IW designer says Call of Duty games have become so balanced that it takes the fun out

Infinity Ward’s Co-Design Director spoke with the Official PlayStation Magazine in an interview for their October 2019 issue, which is available here.

Some details from that interview were shared from WCCFTech website, and it’s a quote about balancing in the overall game for players who play Call of Duty.

Infinity Ward Design, Geoff Smith, who was part of the studio during Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2 development, says that recent Call of Duty games have put a huge emphasis on trying to perfectly balance everything out that the fun has been removed in some cases for all players. He even mentioned it could be because of esports that the games have become so micro balanced for every little difference.

I think somewhere along the lines these games have tried to get so balanced, maybe it was esports, it’s kind of just boiled the fun out of the things when you try to super-balance everything. We’re just having fun. We want to just be able to climb around and have fun interactions.

Infinity Ward is focusing on the fun for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and finding different ways to solve some things versus straight changing up weapon balance.

If I can creatively problem-solve this firefight, instead of having me forced down the hallway, I can use my brain better. I can get a different advantage. And it’s kind of a, you know, a puzzle-platform approach. We just want to create more dynamic interaction.

We’ve boiled it down to this micro level of one-on-one combat, and what we can do to add variability to the outcome of that, from climbing around you to running inside and closing a door that causes you to make a choice, you’re going to run in and enter that building somehow.

The competitive community may not agree with this stance, as those players want every item to be perfectly balanced in a way that makes all weapons on a leveled playing field. Infinity Ward has stated that there is esports rules and features set in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but the details on those have not been announced yet. The esports features are usually showcased closer to launch.