Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare from 2014 moved the series into the near future and, as the first entry, introduced exoskeletons enabling double jumps, side dodges, and rapid wall traversal, which fundamentally transformed the pace of movement and combat in multiplayer compared to previous entries. The campaign also built around the digitized face and voice of Kevin Spacey as the main antagonist, an unusual move for the series at the time.

On PlayStation 4, the game was developed directly by lead studio Sledgehammer Games, and this version, together with Xbox One and PC, represented the full, current form of the game – with the highest texture resolution, the longest draw distance, and the complete set of multiplayer modes and maps. The exoskeleton movement, the central new feature of the entry, played out most smoothly here thanks to the power of the new console generation, while the simultaneously released PlayStation 3 version ran on simplified graphics from a different development studio.

The PlayStation 4 version was therefore the one the developers primarily intended to showcase the game with – with the full scope of content, graphics, and online features. The difference from the PC version was minimal, mainly the standard console gamepad control instead of keyboard and mouse; otherwise the content was identical.

Advanced Warfare was also one of the first entries in the series where the difference between console generations was noticeable even to casual players – while PlayStation 4 offered smooth wall traversal and double jumps in their full glory even in large, crowded maps, the simultaneously released PlayStation 3 version had to scale these features back due to performance limits. For Sledgehammer Games, this was the first major Call of Duty entry the studio led on its own, and the PlayStation 4 version was the flagship on which the new mechanics were shown off at their best, including higher resolution and a more stable frame rate during the hectic moments of multiplayer.

Why play it: As the flagship version with smooth wall traversal, higher resolution, and a more stable frame rate, it shows Advanced Warfare's new mechanics in their best possible light.