Activision reveals first look of Call of Duty Mobile during Unity GDC keynote

Unity’s annual GDC keynote took a big step up in terms of exposure today, with Activision choosing the event to provide an exclusive first look of the upcoming Call of Duty Mobile.

Activision’s Chris Plummer, VP of mobile, was on stage to declare: “This is console quality PvP matches right in the palm of your hand, and it’s all built within Unity.” The engine choice is no great surprise for a mobile title, but with “60fps performance, low latencies and silky-smooth responsive controls,” it’s still a huge boon for the engine’s reputation, especially as the console and mobile segments continue to converge.

The game features classic maps – including Hijacked, Crash and Nuketown – and classic game modes in a five-versus-five format. Beyond that, there’s a strong suggestion that the battle royale Blackout mode will be coming to the mobile version of the goliath shooter at some point.

The game was developed in partnership with Tencent, with Plummer praising the company’s mobile experience. A demo in the Unity editor looked at how with Unity the team was able to: “Support advanced features that you’d only expect to see on games consoles, such as full image-based lighting with specular occlusion.”

Animation also looked impressive, with the team building a custom inverse kinematics and ragdoll system on top of Unity’s own feature set, in order to provide the effect that the animators wanted, and fans will recognise.

Plummer was very upbeat about the game’s development to date: “Playtests are going great, and we’ve never been happier with the results at this stage of the game.” As of today, players will be able to register for an upcoming the beta test. 

Read all our GDC 2019 coverage here.