Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer tries to satisfy noobs and vets (hands-on preview)

It was odd to attend a giant press conference yesterday as Activision showed off the multiplayer combat mode for Call of Duty: Ghosts. After all, it was a big press event dedicated to just part of a video game, and the gaming world was glued to it.

But it’s hard to understate how critical the multiplayer mode is to the giant game publisher’s ability to reach and engage tens of millions of players since multiplayer is what keeps a Call of Duty game alive for a long time after it releases. It is why, many months after Call of Duty: Black Ops II first shipped last November, 10 million people are playing Call of Duty every day. For hardcore players, multiplayer is a year-round occupation while new players just want to survive it long enough to see what all the fuss is about.