E3 2012: Call of Duty - Black Ops 2

(dramatic rock music)

For Call of Duty: Black Ops Two,

Activision is going black to the future.

In this latest entry of the world-devouring

shooter series, you are thrown into the year 2025

and have to contend with terrorists

who have some seriously high-tech weaponry.

We sat down with Mark Lamia,

head of the design studio Treyarch,

to find out why this year's Call of Duty is different

than all the rest.

So, if you're a Call of Duty player,

you're going to be really excited about Black Ops Two.

There's a tonne of new gameplay in store for you.

Starting with the story itself.

We have story branching,

which means the choices that you make

in the campaign are going to have an effect

on your story arc.

These new missions called Strikeforce Levels,

which if you've played Call of Duty before, totally new.

Those missions themselves, they're sandbox levels.

You're going to be able to takeover

anything on the battlefield.

Totally new experience.

The setting is new, not only does it take place in 2025

it's a generation spanning fiction.

It takes place in 2025, but as part of the story

as we're telling you about the villain,

you're going to be going back in time

through the eyes of Woods,

who's going to tell you about where and how you

and your father, Alex Mason, met this villain

for the first time, and it's in the late 80s

during the Cold War.

So Strikeforce levels are a totally new concept

to Call of Duty.

One of the critical design goals

when we were coming up with this mode

was that it be accessible, but have depth,

and allow for re-playability.

And so it does introduce non linearly

to the campaign structure because what will happen is,

as the Cold War is playing out in the year 2025,

what will happen is there will be these proxy wars

and these hotspots.

You'll be introduced to them by Jase Hawk

and asked to pick which one of these hotspots

you want to take on.

That's choice of levels inside of a campaign.

When you play these, you can either succeed or fail.

And if you succeed or fail,

it sets the story arc of the Cold War in 2025

on a different trajectory.

The approach on multiplayer is similar

to how we're approaching our campaign.

And that is that we've taken good hard look

at our multiplayer mode, and nothing is being held sacred.

Our community gives us a tonne of feedback

and we're melding that with our own design goals

and aspirations.

And I think we're coming up with an awesome,

unique multiplayer that people haven't had.

As long as people are having a good time

playing Call of Duty games, I think inside the franchise

that's a big win for everybody.