As someone who inexplicably still considers Moonraker the best Bond movie, I’m cautiously optimistic about the potential for zero-g gunplay in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. The campaign mode will see the United Nations Space Alliance (goodies) beefing with the expat Settlement Defense Front (bad guys) over, well, some space oppression stuff. Leading the SDF forces is Rear Admiral Salen Kotch, who as the new story trailer embedded above demonstrates, is played by Games of Thrones actor Kit Harrington. And if there isn’t some sort of Rear Admiral Crotch zinger, or a knowing riff to “You know nothing, Salen Kotch”, then we should all demand full refunds.
On this limited evidence I’m not entirely convinced by Harrington as a villain. He’s a bit too doe-eyed and mop-haired. Still, he does seem more charismatic than pilot Captain Nick Reyes, the character you play. Reyes appears to be the plucky Earth establishment’s only hope after a Pearl Harbor-like attack on the Moon, leaving the Terrans with only two remaining warships. His response is to look troubled and start muttering about how he's going to "give 'em hell" and "start cuttin' throats", confirming that he owns a copy of the Big Book of Call of Duty Character Threats.
In a recent Infinite Warfare trailer, we also got a tour of Reyes' ship, the Retribution, and learned that we'll navigate it between story and side missions. Then we saw him take over as captain. This new one is a snappier cutscene montage—buildings collapsing, space things crashing, a man grappling with what it means to be a captain—which you can watch above. And if it all looks a little serious and bombastic, know that there’s also a Zombies in Spaceland mode, which looks gloriously ridiculous.
Call of Duty: Infinity Warfare is out on November 4.
