Tencent’s Call of Duty for smartphones is out (in Australia)

Call of Duty: Legends brings one of the world’s biggest game franchises to the world’s biggest gaming market

Video gaming

Ravi Hiranand

Published: 5:36pm, 18 Dec 2018

Why you can trust SCMP

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

If you want to crack China’s huge gaming market, you’ve gotta go mobile.

We saw it with new games like PUBG, PC-only hit that was quickly cloned on mobile before Tencent built an official port. We saw it with old games like Command & Conquer, revived for mobile devices (but only in China).

PUBG, the battle royale pioneer

And now we’re seeing it with one of the biggest game franchises of recent years, Call of Duty, as Tencent brings the game to smartphones.

Call of Duty: Legends isn’t officially out yet in China, but it has quietly been released for Android in Australia -- a common tactic by companies that want to test games out in a smaller market before a wider, global release.

Activision earlier promised that the game will effectively be a best-of for the long-running series, saying it will contain “a collection of beloved Call of Duty characters, maps, modes and weapons from across the franchise”.

Judging by clips of gameplay surfacing on Twitch, it looks like Call of Duty: Legends delivers what’s promised. Gameplay looks fast and furious, keeping to the rapid-fire action that the series is known for.

Watch Call Of Duty: Legends Of War - Hunting Autofire Noobs FFA #03 from drgraffitti on www.twitch.tv

It looks pretty good, too. Obviously a grainy Twitch stream isn’t the best way to sell a game, and while it might not look up to the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, it does look pretty respectable.

More importantly, it looks like Call of Duty. Everything is here, from the hit markers to the iron sights to killstreak rewards -- you can even see someone using a Captain Price profile picture.

There’s no word on when exactly Call of Duty: Legends will see a wider release -- the original announcement in August only said “in the coming months”. The game is being developed by Timi, one of Tencent’s internal studios.

China trains soldiers in a homegrown version of Call of Duty

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