As part of the newly released Season 3 content for Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Call Of Duty: Warzone, and Call Of Duty: Warzone Mobile, Activision, Sledgehammer Games, and Legendary Pictures have announced that the game will include some fun add-ons connected to the new monster movie Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, including skins with abilities for the two stars (and two co-stars that I won’t spoil for people who haven’t seen this monster mash).
At an event held last week at the offices of IMAX — during which people got to see the Season 3 trailers, play Modern Warfare III on an IMAX screen, and then see the movie — I had the chance to speak to Sledgehammer Games’ Senior Development Directors Adam Iscove and Michael Liu, who oversee the Multiplayer team and the Live Operations Team, respectfully, about this monstrous collaboration.
To start, whose idea was it to do this team up?
Adam: Godzilla.
That makes sense. He’s a big C.O.D. fan; Kong is more into Battlefield.
When I heard you were going to have Godzilla X Kong content in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Warzone, and Warzone Mobile, I immediately imagined new modes, like “Team Deathmatch” but everyone’s a kaiju, or one where twenty people team up against Godzilla and the winner is the one who annoys him the most. Did you ever consider adding a Godzilla X Kong-specific mode?
Michael: It was always going to be a more grounded integration. Yes, we want to integrate elements of the MonsterVerse into Call Of Duty, but how can we do that and still have it feel like Call Of Duty and have it not be something that dramatically changes the Call Of Duty experience? So even when we were thinking of the operator skins, a lot of them were inspired by Godzilla and Kong, but we took a twist without going too far away from the core Call Of Duty experience.
Is that why the Godzilla skin looks more like someone wearing a Godzilla X Kong licensed jacket as opposed to looking like Godzilla?
Adam: Well, the scale…
Sure, but you could be a guy in a Godzilla costume. Though you’d get killed a lot. You can’t really run in one of those things, or see very well. At least that what they always say in the making-of things for the Toho movies.
Adam: Right, right.
In the trailer, the guy in the Godzilla suit can do Godzilla’s radioactive breath. What does Kong do?
Michael: He has an execution that will punch you into the stratosphere. It’s actually an iteration on something we did with Vanguard. We previously partnered with Legendary on Vanguard, and it was a fan favorite, so there was no way we couldn’t do that again.
And like with previous skins, these work for every mode of Call Of Duty…
Michael: Yes, it’s fully compatible across the board: Warzone, “Zombies,” and multiplayer.
You are also adding new maps for Season 3, but I assume, since you didn’t say anything, that none are based on locations from Godzilla X Kong, right?
Adam: Right. We want the maps to be in rotation for the entire lifespan of the game, and the Godzilla X Kong content is an event.
But people can still wear their Godzilla jacket in, say, six months.
Michael: Yeah, once you have it, you’ll keep it in your inventory, and be able to equip it. Though you’ll only be able to get it during Season 3.
There are also some Monarch branded guns, including the Monarch Stinger Assault Rifle. Do they have any specific properties like the operator skins, or is it just aesthetic?
Michael: They’re just stylized weapon blueprints. They’re just the regular guns, the skins are just cosmetic.
Finally, if you could do a similar collaboration with any movie or TV show or something else from pop culture, what would you most want to do a series of Call Of Duty skins for?
Adam: Personally? I like the really out there stuff. I play as Nicki Minaj and Snoop and 21 Savage, so I would want to do something really crazy like…”Weird Al” Yankovic.
Okay…
Michael: I’m a huge fan of action movies, so I would want to do something more action oriented. John Wick comes to mind. Yeah, that would be top of my list.
