'Farm 18' will riff on the map from Infinity Ward's 2019 reboot.
Infinity Ward has revealed details about one of the new multiplayer maps coming to Modern Warfare 2. It's called 'Farm 18', and is inspired by the 'Shoot House' map from the 2019 reboot of Modern Warfare.
The info about Farm 18 was shared in a video interview with MW2's director of multiplayer design Geoff Smith, which you can view below:
Welcome to Farm 18. Location: [classified]. Shoothouse optional.#ModernWarfare2 #IntelDrops pic.twitter.com/nINQrQOqg0August 11, 2022
"Farm 18 came out of the idea of, we kinda liked the Shoot House facility map, so we decided to think of hidden training facilities. But it's also in a industrial cement factory, and the idea was what if we put a Shoot House-type situation in the middle," says Smith, adding. "If you want to play that crazy game, you can go to the centre and that action will find you. If you want to pull back and play a different way, it's still available to you." In other words, Farm 18 is essentially a map within a map, which sounds like a fun gimmick with some interesting play potential.
The video also features input from Senior Environment Artist Ashley Thundercliffe (what a name), who discusses the challenges of designing a realistic-looking map that also works from a play perspective. "If we go too dense with the foliage, we have people hide in the corners. If we don't go dense enough, we don't sell the narrative of the overgrowth."
I completely understand what Thundercliffe is getting at here. The designers want the map to feel believably dilapidated as players are wandering around. However, "sell the narrative of the overgrowth" is also an extremely amusing turn of phrase, and puts images in my mind of a luvvie potted plant demanding to know what its motivation is.
This isn't the first map for Modern Warfare 2 that Infinity Ward has shed light on. The studio previously revealed details about a Marina Grand Prix map, which will be playable as part of the rather complicated open beta coming next month. The full game is scheduled to launch on October 28, and looks set to be very much another Call of Duty game.
