Call of Duty Black Ops 2 multiplayer - What we want from the future fragfest

Weve only seen a portion of Call of Duty Black Ops with Treyarch showing tidbits of the single player campaign, but not a word has been spoken about the series most popular mode, multiplayer. The developers have been extremely tight lipped, revealing no details on player progression, weapons, or perks. But were not going to wait for them to finally speak up. We have our own wants and needs. So, weve decided to put them right here for you to scrutinize or lovingly adore.

If Black Ops 2s multiplayer mode isnt your cup of tea, check out our article on what we want from Black Ops 2 Zombies mode.

Make these special class skins rewards for unlocking Prestige ranks for some real incentive to get to max Prestige. Nothing would be more satisfying than strutting-our-stuff in brand new fatigues knowing your victims are sitting on their Kill-Cams a few seconds longer to glare at our new duds..

Again, these are all unconfirmed rumors so dont get too excited yet. Lead multiplayer designer, David Vonderhaar, mentioned that players will get to choose whats the most important things to you, and forget about the things that are not important, and this rumor sure does fit quite nicely into that mentality. We think this would be a refreshing way to change up the series loadout system. Well just have to wait to find out if the rumors are actually true.

Were not saying Treyarch should do away with Killstreaks entirely, they should just trim the fat. Make them rewarding to earn but keep them from being the overused, overripe boot that stinks up every multiplayer match we jump into.

Instead of having a list of 27 different killstreaks, reduce them down to seven to ten good ones, and bring the game back to its shooting roots, not the press a button and get a bunch of kills trend weve been overindulging.

Weve already seen what some of the future weapons can be capable of, with sniper rifles that penetrate solid concrete and X-ray scopes that reveal enemies through said rock slabs. Weapons like these can completely change the way gamers play Call of Duty multiplayer and turn it into an entirely new experience for the series.

We want Ghost Recon: Future Soldiers levels of weapon customization. Switching out attachments is great, but now we want to break our weapons down into their core components. Let us modify the length of the barrel to affect mobility, change the stock to adjust our recoil, or switch out trigger mechanisms to change firing modes. Let us customize every aspect of a rifle, then we'd really feel ownership over our preferred killing devices.

Come to think of it, Black Ops 2 story will focus primarily on the threat of cyber-warfare, so why not drag that theme into some of the multiplayer gameplay with hacking. Let us affect the environment, like raising bridges or activating automated turrets, by hacking into control panels in the map and forcing enemies into choke points. Special devices could be used to wirelessly hack into the opposing teams Killstreaks and making them work for you. There are so many possibilities.

Like weve mentioned before, Treyarch could give the environments a little more personality by allowing players to interact with them. Let us press a button to activate a building's security systems then a squad of security drones comes out to ruin the opposing teams day. Having the maps be interactive could not only help keep the sneaky, lone wolf players from crossing enemy lines easily, and help keep the immersion of being in a futuristic time period - which brings us to our next point.

One of the missteps we mentioned in our Ghost Recon Future soldier review was that titles environments never made us feel like we were in the future. Since Black Ops 2 is also going for a near future setting, the multiplayer maps should reflect the time period. We dont expect desert or wilderness environments to look technologically advanced or have dramatically futuristic, cybernetic cacti, but when we get dropped into a partially destroyed U.S. city we expect to see some destroyed hydrogen-powered cars, flickering holographic street signs or advertisements for robot butlers. We just dont want the multiplayer to feel like were in Modern Warfare 3 maps with shiny new prototype guns and EMP grenades.

We say, stick to small group matches. We want to see more small-team, objective based games where we can gather up a few friends, develop squad strategies, and wipe the floor with our opponents in a highly competitive multiplayer match. Throw in objectives like escorting VIP players, setting demolition charges, or defending points of interest and we would be in for a good time.

Imagine Halos Forge World editor only in a Call of Duty. You could spend hours crafting your own personal maps, change game rules to fit your own morbid sense of fun and then share your creations online for all the world to enjoy. How awesome would that be? There would be maps replicating scenes from every war movie known to man, new game modes would be spawned, and a near infinite number of new environments and locales would be available for gamers to experience.

If you are looking for more information on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, be sure to check out our Black Ops 2 preview and our Call of Duty Black Ops 2 game page.