Infinity Ward leader describes replacing “killstreaks” with “pointstreaks” in Modern Warfare 3 (video)
Robert Bowling, creative strategist at Activision Blizzard‘s Infinity Ward studio, says the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 coming on November 8 has better balanced multiplayer combat than ever before.
The new tweaks for multiplayer could make or break the experience. If they work, then Modern Warfare 3 can continue Activision’s reign as the leader of the first-person shooter combat genre, which generates billions of dollars a year.
One of the things Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 does to achieve that goal is replace “killstreaks” with “pointstreaks.” In previous versions of the game, the term “killstreaks” referred to killing one enemy after another in modern combat multiplayer sessions. For each streak, players were rewarded with new abilities to kill rivals, such as an exploding remote-controlled car or an unmanned aerial vehicle with radar.
But Bowling said that killstreaks encouraged lone wolves. Their replacement, called pointstreaks, are designed to encourage team play, as players can get rewards that help the whole team.
Check out our interview with Bowling at the Call of Duty XP event in Los Angeles.
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Companies: Activision, Activision Blizzard, Infinity Ward
People: Robert Bowling
About the Author, Dean Takahashi
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
