Call of Duty: Renegades

"When you're put to the test, your morals are questioned, and your mind is strained to the point of insanity, when everything you've ever known is taken away, you must do whatever it takes to survive, to go beyond the call of duty to protect yourself and those around you."

- Renegades E3 reveal trailer

Call of Duty: Renegades, or simply known as Renegades, is a fictional installment in the Call of Duty series, branching off from the main story arcs and thus giving a breath of fresh air to franchise. Unlike previous Call of Duty games, Renegades is set within a smaller scale environment rather than in a world war between several major factions, also donning more role-playing game elements that separate it from the strictly FPS lineage it originates from.

Call of Duty: Renegades is developed by Project Revive, a new developer to the franchise, and published by Activision. Its release date is set to be Fall 2018 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4, with a port to Nintendo Switch.

Setting
Call of Duty: Renegades is set in a fictional continent on Earth known as Arra in the year of 2101. The game contains several locations from Arra, as it is rather large and contains a plethora of terrains, from the bustling cities to the lush tropics to the frost-filled tundras.

Backstory
Arra was once a continent known for its robust unity between local leaders and its immense strength as a result. Its people from all regions of the continent were mostly amicable with one another and each helped each other. Arra thrived through the success of its people. All of this changed as the leader of Arra's capital city, thus the person in charge of most of the inhabited areas of Arra, had reached the end of his life and subsequently passed away. This caused a rift between Arra's citizens, who clashed over who should succeed. The previous leader's death was unseen, which resulted in the panic as there was no known or planned successor.

Out from the smoke of unrest that clouded Arra came a political group known as The Order. The Order's intentions were unknown, but they assisted Arra's citizens who needed help. As the unrest caused riots and unprecedented attacks on one another, The Order supplied shelters, food, water, and other supplies to those who needed them. It was a mysterious organization, that was lauded for its help. The Order helped close the rift that divided citizens as more and more people began seeing that it was The Order that was destined to lead.

Shortly after The Order to came to power, everything changed. What people saw in The Order was hope, fortune, and success. What The Order gave to its people was tyranny, terror, and fear. It operated as an anonymous group of figures that unanimously led the civilizations on Arra. They used an iron fist to rule over the people, to force them under strict living conditions and regulations. Fear, torture, and extortion became the new faces of the game, causing people to stay in their horrible conditions to stay alive. Those who resisted were taken in secret ways to who knew where, being punished by who knows what, or worse, they were killed on the spot.

Arra's days of political unrest were over, but the start of a new era had taken place, the era of tyranny of The Order.

Current Events
45 years have passed since the original takeover of The Order. In that time, many were still too scared to speak out or resist against the government, which has only multiplied and become ever so powerful and scary since it took the throne. No one dares to go against the grain. That is, no one except for one group. One group has vowed to overthrow the citizens' oppressors, one group of the bravest and most courageous men and women. These are the Renegades.

Fed up with the tyrannical government and overarching fear used to control Arra's people, the Renegades seek to restore peace and order to Arra, to begin the thriving era once again. Many of the ordinary citizens have the utmost support for the Renegades, but do not dare to publicly express it. The Renegades take a more confrontational approach to dethroning The Order, as they know The Order will not listen to anything if it means relinquishing its immense power.

This is where the fate of Arra lies. If the Renegades succeed, the good and fair people of Arra will once again be free to continue making the continent as successful as it once was. If the Renegades fail, everyone will continue living scrutinized, tortured, and abused by The Order. All bets are on the table and all outcomes are foreseen. It comes down to the will to resist, the drive to go above and beyond the call of duty that will determine the winner.

Recurring Mechanics
As Renegades is a Call of Duty series game, the game is, of course, a first-person shooter. Although it boasts having aspects of other game genres and other new features never seen before in Call of Duty, the game is a first-person shooter at its core. Players are equipped with weapons (most of the time, at least) and are given tasks and objectives within their respective missions.

Call of Duty: Renegades contains the original Call of Duty feel. Despite taking place in the future, exo suits are not a core game mechanic. Yes, they are available to use in certain missions throughout the game, but they are not an essential part to the game's feel. For most of the time, it is traditional "running and gunning," where the player controls a normal human without any instruments to enhance their abilities. Renegades contains several instances where vehicles and exo suits are playable, but are playable only in those instances.

Campaign has a familiar feel to it, consisting of several missions divided into Acts, based on the various parts of the story. Like some Call of Duty games, Renegades contains a cooperative campaign, capable of supporting up to 4 players at once both locally and online. Additionally, there are two playable protagonists featured in the game. While the secondary playable protagonist will not have menus of their own, the game will switch between the main playable protagonist and the secondary playable protagonist in certain instances in a mission.

Multiplayer has several aspects that resemble previous games in the series. There is still the traditional kind of multiplayer in which players search for matches, have a wide variety of customization options, and so on. Overall, Multiplayer is the game mode that holds the most similarities to the other Call of Duty installments, as Multiplayer has proven to be the most popular aspect of the game.

New Features
There are several new features that are implemented into Call of Duty: Renegades that set the game apart from its predecessors, such as new RPG elements, a revamped layout for the game itself, Campaign, and Multiplayer, and a new Alternate Campaign mode, called Haven.

The Campaign now consists of a Perk Tree System, containing Multiplayer's Perks that players are able to earn for their Campaign characters. At the end of every mission or objective, players will earn a certain amount of Renegade Points, or RP, based on the difficulty of the mission or objective, how the player performed, and various other factors. Players will be able to save up and purchase Perks for their Campaign character for RP. One reason for the Perk Tree System was to help players in Campaign, as it is significantly harder than previous Call of Duty games and will require a bit more grind and work to beat, even on the easier difficulties.

In addition to a Perk Tree System, Call of Duty: Renegades adds an open world element to the Campaign (Along with the menus, to an extent. See paragraph below.) For Campaign specifically, the player is able to roam around the Renegades' outpost and decide what they want to do, which includes choosing which mission to do, customizing their character, and more. Additionally, instead of simply starting a mission and playing a cutscene, the player will be flown to wherever the mission takes place and another character will sit near or across them and brief them about the mission. The player can choose to skip this, which will fade out the gameplay and bring them to the short loading screen before it returns to the player and their allies leaving the aircaft or helicopter or basically entering their mission zone, however that may be.

The menus of Call of Duty: Renegades have been completely revamped. Rather than having basic menus in which players simply scroll through and click around, the menus have become part of the game itself. Players are able to control their Campaign characters and are set inside of a Renegades bunker. There are several areas of the menu map, including an area for Campaign, Multiplayer, Haven, Settings, and more. These areas will have separate outcomes; for example, Multiplayer will fly the player via helicopter to a base, where they can find a game with other players, and Campaign will have the player climb down into a headquarters briefing room, where they'll be in a completely different part of the map and will be able to access all their missions.

Multiplayer's menus will also follow suit. Although the player will be alone in the base, once they search for a match, in which their character will enter a vehicle, and are placed into a game, in which the vehicle will drive around the base until it finds the designated area for that specific game mode, the player will be joined with all the other players and everyone will be in that same area until the match starts (The timer, map, and lobby leaderboards are on the player's HUD).

Story
The year is 2101 and The Order as anonymously been in strict power for 45 years. The Renegades are more powerful than ever at this point. While technology and weapons may be tight sometimes, they have the numbers and the training to take on The Order. The battles have become more heated as the Renegades have become more of a threat to The Order. The Renegades relentlessly places pressure on The Order as it continues to push back in a fierce demeanor. Only time will determine the victor of this duel of heavily contrasted fates.

Protagonists

 * Renegades
 * Operator Thomas / Tessa Scarlet (playable character, main protagonist)
 * Operator Orran Halliday (secondary protagonist)
 * Operator Brody Curran (secondary protagonist)
 * Sergeant Landon Thao
 * Department of Defense and Security (DDS)
 * Agent Carly Curran (playable character, main protagonist)
 * Agent Benn Christiansen (secondary protagonist)

Antagonists

 * The Order
 * Eclipse
 * Vanguard
 * Insidious
 * Lycan

Perk Tree System
The Perk Tree System allows players to gain and equip perks for their Campaign character, which helps make an easier game, which could help if playing on higher difficulty. Perks in Campaign were added due to the increased intensity of the game. In terms of difficulty levels, "Recruit" in Call of Duty: Renegades is equivalent to "Hardened" in a previous Call of Duty game.