This week"s official announcement about Call of Duty Elite has sent some hardcore players of the Call of Duty shooter series into a frenzy, and not in a good way. The upcoming online service that will offer player stats, social networking features and more has been seen by some players as a way to get money out of them when they have previously played online for free. Now publisher Activision has posted up an FAQ about Call of Duty Elite that it hopes will quell some of the player"s protests.
One big thing Activision is telling players about Call of Duty Elite is that they will still be able to play online multiplayer matches for free. Indeed the FAQ states flat out, "Even haters can play for free." The FAQ goes over a list of all the things that players can do for free on the Call of Duty Elite service. That includes things like tracking and sharing game stats with your friends, checking level "heat maps" and upload and share in-game player videos. Activision claims that the free portion of Call of Duty Elite "will be superior to any free service currently on the market."
While there will be a lot of free features, there will also be an optional premium subscription service for Call of Duty Elite. Activision isn"t revealing all the premium features but they will include being able to download any future DLC map packs for free, coaching to improve players in their matches and more. There"s still no word yet on how much this premium service will cost. As we have reported before, closed beta test sign ups have already started and Call of Duty Elite will officially launch with the release of the next game in the series, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, on November 8.