can show us
some of the stuff you're working on?
- Yeah actually, everything
starts from sketch
so there's usually, we do
a lot, a lot of meetings
and when we're trying to
figure out what to do,
it's usually great to
just kind of jot it down
and everybody starts agreeing with it.
Then you can start building it.
So what we have here is
a place where the player
can kind of put together their load out
and all the gear and stuff that they bring
into their experience, like
their multiplayer experience
so they can do it all here on this bench
and we started the process
by just trying to figure out
how would this process work?
How would you look at it?
And then you end up with a set like this
- [Patrick] So this is
the initial sketch here?
- [Joel] Yeah, it's just
one of the first sketches.
So what we have here is the
actual 3D set right here
and then when I punch into it, you can see
that is actually rotates and moves.
I can even punch in on
the objects on the table
and then kind of zoom around.
These packs right here actually,
things that we built and scanned.
We made this prop itself and scanned it
and actually this is the
result that you see right here.
This is actually another
set that we were working on
and it's a place, we go up
to a real Hollywood set,
we lit it and we captured it
and it's a three dimensional
environment, this is where
the player actually chooses
characters to represent
themselves in multiplayer
or in other parts of the game.
So they all have different personalities.
We do a whole process of
actually scanning their faces,
scanning different phonism and
different facial expressions
on them, you can bring
it in here and we do all
these different blends on
their faces and things.
This is actually the ghillie
suit that we made 10 years ago
and we contacted our
military advisor back then
and he still had the ghillie suit
so we brought it back in and scanned it
and there it is, it's in the game.
So it's an ohmage to the
original ghillie suit
that was in the game.
One of the new things
in this game is having
this cloud simulation on this character.
Having that move naturally
and float around like that.
That usually looks really
stiff and uninteresting
and kind of fake but you
get these great results
with this stuff, it's really fun.
And then you being able to really zoom in
on the character's face and
see these facial expressions.
It's really cool.
I mean you get right down
to the patina on the boot
man and all these
wrinkles, it's all captured
and brought in here.
We're trying to represent
realism with these characters,
we're not having characters running around
in g strings and like
bathing suits and stuff,
which I think is kind of like cheap.
- [Patrick] Yeah.
- So we tried to look, we took a good look
at how female operators
are in the real world
and what they look like
and how they you know,
how they're represented and
it even takes us down to
Farah's character in the
game, which is really crucial,
it's the first time we
actually in Modern Warfare
played as a female protagonist.
I mean when you see the
characters in Modern Warfare,
that's the actors and actresses.
Like they're doing their thing
and we're capturing that.
And then the characters look like them.
It's a very interesting
experience building this game,
I mean we've just gone and
captured the real world
and brought it into this
thing to make it feel
completely immersive and then
it's come off pretty well.
- [Patrick] Call of Duty:
Modern Warfare is back.
I have played Modern
Warfare as have most people
on this planet at this point.
What is different about this version
and also, what is familiar?
- Well it's been eight years
since the last installation
of Modern Warfare,
Modern Warfare 3 came out.
And a lot has changed in the world.
so Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare has always stood for
being ripped from the headlines,
it's always been relevant
to the world that we live in today
and so this game is no exception
but a lot has changed in
these last eight years.
Modern Warfare today stands
for clandestine operations
being conducted in the middle
of the night in city centers.
Things like that where the war has changed
and the methods of the war has changed.
And our game sort of reflects that change.
- And additionally, from
a game play perspective,
when we look at just giving
the player new experiences
that they've never had in Call
of Duty, being the underdog
making improvised
weapons, using the terrain
and your knowledge of the
environment to ambush the enemy,
these are all types of
experiences that haven't really
existed in Call of Duty
and are a huge part of
what modern warfare is.
So we also wanted to
give the player all sorts
of new game play experiences
they've never had before.
- This new version Modern
Warfare also has I think
you call them freedom fighters
and there's characters
from the West, we might
see as the opposite side
of conflict, it's obviously
a lot more nuance than that
but you're giving a look and an embodiment
of those characters.
What was it like and how
did you make sure you got
those types of characters
correctly translated?
- Well we've worked with consultants
and we've always worked with
consultants on Call of Duty
but for this iteration, we
also worked with consultants
who are experts in the Middle East
because we felt that to
only show one side of war
which would be sort of
traditionally western soldiers
going over to a conflict zone,
you know, thousands of miles
away from where they are from
to only show that side of war,
to only represent those stories
with you leaving out half of the story.
- I think when people think
of the Call of Duty franchise,
they think of lots of things.
A lot of it is the gameplay,
a lot of it is the multiplayer
but with Modern Warfare specially,
a lot of people talk about the story
and how deep the story was
and engaging the story was.
How important is the narrative
to not just Call of Duty
but your version of Modern Warfare now?
How much impotence was put on you know,
we need to tell a good story,
we need to have an engaging narrative?
- I mean it's incredibly important,
you can't separate one from the other.
I mean Jake and I have been
making games for a long time
where we believed that
story absolutely critical
but it can't separated from
the game play experience.
We are always trying to put
our players in the shoes
of these soldiers and to
put them in situations
where they can have empathy with them,
where they can identify with them,
and where the stakes for the player
of actually completing a
mission or getting through
the game should feel as important
as the stakes of that character
getting what they want.
- Yeah if you just make
cool gameplay that has no
meaningful characters and
story associated with it,
there are no stakes.
It doesn't feel like
there's any reason for you
to accomplish the goals.
So developing a story
that builds those stakes
is really important.
- [Taylor] We believe that
games is a powerful medium
for having empathy because
not only do you sometimes
do you see these characters on the screen
but you can actually be those characters
so you can really walk
a mile in their shoes
or in the case of Modern Warfare,
kind of march a mile in their boots.
- Taylor, Jacob, thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
- Thanks a lot.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)
