Last weekend Infinity Ward invited gamers to join them in testing some new playlists that they were hoping to incorporate in Call of Duty 4 at a later date. Apparently it was highly successful because all the tested playlists are going to be added to the game.

Firstly, here’s a break down of the upcoming playlists:

Bare-bones Team Deathmatch

No more excuses. No more blaming Martyrdom or Juggernaut for your lack of skills and kills. Bare Bones Team Deathmatch eliminates the excuses and takes it back to basics with standard Team Deathmatch with no perks, no kill streak rewards. Just you, your skill, and your weapons.

Hardcore HQ

Hardcore HQ requires a lot more than just spamming the HQ position with nades and running in guns blazing. Hardcore HQ encourages more tactical gameplay and communication to win with increased damage, no HUD elements, and friendly fire on.

Multi-bomb Search and Destroy

Multi-bomb Search and Destroy starts every member of the attacking team with a bomb. So everyone has the opportunity to plant if they’re good enough.

Hardcore Free For All

Even faster paced Free For Alls, where every bullet counts and playing smart is key for a solid k/d ratio. Standard Free for All rules, with Hardcore mode enabled for extra damage, no HUD, and no health re-gen.

The process is quite a long one to get it into the game, but thankfully it’s something Infinity Ward don’t have to send off to Microsoft for further testing. Here’s the full process:

1) Setting up the playlists

Now that we’re ready to make these official playlists, one of our designers (Brent M.) is setting up the playlists and uploading it to PartnerNET so that we can play it locally on the GOLD build of the game.

2) Internal QA Testing

Once the playlists are set up so we can play it locally, the QA department will play test the new playlists and ensure there are no bugs and no problems with the settings. As I said, this past weekend we found a few bugs with Bare-bones Team Deathmatch when we disable perks which allowed you to still use perks in slot 1. So we’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen in the actual playlist and adjust accordingly.

3) Localization / Translations

While it’s going through QA, our production team has to work on localization of the Gametype descriptions and names so that we can get the new descriptions translated in every language the game is available in.

4) Pushing the playlist live

Once all localization and testing is complete, then we can upload the new playlists and flip the switch to make it available to everyone over Xbox live / PSN. No download or anything is required. The playlist will update seamlessly the next time players get on once it’s uploaded.

There is currently no expected release, however we hope it will be soon as there are some pretty sweet additions that will likely please many gamers looking for a fresh challenge.