Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Interview – Infinity Ward Talks Captain Price, New Characters And The Future Of The Campaign

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 aims to deliver a different kind of campaign experience, combining the cinematic action fans expect from Infinity Ward with larger-scale battles and a new group of characters who will experience the conflict from the ground.

Ahead of the game’s release, I spoke with Alexander Norris, Associate Design Director at Infinity Ward, about the campaign’s direction, Captain Price and Task Force 141, and how the studio looks to evolve its approach to single-player storytelling.

Norris also discussed the influence of previous Call of Duty games, including Black Ops 6, the importance of gameplay variety, and how the events of Modern Warfare 4 will carry over into DMZ.

For Norris, whose experience at Infinity Ward stretches back to Infinite Warfare, the Modern Warfare series has been his primary focus for the past six years. While the studio has its own identity, he explained that the team isn’t afraid to take inspiration from other Call of Duty games, particularly when it comes to delivering the scale of conflict they want players to experience.

“We do have our style. We do have our, ‘Is this experience a little too technical? Is it feeling a little too Black Opsy?’ Then we might skirt away from that mechanic or that mission beat,” Norris explained.

“But we probably do tie in a bit more on this game into what could have been maybe a more World War II setting. This is our kind of stepping back into the large-scale battles and big war experience. So I think we probably do share a bit of DNA with the World War II and Vanguard games in that essence of it.”

That larger scale is just one part of the campaign’s direction. Infinity Ward is also looking to provide greater gameplay variety, with Norris explaining that the studio regularly experiments with mechanics that might not immediately feel like traditional Call of Duty.

“Sometimes we make mechanics and new things and novel approaches, and people will come to us on the design side and say, ‘This doesn’t feel like Call of Duty.’ And we’ll say, ‘Well, maybe not to you, but maybe to another person.'”

Norris believes Call of Duty’s broad audience makes that variety especially important. Not every player will enjoy every mechanic or mission, but the studio wants each part of the campaign to offer something different.

“What we try to do is come up with as much gameplay variety as we can so that each mission kind of has its own identity and it’s propelling the player from one mission experience to the next.

One of the biggest ways Infinity Ward is approaching that variety in Modern Warfare 4 is through two interconnected storylines that offer distinctly different experiences.

If we only made core combat for six to eight hours, no one would finish the game.”

The first follows Captain Price and the familiar members of Task Force 141, delivering the cinematic action synonymous with the series. The second introduces a new group of infantry soldiers caught up in an invasion of the Korean Peninsula, fighting to reclaim a city that has been taken from them.

“You’ve got kind of Price’s approach, which is very much more on the cinematic, spectacular, bombastic, classic kind of Modern Warfare experience,” Norris explained.

“And then we’ve also got our new group of infantry grunts that are dealing with an invasion on the peninsula, dealing with trying to retake a city that’s been taken from them.”

The two stories eventually come together, although players won’t necessarily experience events in chronological order. Norris explained that the campaign occasionally moves backwards in time to show how one group’s actions affect the other.

“Price’s story essentially sets up the consequences of Price’s story unfolding on the Korean Peninsula. So the actions of his chasing after the Archer and pursuing his myopic goals have really rough consequences on the Marines and the people on the South Korean side.”

Norris explained that the narrative team wanted to explore the consequences of Price believing he could decide where to draw the line, even when those decisions put him at odds with the people around him.

“Price has had a very interesting character arc to go from this person that has decided he gets to draw the line where he wants to. The narrative team really wanted to run with that and kind of see where does that ultimately take a person. And if you’re going to keep following that path, you’re eventually going to run afoul of your own teammates, of the system itself that you were working inside of.”

For Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 4 represents an opportunity to continue and resolve elements of the existing Task Force 141 storyline while introducing characters who don’t carry the same history.

“We did want to resolve what’s happening with Task Force 141, what’s happening with Ghost and Gaz and Price,” Norris said.

“But we also wanted to keep things fresh and start to make sure that, you know, millions of people, hopefully this might be their first Call of Duty.”

The new infantry characters are meant to bring that fresh perspective, with Norris describing them as a grounded, three-dimensional group with their own chemistry and relationships.

While Price, Ghost and Gaz can find themselves in elaborate cinematic situations, the new infantry characters are designed to experience combat in a way that feels appropriate to their circumstances.

“We have this cast of infantry grunts, making sure that, yes, we’re putting them through some harrowing experiences. But those harrowing experiences should be kind of contextually appropriate to who they are. They’re not going to be punching their way through nightclubs and getting into car chases in Paris. Luckily, we’ve got Price for that. We’ve got Gaz and Ghost.”

The studio is also continuing to push the presentation of its cinematic sequences, particularly the animation and how those moments fit within the broader story.

“To our own detriment, I think, we keep pushing that bar. We have so much animation fidelity. We are our own worst critics. There’s just more and more and more animations going into the game that we are hypercritical about making sure that every moment is as awesome as it can be.”

Norris described the early prototyping phase of development as one of his favourite parts of the process.

“When we start off on the outset of a new project, it’s kind of my favourite part of the whole cycle. This is kind of like blue-sky prototyping. Let’s just make some stuff. Often we do make stuff that just doesn’t fit the vibe or fit that kind of theme for the game we’re making.”

Those ideas aren’t always abandoned. Instead, Infinity Ward can hold on to them until a future game offers the right opportunity. One example in Modern Warfare 4 is a chase sequence set in Paris, which Norris revealed didn’t fit the previous two Modern Warfare games.

“Sometimes we kind of take a cool idea and just set it aside for a cycle and try to come back to it.”

Although Infinity Ward has its own way of approaching its campaigns, Norris noted that it pays attention to what other Call of Duty developers are doing.

“We were incredibly influenced by their open-world sandbox mission in Iraq [Black Ops 6]. It’s this large-scale experience. You get to drive around in your vehicle all over the place and go and take out multiple objectives,” Norris explained.

“We were actually influenced by that, and we said, ‘Hey, we want to make something like that.’ But we do want to put kind of more of our Infinity Ward spin on it.”

Norris explained their take on a similar mission in Modern Warfare 4.

“You’re stranded behind enemy lines and you’ve got to try to fulfil multiple objectives. And once you get to each of these objectives, they’re all unique. They all have their own kind of small single-player story within this open-world context.”

Although Modern Warfare 4 is a big game that ties up loose ends and features backstory and characters from many previous games, the team is focused on introducing new ideas. Infinity Ward also knows players may be entering the Modern Warfare storyline for the first time. With three previous games contributing to Price’s story, Modern Warfare 4 also includes a recap at the beginning of the campaign to bring new and returning players up to speed.

Norris explained that the team regularly reads online discussions, including Reddit, and considers both criticism and praise.

“We read the comments, we check out how people are feeling in Reddit threads and we’re always listening. We take it to heart. We take criticism and adulation hand in hand.”

He also acknowledged that developers can sometimes spend considerable time debating details that players ultimately overlook.

“There’s the things that you stress out about that you think are the worst thing in the world. You’re having meetings over day in, day out. You’re fighting with your coworkers about it. And then nobody notices it.”

Norris explained that while his work focuses primarily on mission layouts, combat encounters, and cinematic set pieces, the narrative team collaborates with both multiplayer and DMZ developers to ensure the campaign’s events carry over into those modes.

“They do work with the multiplayer team and especially the DMZ team to say, ‘This story is going to end in single-player.’ And then once you get into DMZ, you’re gonna kind of see the battle scars of your experiences in that South Korean Peninsula map translate into the DMZ world.”

For players returning to the series, the familiar cinematic action of Task Force 141 will still be there. But with a significant part of the campaign focused on a new group of soldiers, larger-scale battles, and missions influenced by the wider Call of Duty franchise, Infinity Ward is looking to give this entry its own identity.

Explosion Network spoke with Alexander Norris, Associate Design Director at Infinity Ward, ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s release.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is now available to purchase.