Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3, ROBO OP

Cybernetic enhancement, nanotechnology and combat androids you’d be forgiven for thinking we were talking about the new Deus Ex game (flip that page!) rather than the latest Call Of Duty. Keen to one-up last year’s Advanced Warfare, Treyarch is taking the reigning champ of first-person shooters further into the future than ever before. And that’s not all that’s changed. In a first for the series, Black Ops III’s campaign will be playable in co-op, with up to four friends online, or two locally.

Each player will bring in their own, fully customisable character you’ll be able to pick your soldier’s look, equipment, and gender, with both male and female options fully voiced and integrated into the story. You and your buddies will also gain experience points as you progress that can be spent on abilities and weapons, allowing each of you to specialise in a different role. You’ll even be able to replay earlier missions with your new unlocks, approaching them differently and, we’re told, getting a fresh perspective on events and characters.

Set 50 years from now, the game takes place during an international war (surprise, surprise!), sparked in the wake of the devastating terrorist attacks of Black Ops II. Soldiers on both sides have been augmented with futuristic weapons technology, rendering them more machine than man and connecting them to their squad-mates in a neural network. Don’t worry, we’re sure there’s no way an evil maniac could hack into it and take control…

“Soldiers on both Sides have been augmented with futuristic weapons technology”

The good news is that those fancy cybernetics will make you more mobile than ever. In both the campaign and multiplayer you’ll have unlimited sprint, and be able to wall-run, powerslide and thrust-jump, while still aiming and firing your weapon. You’ll even get to fight underwater though with all those electronics you’ll want to make sure you’re not voiding your warranties.

Acrobotics
You won’t be zooming around as a nameless spod, mind. This time you’ll be picking from Specialists in multiplayer, rather than designing your own character. Each allows you to choose either a unique weapon or a special ability, with a timed recharge that speeds up after every kill.

Sneaky archer Outrider can equip either a bow that fires explosive arrows, or take the power to see through walls; burly bruiser Ruin can have a powerful speed boost, or two ‘gravity spike’ melee weapons that give him an area-of-effect ground-pound; criminal assassin Seraph chooses between a score multiplier or a one-hit-kill revolver; and the robotic Reaper can teleport or transform his arm into a minigun.

We’re hoping all these changes add up to something genuinely new, rather than just another fresh coat of paint on a formula that’s starting to tire. At least we won’t have to wait until 2065 to find out Black Ops III is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC on 6 November.