Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Will Feature A Kill Hungry Tamagotchi
Infinity Ward has revealed a surprising addition to Modern Warfare: the bloodthirsty Tamagunchi, a digital pet that thrives on kills.
Children of the 90s and 2000s will recognize Tamagunchi as a play on the word "Tamagotchi," a brand of handheld digital pets first introduced by Bandai in 1997. Much like real-world pets, players were tasked with caring for the Tamagotchi's needs, with their efforts affecting its Hunger meter, Happy meter, Bracelet meter and Discipline meter. Pets that received poor care could get sick and even die, leading to a great deal of frustration and heartbreak for inattentive owners.
Call of Duty's Tamagunchi, which you can equip to your wristwatch in multiplayer and the co-op Spec Ops mode, feeds on kills. "This little thing on your wrist, every time you get a string of kills, it goes, 'Ya-ta!' and it makes a little noise, then you look at it, and it evolved out of an egg," explained art director Joel Emslie. "Tamagunchis are fed by the player's performance in multiplayer. It's just this little active wristwatch thing."
Similar to its namesake, Tamagunchi's who do not receive proper treatment face a grim fate. "If you don't take care of your Tamagunchi, it will rot and die," Emslie revealed.
The off-the-cuff idea evolved from Emslie's love of watches. When the team added a watch to the game early on, one coder rigged up a dev kit that displayed the actual time on the piece. This spawned an extensive brainstorming session regarding other possible features, including functions you would find in a modern smartwatch. "Then that just kind of kept growing into more and more madness," said multiplayer design director Geoff Smith.
Modern Warfare does not force this great responsibility on you, instead offering the Tamagunchi as an optional character add-on. Those looking for a break from the dark subject matter promised in the solo campaign might benefit from the dose of brevity and nostalgia offered by the pet. Just don't forget to feed it.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25.