Call of Duty: Modern Warfare used to have a Buddy Boost feature that would let players climb on top of one another.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is going some lengths to be more than a simple remake of the the original COD4. As well as significantly changing the feel of movement and shooting, plenty of new mechanics are also on the way. According to Prima Games, one mechanic could have made a big impact on the competitive scene but was cut before release. The Buddy Boost was planned as a mechanic that would allow one player to wait next to a wall while another player clambered up on top of them.
“You have to let somebody kind of climb up you and get you up and they would get up there,” multiplayer map design director Jeffrey Smith said. “But if you're the one sitting on the wall waiting in a really awkward squat position.”
Despite spending a full year in a build of the game, the Buddy Boost was eventually cut because the team figured it would be too hard to get random players to cooperate with you, and it left very little for the boosting player to do. Instead, Infinity Ward bumped up the interactivity levels of each map to let players clamber around the environments more freely on their lonesome.
It’s very rare for games to allow players to clamber over one another, usually out of fear that players will find ways to escape boundaries, but one notable exception on this front is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The competitive shooter has long enabled players to hop on each other’s heads in boosts to catch unwitting enemies out with a sneaky shot, but relies on finely crafted maps to stop this effect from being exploited in any areas.
Modern Warfare’s Buddy Boost system sounds like it would have been a more rigid system, locking you into place at the point of boost. While we’re sure Infinity Ward made the right call in removing the system, it’s always fascinating to hear about the ideas development teams are playing with behind the scenes. For more on the Buddy Boost, read Prima’s original article. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is due to release 25 October on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
