After many months of waiting, Tencent and Activision’s Call of Duty Mobile is finally out. The ambitious twitch shooter looks to bring the core COD experience to mobile with few concessions. Achieving such a goal is no small feat, even with all the money in the world behind it, so let’s check out the end result.

As someone who put hundreds of hours into the likes of COD 4, MW2, and Black Ops, Call of Duty Mobile feels like an absolute blast from the past, only somewhat diminished by the fact that the mainline games have already pulled quite extensively from the nostalgia well. I mean, how many COD games have featured Nuketown at this point? Too many, I say.

Nevertheless, there’s fun to be had in trying to remaster snappy kills with the Intervention or realising you still know every nook and cranny of a classic map. It feels both new and old in a way that I’m sure will make it – at the very least – a fun novelty title for those still invested in the mainline games. And for those who’ve long since made mobile their primary platform, there’s a lot to sink your teeth into.

It’s pretty much a hodgepodge of everyone’s favourite maps, guns, killstreaks, and modes from the CODs of yore. The FPS action takes a little getting used to, mostly due to the two firing modes. You’ve got a simple auto-fire and a full ADS manual fire. Both have their quirks, but I’d say manual is preferable for me. There’s an annoying delay on the auto-fire setting, and it’s not particularly useful when you’re trying to spray a fast-moving enemy. Of course, you could just avoid the touchscreen controls entirely and opt for a controller, which is likely what I’ll be doing.

On top of the usual assortment of classic game modes (TDM, S&D, Gun Game), you’ve also got a 100-player battle royale and a zombies survival mode incoming. Running on a Samsung S9, everything looks great and runs well, though I can’t confirm whether it’s hitting anything close to 60 fps – the target on Android devices. It certainly feels consistent, even when in the middle of a large-scale battle.

As you can probably tell, I’ve rather liked my brief time with it. That said, I’m aware that much of my continued enjoyment will come down to the monetisation and whether it ends up slowing progression to a halt. It’s not been a big problem so far, but guns certainly seem a little too pricy.

There’s also the concern that those willing to pay for the better guns (once they’re discovered, that is) will instantly have a huge advantage over those just starting out. Similar issues have presented themselves in the past, with everyone rushing to unlock the ACR in MW3 or the AK74u (pre-nerf) in Black Ops. There’s currently nothing here that looks like it could instantly kill the positivity surrounding the game, but sometimes these issues only become apparent after many more hours of play.

Posted in: News
Tagged With:
Share This: