Summary
- The 2023 Call of Duty will bring back slide canceling in its original form, allowing skilled players to move faster and be harder to hit.
- The upcoming game is likely to be a remake of Modern Warfare 3 and will feature the setting of Al Mazrah, as hinted in a teaser sent to popular content creators.
- While slide canceling was limited in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 remake, the new game is expected to have the original version of the technique, increasing player mobility.
The 2023 Call of Duty will bring back slide canceling in its original, unadulterated form, as seemingly confirmed by a recent Activision teaser. The company started hinting at the next installment in the popular FPS franchise over the last few days, having already said that the 2023 Call of Duty reveal is coming later this week.
First featured in the 2019 Modern Warfare remake, slide canceling wasn't originally intended as a gameplay mechanic, yet quickly became a staple move among skilled Call of Duty players nonetheless. Much like its name suggests, the technique allows players to cancel their sliding animation by double-tapping the Aim Down Sights (ADS) button and then immediately attempting a jump. Strategic usage of slide canceling hence enabled high-skilled players to move faster and more erratically, making them harder to hit. The mechanic was later rumored to be removed from the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 remake, which didn't exactly come to pass, although Infinity Ward did end up limiting its applications.
This year's Call of Duty that's widely expected to be a remake of Modern Warfare 3 will apparently revert that decision, with Activision seemingly confirming as much in a recent teaser shared with some popular content creators. This development was first revealed by FaZe Clan's Call of Duty streamer Swagg, who unboxed an Activision-sent package containing some slides, a can, and a cell phone. The peculiar contents of the bundle appear to allude to a rebus that writes out "slide(s) cancel."
The cell phone included in the package later received a text saying that players will "be expected to move more quickly in Al Mazrah," the setting of the Modern Warfare 2 remake and the main battleground from Warzone which is likely to make a return in the upcoming game's multiplayer modes. That message also seems to strengthen the theory that the 2023 Call of Duty will bring back the original version of slide canceling, which allowed for significantly increased player mobility.
While the way slide canceling worked in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 remake and Warzone was similar to the original technique, there was a major difference in that trying to perform the trick from a tactical sprint would now initiate a so-called "dolphin dive" animation. The fandom did eventually devise a couple of new methods for canceling the sliding animation more cleanly, yet neither approach was as straightforward to perform as the original glitch, with one of them even requiring disabling some in-game control assists like the automatic grounded mantle setting.