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Major League Gaming has launched its esports platform GameBattles directly into Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, marking the first time the long-running GameBattles system has been directly integrated into a Call of Duty title.
Players will be able to set up competitive ladder or tournament matches using a preset lobby hosted in-game on a dedicated server. This lobby will include all of the settings rules, modes and maps synced with the information from the GameBattles website. The information should all port over, including the team names registered on the site and the match start time, which will then display a countdown to ensure player punctuality.
It’s a big step forwards for GameBattles, a system that surfaced during the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare when the scene was nascent and mostly made up of amateurs trying to feel out what a competitive scene could be.
GameBattles has grown with Call of Duty’s popularity, and this latest iteration is a big step up on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which enabled players to use competitive rules for popular esports modes Hardpoint, Uplink, Capture the Flag and Search and Destroy.
What does this mean for players? Most of the escalation processes that GameBattles has in place for issues like tardiness, laggy hosts or players that aren’t on the roster showing up to play are now irrelevant as the process has been moved in-house, with the details recorded and reported back automatically.
It’s all still in Beta for now, so expected bugs, glitches, delays and other fun issues as Major League Gaming work to improve the program now that it’s been exposed to the community.
It seems Activision and Major League Gaming are taking the time to incubate the system in time to roll it out for Call of Duty WW2, with the multiplayer reveal of that game taking place next month.
This feature hasn’t been announced for Call of Duty WW2 yet, but it seems silly for the work to go into the game only for it to be replaced by the new iteration in a few months.
