Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II — Preview of underwater stealth at the Amsterdam docks

Infinity Ward showed off a new underwater stealth warfare level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II at a press event.

The level from the single-player campaign depicts a mission involving stealth instead of run-and-gun fighting. In this second mission in the campaign, TaskForce 141 leader Captain John Price goes into the water in a lake with a fellow operative in Amsterdam. They start in a boat and then dive into the water when they get close to some bad guys.

Price’s team is infiltrating with knives instead of guns in an attempt to stay quiet, said John O’Hara, game director at Infinity Ward, at a press event where we also saw the level. The fictional terrorist group Al-Qatala has been using ports in Europe to smuggle weapons and TaskForce 141 is trying to disrupt it.

As the player, you take control and swim underwater. You can go up to a guard and jump out of the water, pull the guard down, and stab the guard with a knife. With luck, other guards won’t notice. This happened for a while in our demo until some guards saw a takedown. They started reacting and the TaskForce 141 soldiers shot them with silenced weapons.

But at some point, the whole network of guards was alerted and the soldiers had to dive underwater. You could look upward and see the enemies on the dock and swim around them to sneak up from behind. You could also shoot out of the water and take them out.

O’Hara said the guns really have enough power to push bullets out of the water, but physics calculations suggest that the bullets would be significantly slowed. So you have to take down guards from underwater using about four bullets instead of the usual two, he said. Eventually, you emerge from the water and go after one of the leaders in a boat.

It works the other way around too, where soldiers can shoot down at you in the water or toss grenades into it. You can imagine how this kind of fighting will change the game in related games like Warzone 2.

You have to go in guns blazing to take out the remaining guards. Overall, it’s quite satisfying and something new for Modern Warfare to see such high-quality water simulation. Once it’s over, you have to report back to CIA leader Kate Laswell.

“In this game, water affects your weapon ballistics,” O’Hara said.

The water effects looked quite cool, as the water was distorted and things like sunlight could affect your vision. My only complaint is that it looked like the soldiers were swimming in a clear fish bowl. I guess we’ll have to take their word for it that the guns can shoot out of the water or into water.