Co-Op In Modern Warefare 2 Dropped Because It “ruined the experience”
Speaking to VG247 Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling revealed that Modern Warfare 2 was initially supposed to have full co-op in the its main Campaign to go alongside the single player mode, but was subsequently dropped as it “ruined the experience” the devs were aiming for. Instead, the co-op is intead the Spec Ops mode, a dedicated, mission-based section playable either online or locally in split-screen.
“We did it early on; that’s what Spec Ops started out as, as co-op through story,” said Bowling when asked about why Campaign co-op didn’t make the final game.
“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.”
Spec Ops was born from the good parts of the ditched co-op mode, Bowling said.
“But then there were moments that were really fun with two players, so we took those moments and put them in Spec Ops,” he added.
“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 launches November 10th on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
October 16, 2009 at 4:58 am
Personally I find that excuse to be pretty bogus. Modern Warfare had a story so Hollywood it was straight out of Bruckheimer blockbuster and I doubt that any gamer out their would lose their immersion due to playing with a friend. Not saying that Modern Warfare had a bad story, it was entertaining and made you want to play through the game, but I just think it’s worth mentioning that I doubt Modern Warfare 2 will be any less over-the-top.
Spec Ops still looks awesome though so I’m glad we do get coop in some form.
October 16, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Well, in the first trailer, there’s that bit when you are lifted out of an exploding castle by a helicopter. That would be pretty hard to do with 2 players. Same for the snowmobile chase; there’d have to be an annoying tether.