Hands on with Medal of Honor: Warfighter at PAX Prime

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A couple of days ago Danger Close Studios invited us out to PAX Prime in Seattle to check out their recent multiplayer build of Medal of Honor Warfighter. It’s no secret we’re huge fans of military shooters so we jumped at the chance. We went in not knowing what to expect, and we had no idea we were about to be blown away.

Before I begin, let me explain my thoughts on the franchise and also why you’re reading about another game on a ‘Call of Duty Blog’. 2010’s Medal of Honor was a valiant attempt at rebooting the franchise by entering modern warfare. I had real high hopes, but was ultimately disappointed by the final product. The campaign was as stellar and as authentic as you can get in my opinion. However, the multiplayer component was a train wreck (and thats putting it nicely). So as you’d expect, I was a bit worried about how their second attempt would pan out. Having said that…

…forget everything you remember about 2010’s Medal of Honor, because Warfighter’s only similarity is the name. Right off the bat, you can tell their second attempt was built from the ground up. Frostbite 2.0 is present and it shows. From lighting to destruction, playing this game on a PC is as close as you can get to “Next-Gen”. Weapon detail and sound fx are on par with Battlefield 3.

If there’s one way I can describe MoH Warfighter, is that it’s “Call of Duty running on Frostbite 2.0” and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This is great news for any Call of Duty fan, Battlefield fan’s might have different opinions. Everything a Call of Duty fan would expect is there. Small maps for fast gun on gun gameplay. Ranks and unlocks. Even killstreaks (except they’re called “Support Actions”). In total we had about 3-4 hours of playtime on 3 different game types:

Sector Control (aka Domination)- 3 Flag points on the map, holding each spot gives your team points.
Hot Spot (aka Demolition)- One team Defends while the other team tries to plant.
Homerun (aka Search & Destroy Capture the Flag)- 10 Rounds with no respawn of Capture the Flag. However, a flag capture gets your team 2 points while eliminating the team in a round only gets your team 1 point.

Everyone at the event seemed to agree that Homerun was their favorite play type. It brought in the most cheers and taunts while playing by far. Danger Close mentioned that they had E-Sports in mind when they were designing Homerun.

Danger Close approached map design the same way DICE did with Battlefield 3. Gigantic maps have been “split” to accomodate each play type. For example, playing Homerun on “Bosnia”(a dark map) will have a completely different layout if played on Sector Control. Basically, one setting, three different maps.

While everything we played was great, there’s still no telling how long the appeal will last. In the demo we were restricted to default classes and there were no ranks or progression in the build we played so it’s still up in the air. I’m sure everyone will agree “Ranks and Create-a-class” were a MAJOR factor on Call of Duty’s success.

We also spent about an hour with the Xbox 360 multiplayer version. Graphics and framerate are almost identical to the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3. So if you liked BF3 on consoles, you’re gonna like MoH Warfighter also.

Leave us a comment and let us know if you plan on picking up Medal of Honor: Warfighter when it hits stores on October 23rd for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. We’ll leave you with some random facts we learned while playing and during our Q&A:

–Warfighter will be taking over Battlelog in October; so stats and platoons will be present for Warfighter.
–Developers are fully aware the community is demanding Battlerecorder and/or a Spectator mode; unfortunately they said gameplay is their main priority so current status is unknown.
–“Lean” will be available on the PC version.
–Guns sounds were recorded 3 different ways: “indoor, outdoor, and midrange”.
–Melee attacks head-on are similar to CoD; sneak up from behind and melee attacks are similar to BF3’s stealth kill.

You can read more about Medal of Honor Warfighter on our second blog feed: MOHblog.com