Infinity Ward multiplayer design director Geoff Smith has responded to the negative feedback for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2‘s Santa Sena map. Speaking with Dexerto, Smith explained that perfect balance wasn’t the intention with the development of the Santa Seana map.
Since the game’s release, Santa Sena has been criticised for its narrow layout as well as the fact that all of the vehicles in the map can be destroyed, causing random explosions all over the place.
“Map-wise, we try to have a balance between experiential maps and the more competitive maps,” said Smith. “Not all of them are super sweaty, balanced ones. There’s ones where ‘hey, it’d be really cool to fight over a border crossing.’”
Smith revealed that the map was inspired by an integral scene in critically-acclaimed action movie Sicario. He stated that the studio tries to balance the maps as much as possible, but it also believes that the studio has the room to experiment with a wider variety of experiences.
“You know, our user base is so huge,” Smith said. “We try to balance as much as we can. I think it’s important to have these fun, experiential maps, and we obviously have enough for the CDL to have their play space.
“[We aren’t] trying to ruin people’s fun on every single map. I think we even looked into keeping those cars from blowing up every round in search and destroy because that gets really old. We kind of just make adjustments as we go, but I think it’s important to have a wide variety of experiences. Not everybody’s into super sweaty matches, so we kind of balance it for everyone. We do our best.”
Alongside developing new content for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward is currently assisting in the development of the next game in the franchise, which is rumoured to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The game is reportedly being developed by Sledgehammer Games, with support provided by Infinity Ward and Treyarch.
