According to Beachhead Studios head Chacko Sonny, Call of Duty Elite’s free mobile app will be available for iOS smartphones tomorrow and Android a week later. He also revealed that a PC version is next on the to-do list, with tablet optimization soon after.
The mobile Elite app has four main features, each summarized by Sonny.
First is the career summary section, which allows users to check stats and player information. This goes for the player and others they’ve played.
The recent matches section shows kill/death ratios, map information, and scores for the player and those they’ve faced in the past ten games. Beachhead didn’t explain what map information will be given, but heat maps showing high-action areas would be plausible.
The app also features a challenge tracker, which tracks the progress of a user through specific challenges just as it would in-game.
The fourth feature, and Sonny’s personal favorite, is class customization. This does exactly what one would expect, giving players the ability to change weapons, perks, and killstreak loadouts. Any changes made on the go will sync to a player’s console when they fire up Modern Warfare 3. The game will then prompt him or her to verify any changes made through the app.
After an abysmal console launch of Elite, mostly due to an underestimation of users, Beachhead used the mistakes it made as a learning experience while developing the app.
“Part of the reason they’re not up yet is because we learned a tremendous amount at launch about testing and scaling and making sure that things are at the level that the community really, really wants it to be at before releasing them into the wild,” Sonny admitted. “I know that there’s frustration and I know that people are waiting for the clan operations component to be in place. But as a development organization, we have to focus on making sure that it’s ready to go before we actually release it out into the wild and create more frustration.”
Sonny then announced what projects Beachhead Studio will be working on after the release of the mobile app, aside from general Elite maintenance, of course.
“A PC version is definitely still a priority for the studio,” he said. “We’re heads-down, working on all the stuff that we know the community wants.”
Then, once the PC version is “perfected,” tablet optimization will begin, Sonny announced.
The mobile Elite app launches Tuesday for iOS and one week from now for Android phones.
[Joystiq]
