Players that got the chance to take part in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's first open beta may have already noticed a major change from the previous games in the franchise, but now it has been confirmed. Activision's Tony Flame elaborates on the changes that were made to the game's flinching mechanics ahead of the next Call of Duty open beta.
Flame is a lead game designer at Activision and typically handles the multiplayer aspects of Call of Duty games. He also happens to be very active on Twitter, answering fans questions and providing more insight about upcoming games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
The changes in question this time drastically rework flinching and how receiving damage affects the player. On the surface this change may seem very minor, but it may well shake up veteran Call of Duty players that are used to the old way of doing things quite a bit.
Flame's tweet explains the change in more detail. Essentially, taking damage and flinching will no longer affect the player's aim. Instead, their aim position will move with the screen in order to stay on target. This means that even if the player is staggering from taking a hit, their aim should stay true, but it may take some time for players to adjust to this. Many inexperienced players used the flinching mechanic of older Call of Duty games to their advantage, aiming lower at first and accidentally the flinch take their aim up into a headshot, but Flame specifically calls this technique out saying it won't work anymore.
Fan reaction to this is overwhelmingly positive, however. Even if it may take a bit of time to get used to, players participating in the open beta found the shift fairly intuitive. What's more, the issue of flinch headshotting has been a hot topic among players, so it is nice to see Activision and Treyarch listening and communicating with fans. This increased communication is perhaps what fans are most excited about, as its absence is one of the biggest complaints fans have with Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare game.
It should be said that the character will still flinch, causing the screen to shake, but aim won't be affected. Instead, flinching now serves purely as a feedback mechanism to let players know that they've been hit by an attack and nothing more. As Black Ops Cold War draws nearer, it will be interesting to see what other changes are made to the franchise.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War releases November 13th for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions launching later this year.
