11-Year Itch: Call of Duty Advanced Warfare's Multiplayer

How do you keep a multiplayer game interesting, or even alive, over years and successive instalments? I hugely admire how Magic: The Gathering has, a few missteps aside, kept revitalising itself with expansions for over twenty years. New card types, abilities, and stories come and go, but the core game is still there and quite splendid. Call of Duty is now almost eleven years old and seemingly doing pretty well for itself.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare looks, in many ways, to bring the biggest shift since Call of Duty 4 in 2007, with exo-suits changing a player's basic abilities. I wonder how it'll work out. Come see more in a new lengthy trailer.

See, the exo-suit gives players the ability to quickly dodge sideways, hover, cloak, and other tricksy things. These change what a player is rather than what they can do, which could effect every encounter more than the usual CoD refresh of weapons and abilities. Maybe. We'll have to see how it works out.

It seems to still follow the familiar CoD 4 blueprint in enough ways that it'll be familiar, but changes enough to look quite exciting. I probably won't play it, but the design challenge is fascinating. CoD is massively popular, selling kajillions, so it's a gutsy move. But perhaps also a necessary one if it's not to fade away.

Say, gang, what other long-running games and series do you admire for shaking things up?