Call of Duty Elite officially announced: Socially-networks your CoD, is a lot like Bungie.net but with paid-for content

Frankly, it all soundsquite good, provided you're heavily into your online CoD. The one snag? You'll have to fork out for some of it.

Launching officially later this year with Modern Warfare 3, Elite will first be beta-tested (in public)with Black Ops. It'll launch integrated into MW3, but will be compatible with all CoD games from Black Ops onwards, and will be accessable in-game, on a console, through a web-browser, and via mobile. What's it got stuffed inside it? Quite a bit, by the looks of it.


Above: You've spelt 'pwned' wrong. Noob

Heat-maps, stat-tracking, social networking, group management, clan management, a theatre mode, YouTube and Facebook connectivity... It sound like basically everything a modern game community network should have, and has obviously taken a fair amount of influence from Bungie's work with Halo over the years. It sounds like there won't be any obligation to use it if you just want to silently offpeoplewith minimum social interaction, a bit like a serial killer (or anyone who's ever been stuck in a lobby with a singing kid), but it's all there if you want it, and most of it will be free.

Most? Yeah. As in "not all of it". Unlike Bungie.net, there will be charges for some of the functions rolled-out with this one. Activision is unsurprisingly keeping quiet on which elements will come as part of Elite's premium subscription package at the moment, but at a guess I'd say that the theatre mode and video uploading would be prime candidates.

So, any more interested in Modern Warfare 3 now that you know how super charged (Acti's words, not mine) the multiplayer is going to be? Or are you still just waiting for Battlefield 3?

(In before "This is all free elsewhere. Kotick, Satan, kill, kill, kill")

May 31, 2011

So, any more interested in Modern Warfare 3 now that you know how super charged (Acti's words, not mine) the multiplayer is going to be? Or are you still just waiting for Battlefield 3?

(In before "This is all free elsewhere. Kotick, Satan, kill, kill, kill")

May 31, 2011

David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.