CAMPAIGN
“Pushing the boundaries of what
fans have come to expect from the record-setting entertainment
franchise, Call of Duty®: Black Ops 2 propels players into a near
future, 21st Century Cold War, where technology and weapons have
converged to create a new generation of warfare”
-A little more the Decade out.
-Lots of research to make a more plausible ”near future”
-Branching story lines.
-Non linear Gameplay.
-Horse back riding is confirmed
-Very futuristic technology
-Playing in Los Angeles
-Slogan “The Future is Black”
-According to reveal trailer game takes place in 2025
-Game will change between 1980s and 2025s time frame. Mostly in 2025 though
-It is a direct sequel to Black Ops.
-Mason didn’t actually kill JFK, given that he’s out in the field in Black Ops II.
-Narrated by Black Ops character Frank Woods, now an old man. Frank didn’t die in Black Ops
-In the 80′s timeline, players will take on the role of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason.
-In 2025, players will take on the role Alex Mason [David Mason's son]. Father/Son Relationship will be a part of story
-Plot is fictional second Cold War happening between China and the US due to the scarcity of Rare Earth Elements used to make new tech devices.
-According to Treyarch, in real life China currently controls 95% of rare earth elements.
-A good deal of the 1980′s action will take place during proxy wars in Central America.
-We will find out more about Viktor Reznov.
-The villain will be a man named Raul Menendez. He is controlling drones to create this Cold War.
-The 1980′s missions will chronicle what started Martinez on setting his current-day plans in motion.
-The story is was written from the ground up by Dark Knight and Batman Begins co-writer David Goyer.
-Menendez has hacked into the US’s unmanned drones and unleashed an attack on Los Angeles.
-There will be at least one female character in the game, a pilot named Anderson
-The president in 2025 is also a woman, and appeared in the “Attack on LA” mission.
-David Mason’s sidekick is a soldier named Nelson
-The game will be using full-body performance capture to place its actors in the game;
-Both male and female actors captured with the sort of clarity we’ve come to expect from games using full-performance capture.
-Each person will have a different ending depending upon how you chose to play the game.
-Every mission has many alternative ways to play it. You choose. You play.
-A feature called “Overwatch” mode; You can play from the air or the ground. Drive/operate vehicles.
-Snipers have awesome optic. You can see through materials w/ the scope. Electronic Charge to penetrate.
-Worked with guys named Peter Singer on how to make futuristic settings
-CLAW is a “futuristic enemy “
-Talks about Overwatch mode – “live, tactical overview of the map”
-One mission takes place right outside of the E3 area
-Map/Mission shown to OXM was in Keppel Terminal at the Port of Singapore
-Mason is on the US President Security Detail
-Menedez has full control of automated fleet
-President needs to be evacuated
-Look through walls w/ certain scopes
-There will be flashbacks to the 1980s as Woods recalls his maneuvers with Alex Mason
-Lt. Col. Oliver North is helping Treyarch w/ Black Ops 2.
Strike Force Details *Part of Campaign only:
-Treyarch is aiming to change that with Black Ops II with the inclusion of “Strike Force,” a new, open-ended game-mode that’s folded into the single-player campaign.
-Strike Force missions will be woven into the core single-player campaign, and will present themselves as various black ops missions available around the globe.
-Players won’t be able to play all of the strike force missions in a single playthrough.
-Depending on the outcome of a given strike force mission, the story will change. “You’re going to choose a mission,” said Lamia, “and that’s a branch for the story. Say there’s three missions out there—you’re not going to go back and play all of them; the story goes on. If you die on a strike force mission, you die in the story.”
-The playable characters don’t feature in the Strike Force missions.
-Strike Force allows players to control squads of troops, giving follow/hold commands with the shoulder buttons.
-Strike Force also allows a zoomed-out command view via an unmanned aerial drone that lets you to set waypoints for your units to achieve shifting goals.
-Strike Force will allow you to control armed aerial drones, armed land-drones, and unarmed aerial drones in addition to being able to hop to the viewpoint of any of the soldiers in your squad.
MULTIPLAYER
-Treyarch Studio Head in interview on Roll Call on Call of Duty ELITE, “MP in Black Ops 2 is Pushing Boundaries. It will have its own Reveal. The devs are looking at what the community wants and watching all systems. Can’t wait to reveal .”
-David Vonderhaar tweeted that a MUTE ALL option is coming (click here and click here)
-Multiplayer director David Vonderhaar relayed that the new approach they are taking is “One size does not fit all.” That means, he said, that there is no one way to play a Call of Duty game. So, they’re pulling back features like create-a-class, killstreaks, and other features and reexamining them, challenging their assumptions of “what cows are sacred.”
-Multiplayer will take place entirely in the year 2025—there will be no multiplayer missions set in the 80′s.
-They are taking the E-sports community very seriously. In part, that means that they’re focusing on making the game more fun to watch as a spectator. Hopefully that means super cute, colorful uniforms!
-There will be NO beta
-“Looking at every system and really innovating on that gameplay mode that I am looking forward to talk about later”
-Heavy focus on lighting in maps
MULTIPLAYER MAPS:
-“Aftermath” – takes place in Los Angeles; The Verge said,“The other map is downtown Los Angeles following the single-player campaign’s drone attack. On a street sign are the words Figueroa. This is literally where E3 takes place every summer”.
-“Socotra Island” – takes place in an island in Yemen
ZOMBIES-Zombie IS returning in Black Ops 2! Mark Lamia, Treyarch Head, ” Biggest and most ambitious Zombies ever.”
-Zombies will definitely be back in Black Ops II, and will feature all new modes that are more fleshed-out than ever.
-”There will be more zombies and more modes; just more.”
-The zombies are “In the multiplayer engine.” “If you think about all of the things we can do with our multiplayer engine,” Lamia said, “You can start to think about how we might be looking at this.” Okay then!
-“Our zombies fans want more zombies, they literally want more zombies and they want more ways to play. They want bigger maps, they want even more interesting things to do inside these levels. So we are crafting new worlds, creating new game modes and bigger worlds.”
-“We’ve actually put [zombies] inside of our multiplayer engine and it’s capable of doing twice as many zombies, twice as many co-op players. There are actually new modes,” says Lamia. “There’s classic mode that you guys are used to but there are going to be new modes. [Twice as many co-op players] introduces some interesting new gameplay modes. Perhaps you can think of some team game modes where there might be fun to be had?”
-Zombies are the only confirmed co-op aspect of Black Ops II. The campaign and strike-force modes do not appear to feature co-op.
-Zombies can be played with up to 8 players!
-4v4 mode confirmed.
Miscellaneous
-COMBAT TRAINING is CONFIRMED for Black Ops 2!-All versions run at 60FPS.
-Treyarch will not trade frame rate for visual details.
-PC version will utilize DirectX 11. Dedicated Servers are NOT confirmed
-Build previewed was on Xbox 360. Before/after comparisons reportedly indicated significant improvements.
-Environments given more unique details – helps with player communication to call out specific areas.
-Socotra Island in Yemen and ‘Aftermath’ were the levels/areas shown
-New texture technique called “reveal mapping.”
-”There’s over 250 people at Treyarch, but there’s over 300 people working on the project. We do have contractors and test teams that aren’t part of the company. Those others aren’t actually employees of Treyarch. But there’s over 300 people working on the game right now.”