Co-Op Campaign in Modern Warfare 2 Removed for Breaking Immersion - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 15 October 2009 / 5,099 Views

Many may have been disappointed with the news that the co-op mode in the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 won't include the campaign. Today, Infinity Ward's Rob Bowling, speaking to VG247, explained the reason for such omission.

Originally, the game was supposed to have a co-op campaign, but the feature was dropped because it “ruined the experience” they wanted for the campaign

“We did it early on; that’s what Spec Ops started out as, as co-op through story,” he said

“But it really broke the cinematic experience, took the immersion out of it, out of the story and the pacing and everything we’d spent so long crafting. It just ruined the experience we were aiming for, so we took it out, kept the single-player for that one player intact and polished it.”

Instead of having a co-op campaign, the game features the mentioned Special Ops mode. What is it? It's a series of side missions that aren't related to the campaign, but can be played with full 4-player co-op

“But then there were moments that were really fun with two players, so we took those moments and put them in Spec Ops,” he continued.

“So you can play moments directly taken from the single-player, in Spec Ops, but it’s polished towards those two players so the experience is pure. You really get the best of both worlds: you get the moments that were fun, but the moments that were shitty we took out.”

Modern Warfare 2 will be released on November 10th for X360, PS3 and PC

Source: VG247

33 Comments

Vaten (on 17 October 2009)

Who cares about the co-op. World at War campaign sucked because of the co-op story, it wasn't immersive or interesting. Single Player is Single Player, want co-op just play Spec Ops and stop bitching because this was said months ago. Co-op won't be story.

sonicshuffle (on 17 October 2009)

Wow. What a lame excuse. If someone doesn't want to lose the immersion. Then don't play co-op. It's obvious that this isn't the reason.

Theo (on 16 October 2009)

Sounds more like an excuse. I'm 70% getting this game, but if it had coop campaign I'd be 100% getting this game.

sigh

spacetattoo82 (on 16 October 2009)

they need to just put the coop in. I thought it had it, I guess I missed the article or something.

I almost don't want the game anymore. I thought they would have put the fun into the game not just, here this is all you get, no options, or no new controls. we are not going to change sh--.

I like games with coop way more then games with out..

I got it, special ops is going to have a extension so they can make the extra money off the game... this really is lame....

Badassbab (on 16 October 2009)

I think thats good of them.

XanderZane (on 16 October 2009)

DOLBYdigital says:
Such a joke!
Don't worry everyone, they will be selling you the 'broken' co-op mode as paid DLC in a month or two. So pathetic they used this as an excuse, people play the co-op after they beat the SP. Lap it up fanboys....

No one is going to buy it if they do that after what they say here. Co-op can be done if they just run missions without the narrative characters who tell you where to go and what to do. If they just give your 4-5 objective to complete a mission, you can do this co-op without losing any immersion like he's talking about. That's why they've include the Special Ops mode, so 4 people can do co-op mission without the narration of NPC and scripted events. Not a big deal to me. Most people will be playing online anyways.

Griffin (on 16 October 2009)

This news is old, i don't see why you guys are bitching now, this has been known since info was first coming out about this game.

disolitude (on 16 October 2009)

Yeah, IW jsut doesn't get it... COD4 only fault to me was that it was too scripted and not enough variety in battles. Hence hurting replay value. Coop adds that unpredictability and replay value. I guess they are not willing to get out of the "use sniper and only sniper to kill enemy" mentality.

Procrastinato (on 16 October 2009)

All of the Call of Duty games are scripted such that a leading character drags you around by the nose, or scripted events fire off based upon your position in the world, etc. As soon as you add a 2nd character to the mix, it complicates things immensely.

When IW says "it breaks immersion", what they mean is "we assume your camera is looking in a very particular direction, or that your character is in a very specific locale -- if he weren't you'd see the sides of buildings missing, AIs popping in, etc."

By changing the SP game design to accomodate 2+ players, they would have to lose tons of the stuff that has made the entire series SP campaigns cool to begin with. Given the limited number of people who actually play co-op, I can see why they chose to not break their formula, to appease the few.

DirtyP2002 (on 16 October 2009)

Could anyone help me out?

Does this game offer just online co-op or offline co-op as well?
Is it possible to play on splitscreen online, like it is with Halo?

DOLBYdigital (on 16 October 2009)

Such a joke!
Don't worry everyone, they will be selling you the 'broken' co-op mode as paid DLC in a month or two. So pathetic they used this as an excuse, people play the co-op after they beat the SP. Lap it up fanboys....

Hardy (on 16 October 2009)

Fine by me :)
I`m very happy with the decision. I love a very good and catchy SinglePlayer Campaign.
I think the new games are to focused on the Multiplayer part and I think this is overrated.

so long than

Reasonable (on 16 October 2009)

Sounds good to me. I hate a messed up SP campaign. If it can absorb coop then fine, if not, then strip it out or make it standalone as IW have done here and others have before.

tolu619 (on 16 October 2009)

so?its the same as Uncharted 2?Why is that a problem 4 u guys here but not in Unchartyed 2?Good question,is it online or offline multiplayer?The HD games focus soooo much on online multiplayer now that those of us that can't or don't play online are better off with a wii!

blunty51 (on 16 October 2009)

@ Garnett
True. That's the only reason the game is critically acclaimed anyway. SP pretty much just like any other COD.

Garnett (on 16 October 2009)

Why even keep the out dated game mode (SP) anyway? Make the hole game MP so you dont waste your time making it "cinematic" for nothing, nobody is gonna keep replaying the SP, whats the point...

blunty51 (on 16 October 2009)

While this is really lame, I'm hoping the Special Ops can provide some sought of fallback. Still, it is lame.

ooozxooo (on 16 October 2009)

Disappointing

Hemuli (on 16 October 2009)

PeteyPeeps: I'm pretty sure this decision was made by IW, not Activision.

This shows how Infinity Ward care more about how they are viewed as "artists" than how the gamer experiences the game, which is really bad.

But I'm still very hyped for this game. Hopefully that Spec Ops thing will be fun to play local, since I'm thinking about getting this for PS3 instead for my PC because of local multiplayer.

PeteyPeeps (on 16 October 2009)

Disappointing Activision .... VERY disappointing

Hephaestos (on 16 October 2009)

coop is fun... I guess that's the only feature I prefer on Console fps than PC (split screen that is). Oh well, good thing I was leaning to PC then

Hoffmole (on 16 October 2009)

I agree with thekitchensink.

Why do so many video games want to be second rate movies? If I wanted to watch a film I'd go to the cinema.

Grr grr rant rant...

binary solo (on 16 October 2009)

Took the immersion out!?! What bollocks. People who dig local co-op would be totally immersed regardless. People who aren't into local co-op won't play local co-op. Pretty simple really.

Videogames are entertainment first and works of art second. "Immersion" and "cinematic experience" are artsy-fartsy words not fun entertainmenty words. "Co-op mode" is is entertainmenty words. Seems like they got things 'round the wrong way.

Still, sales won't be affected one bit, so I guess they can well afford to make artsy-fartsy decisions with this game.

Serious_frusting (on 16 October 2009)

Does co-op mean local multiplayer? or online Because you can never be to sure with these sneaky devs.

huaxiong90 (on 16 October 2009)

No problem with me.

AlkamistStar (on 16 October 2009)

I'm very happy with their decision, and it's hyped me up even more to get MW2 on day 1.

c0rd (on 16 October 2009)

As long as this Spec Ops is good, I don't have a problem.

Gilgamesh (on 16 October 2009)

Uhhh well I thought I was going to buy this game

God damn it everyone seems to be not including co-op campaign anymore what the hells wrong with them, it's probably the worst thing to come out of this generation lack of multiplayer offline games

thekitchensink (on 16 October 2009)

This is why I hate the 'movie-ization' of gaming.

Aion (on 16 October 2009)

Oh well but most people care about online.

NightDragon83 (on 16 October 2009)

I see no problem with what IW did here, in fact I welcome it because we are now essentially getting twice the content... rather than just tacking on co-op to the existing single player campaign, you're getting the full campaign AND a completely separate co-op experience tailor-made for multiplayer.

The co-op mode in WaW was only good for unlocking the couple of achievements/trophies that came with it, and not much more. Plus, if you started a co-op campaign, and then wanted to go back and play the single player mode, you couldn't pick up where you left off in the co-op mode and would basically have to erase your progress and start over, and vice-versa.