Sledgehammer Games explains how they developed the quasi-real, quasi-fantasy weaponry of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
In particular, they revealed one weapon, the IMR, or Integrated Munitions Rifle. The IMR is based off of what Sledgehammer found to be new innovations in the world of 3D printing, and the opportunities it could provide in the future.
Yes, this weapon basically prints the bullets it uses. It’s a cool idea that, when implemented in real life, will save soldiers time and effort from having to reload magazines frequently. One wonders how soon before military tech gets there, but of course, Sledgehammer’s use of it implies that they must be really close there.
Sledgehammer’s challenge was to make the IMR look like it could be a real weapon, and at the same time, give the player visualizations for them to understand and see that the gun was actually printing bullets.
You can see the IMR in action in this video previewing Induction gameplay. Set in South Korea, you enter Seoul using other advanced tech, as it seems they reused NASA’s reentry capsule tech to make capsules to drop soldiers down a particular location.
The IMR itself seems easy as pie to use. A reloading style mechanism starts the 3D printing process, and you can actually hear them printing. The game also gives you a display of how many bullets are available.
You can see the IMR reload at 2 minutes 22 seconds here. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will come November 4 on Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
