Now that Call of Duty: Ghosts has been released on a whopping four different consoles with a fifth coming this Friday when the Xbox One drops, it’s time to get down to business. On Monday, November 25, Activision and Infinity Ward will kick off the first Clan Wars, two-week competitions that track the results of individual clan members and award the top clans with in-game rewards that are only available by winning.
The Clan War meta-game can be accessed through the Call of Duty app, and each clan is automatically entered into a Clan War as long as they have at least three people on their roster. Each clan is then paired up with seven other clans based on similar size and level, and those eight clans then compete in a passive side-game for a two week period.
Clans don’t actually face off against each other. Instead, 10 game modes are automatically selected – anything from hunted to hardcore team deathmatch to kill confirmed. Each time a clan member plays one of those games, they earn points for the clan, both for that particular game, as well as cumulative points for the clan. The overall goal is to have the most total points at the end of the two week cycle; the clan on top receives an in-game prize – like a patch, a custom outfit, or a reticule – that is only accessible by winning a Clan War. Once a particular prize is gone, it is gone for good. A new Clan War will begin every two weeks, with new prizes and new game modes.
The bigger draw though, and the best reason to play, is that while your clan is on top of one specific game mode, you earn an experience bonus every time you play that game mode. It lasts as long as your team is on top, and if you lose it you can always coordinate with your clan to try to take it back. You will be able to have more than one experience multiplier at one time if you control multiple game modes, and exact bonuses will change with each new Clan War.
Although you earn points for playing alone, the smart move is to try to get your clan to coordinate. Bigger clans have a clear advantage here, as they can spread out into groups to tackle each game mode, but the matchmaking should make it fair for everyone.
So far Call of Duty: Ghosts has sold well, moving around 6 million copies on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. That’s nowhere near the sales numbers of Black Ops 2 or Modern Warfare 3 before it, but the launch of the next-gen consoles may elevate those numbers as PS4 and Xbox One owners consider picking Ghosts up. One thing to note with Clan Wars, although gameplay is not cross-platform, clan memberships are. So regardless of what console you are playing on, you’ll be contributing to your clan’s overall points.