Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, released in 2016, took the series into orbit and open space - Infinity Ward built the campaign around the command deck of the spaceship Retribution, from which the player sets out on individual ground and ship-based missions interspersed with starfighter dogfights between planets and combat against the Settlement Defense Front faction. The game launched simultaneously for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, offering the same content on all platforms: a campaign, a competitive multiplayer with the Combat Rig specialist system, and the cooperative Zombies in Spaceland mode, styled with 1980s retro aesthetics and set in a shopping mall.

The core of the game was identical across all versions - the same missions, the same maps, and the same progression for unlocking weapons and specialists in multiplayer, so choosing a platform was mainly a matter of preferred controller and available hardware. The differences were mainly technical: the console versions ran at a targeted performance of around 60 frames per second at a native resolution matching that generation's capabilities, while the PC version allowed for an unlimited frame rate, higher texture resolution, longer draw distance and more precise mouse control, which many competitive multiplayer players preferred. The campaign also featured sections of free movement around the deck of the mothership between missions, where players could talk to the crew and track the campaign's progress on a map, which was handled identically across all platforms.

The Xbox One version offered the same campaign and multiplayer as the other platforms, but due to the then-current deal between Activision and Sony over timed exclusivity of add-on content, new maps and packs arrived on it with a certain delay compared to PlayStation 4. Period comparison tests also showed that the game on Xbox One often ran at a slightly lower native resolution than on PS4, even though the target frame rate remained the same on both consoles. As on PS4, the more expensive editions of the game on Xbox One included the remastered Modern Warfare Remastered from day one, so the difference compared to the competing console on this platform was practically limited to the content of the add-ons, not the scope of the base game.

Why play it: The delay of new content due to the exclusivity deal with Sony and the slightly lower resolution compared to PS4 are minor compromises, but the scope of the base game and the remastered Modern Warfare in the more expensive editions remain the same.