Black Ops 3 (A Look Into The Cybercore)

[Tony Robinson El]

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is an upcoming military science fiction first-person shooter video game^, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision.  It is the twelfth entry in the Call of Duty series and the sequel to the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. It will be released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 6, 2015. A feature-limited version (Limit-M) developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology that only supports multiplayer modes will also be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III takes place in a dystopian future set in 2065, 40 years after the events of Black Ops II. Several countries around the world have developed high-tech air defenses that render air assaults useless. As such, most of the warfare between countries is done by covert operatives fighting behind enemy lines. Science and technology have radically changed both the landscape as well as the future of the human race, with society violently protesting and attempting to halt further advancements touted by scientists as "progress". Military technology has progressed to the point where robotics play a main role in combat, and supersoldiers have been developed to fight in the battlefield. Humans have reached the point where they are considered to be more machine than flesh and blood. As a result, there is speculation and fear about an eventual robotic takeover. The game will follow a team of black ops soldiers, like previous installments in the Black Ops series, with supersoldier capabilities. 

Several countries around the world have Directed Energy Air Defense (D.E.A.D.) systems that serve to nullify enemy aerial assaults. As a result, ground combat is once again the focus of military strategy. Elite Black Ops soldiers have embedded direct neural interfaces that let them communicate with combat robots and Net-connected weaponry, in addition to other cybernetic bio-augmentations such as super-powered prosthetic limbs.

The game emphasizes multiple protagonists in each of its levels; up to four distinct characters experience the events of the story all at once, allowing for up to four player cooperative play. Levels feature larger environments and "off the rails" sections in which players engage in large scale open area battles created to increase the possibilities available to the player on the battlefield, with the intent of these new open sections aiming to increase the replayability of the campaign. The campaign also features a new animation system and enemy A.I which has been updated to better react to the diverging approaches players can take.

Cyber Cores and Cyber Rigs are the new technologies that are available to the players. Cyber Cores consist of skills like remote hacking and deploying swarms of nanodrones, while Cyber Rigs provide players new movement and defensive capabilities. Players also have access to T-Mode, which enables co-op players to visualize the battlefield with threat assessment overlays and highlights so that they can help each other out more quickly. Players will be able to choose their character's gender. Furthermore, the playable character's shadow is now visible during normal gameplay (whereas in previous games it was only the case during some scripted moments).

Also featured is a "safe house" where co-op players congregate between campaign missions and show off their earned medals and achievements. Players can also access an in-game wiki to learn more about the backstory of Black Ops III and the state of the world that they are playing in.

Campaign introduces a new difficulty level, Realistic, which is harder than Veteran. In realistic, the player will have only one hitpoint, thus will die in one hit from any weapon.

The campaign stars Christopher Meloni as Commander John Taylor, Katee Sackhoff as Sarah Hall, Sean Douglas as Jacob Hendricks, Rachel Kimsey as Rachel Kane, and Tony Amendola as Dr. Yousef Salim. In addition, Ben Browder and Abby Brammell respectively voice the male and female versions of the player character, while Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch makes a cameo as a villain.

On September 29, 2015, the official Twitter account of Call of Duty was temporarily renamed to "Current Events Aggregate". It then began tweeting messages about real-life fashion, movies and a terrorist attack that takes place in Singapore. Activision later revealed that these tweets are fake, and served to promote the game's story campaign. This marketing campaign was strongly criticized for faking news, and publisher Activision was blamed for being "irresponsible".  The game's director Jason Blundell said that the team was "shocked" by the negative reaction of the marketing campaign, and offered an apology.