E3 07: Call of Duty 4 beta announced @ Gaming Target

Written by Jason Cisarano on July 11, 2007

News: 360 demo announced, Stealth Gameplay added.

There were a few surprises during the Infinity Ward preview of the latest addition to the hit series Call of Duty at the Microsoft Press Conference. First off is the addition of stealth gameplay to the classic Call of Duty shoot-Сem-up formula. During the preview, developers played as a ghillie-suited sniper team working their way through an enemy camp. They were vastly outnumbered, two against many, and in order to survive, they relied on moving quietly and using silencers to take out the enemy without raising an alarm.

A couple of times, the team avoided detection by lying down in tall grass and letting the ghillie suits do the work. Not only that, but the graphics in these previews keep getting better and better. Depth of field effects blur out the grass in the foreground as the snipers spy on their targets. Detailed animations have the characters communicating with one another via hand signals. And the advanced light/shadow effects are making the landscapes look as close to photorealistic as anything out there these days.

Xbox 360 owners will be happy to hear that they'll have exclusive access to a pre-release beta. PS3 and PC players will have to wait until the projected Q4 release. Sadly, no other details on the beta were revealed (not even when to expect it), but we'll let you know when they learn anything new.

Modern Warfare is the fourth major installment in the Call of Duty series, and it not only updates the graphics and gameplay. It takes the classic WWII shooter into the 21st century with a new setting based on a conflict with a middle-eastern dictator and a self-appointed Russian warlord longing for the Soviet Уgood old daysФ. Players will become elite SAS and US Marine operatives to combat these threats.

Keep an eye on Gaming Target for more E3 2007 updates.