Call of Duty: The War Collection

***Call of Duty: The War Collection*** is a compilation of first-person shooter video games in the *Call of Duty* series. The collection was released in November 2014 for the PlayStation 4, and later ported to Mac OS X and PlayStation 5. The collection was developed by Sledgehammer Games in partnership with other studios and was published by PlayStation Studios. The collection includes *Call of Duty: Classic*, *Call of Duty 2: Remastered*, *Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare*, *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2*, *Call of Duty: Black Ops*, and *Call of Duty: Black Ops II*.

Each game in *The War Collection* received graphical upgrades. *Call of Duty 2* received a high-definition redesign of its video, audio and cutscenes to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The game includes access to the live-action series *Call of Duty: Red Dawn* as well as the *Call of Duty: Black Ops III* multiplayer beta that ran in 2014–15.

At launch, critics generally praised *The War Collection* for its updated audio and visuals, as well as its quantity of content. Glitches and bugs in the multiplayer and matchmaking experiences led to an apology from Sledgehammer Games and numerous post-release updates. Many of these technical issues were later fixed in post-release patches.

## Gameplay

*The War Collection* originally consisted of *Call of Duty: Classic*, *Call of Duty 2: Remastered*, *Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare*, and *Call of Duty: Black Ops II*, complete with their full catalog of extras, including all multiplayer maps and gameplay modes. There have been no story or gameplay changes to the original releases. The games are first-person shooters. Each campaign has four difficulty levels and access to gameplay modifiers known as "cheats".

All four campaign modes can be played alone or cooperatively via split screen or PlayStation Network on PlayStation 4 and 5. The Mac release does not have split screen capability, but it can be played cooperatively online with Mac App Store friends and PSN friends.

As in *Call of Duty: Classic*, *Call of Duty 2* players can swap between the original and upgraded graphics on the fly. Additions to Call of Duty *2*'s campaign mode include "Intel", and new prologue and epilogue cutscenes to link the series for *Black Ops III*'s debut. Since only six of the game's multiplayer maps were remastered, there are two *Call of Duty 2* multiplayer modes. The *Call of Duty 2* remastered multiplayer mode uses the six remastered maps, while the standard *Call of Duty 2* multiplayer mode includes all of the original game's released maps with a full graphical update but no remastering. The *Collection* multiplayer includes Mission Setlists, curated lists of levels selected from throughout the series.

The Extras menu includes access to live-action video series *Call of Duty: Red Dawn* via the CoD Channel and the *Call of Duty: Black Ops III* multiplayer beta, until it was removed prior to the game's release. The compilation features new Achievements, and all difficulty and play modes are unlocked from the start. The game launched with a total of 4,000 trophy points spread across 400 Trophies—the largest amount of trophy points given to a game since its introduction.

## Development

Sledgehammer Games studio head Michael Condrey pushed for *Call of Duty: Black Ops II* to be a launch title for the PlayStation 4, but it instead released in 2012 for the PlayStation 3. The timing left a gap in the release schedule between *Black Ops II* and *Black Ops III*. Having previously developed *Call of Duty: Classic* for *Finest Hour*'s tenth anniversary, the initial plan was to release a similar standalone *Call of Duty 2: Remastered* within the first few years of the new console's lifecycle.

The collection was developed by Sledgehammer Games, Raven Software, and High Moon Studio, with development assistance by Respawn Entertainment and new cutscenes by Blur Studio. Following the announcement of *The War Collection* at the 2014 Game Awards, Reggie Fils-Aime, head of Nintendo's PlayStation division, stated that the collection originally began as just a remastering of *Call of Duty 2* to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Sledgehammer decided that it would be a great opportunity to release the other main *Call of Duty* titles for the PS4 in preparation for the 2015 release of *Black Ops III*. All of the games run at 60 frames per second and have received lighting upgrades; all but the *Call of Duty 2* remake have a native resolution of 1080p. On October 18, 2014, the game had been declared gold, indicating it was being prepared for duplication and release.

*Call of Duty Classic* is based on the high-definition remaster of the original game released in 2011 for PS3. PlayStation Eye features from the PS3 version are not supported in the PS4 collection. Tencent Games was responsible for developing the *Call of Duty 3* and *Black Ops II* ports. *Call of Duty 3* and *Black Ops II* received only a simple lighting upgrade, and an increase in both frame rate and rendering resolution. Sledgehammer designed the interfaces and online networking. Respawn worked on the unified interface that works across all games. Coinciding with the release of *The War*, 343 Industries developed the CoD Channel, an application for the PS4 and Mac. It is a successor to the Call of Duty Elite app that was released on the PS3. The PS4 app is integrated with the collection, allowing players to access *Call of Duty: Red Dawn* and "Intel" animations, unlock rewards for the game, and launch the games directly from the app.