There will be multiple multiplayer modes, but for now, the team showed off some Team Assault (a.k.a. Team Deathmatch) and Combat Mission. The former, demonstrated on a map called "Kabul Ruins," is what you can expect: heavy on twitch skills. The latter is similar to Battlefield: Bad Company 2's Rush mode, where one team progresses through a series of objectives on offense while the opposing team just works defense. The key difference is that there's a bit more narrative and variety within the match; instead of just blowing up buildings like in Rush, the Combat Mission map being demoed (called "Helmand Valley") focuses on Rangers escorting a tank throughout a valley, and doing stuff such as destroying roadblocks or securing antiaircraft guns.
Click the image above to check out all Medal of Honor screens.
Medal of Honor uses a tweaked version of Bad Company 2's Frostbite engine -- tweaks include refining the hit detection and even making the bullets faster. Also, the destructibility feature has been scaled down a little (executive producer Greg Goodrich called it "local destruction), where you can no longer knock down every building in the level -- you can still take out most obvious sniper spots, just not the entire building.
The basic result is that MOH feels like a faster, more intimate game than Bad Company. MOH emphasizes close combat more than Battlefield, which leads to scarcer vehicles and tighter levels. The focus on close combat leads to how there aren't any noncombat classes like in Battlefield; gone are Medic and Engineers, as your class choices are now Rifleman, Commando, and Sniper (a.k.a. medium, close, or long range). The class differences are mostly in armament (assault rifles vs. shotguns vs. sniper rifles) and abilities. Additionally, each weapon can be customized, with three mods apiece (such as iron sights or hollow point bullets).
Another difference is how you use support abilities. Rather than have support items (defibrillators, ammunition boxes) in your kit from the start of a match, you have presets that you unlock to use during a match. Each class has one offensive or defensive ability mapped to the D-pad (these range from mortar strikes to temporary buffs to allied damage to enhancing your team's radar), and using that ability requires points. Points gained by pulling off score chains (a series of subsequent kills). One nice score-chain-to-ability sequence is when, as a sniper defending a position, I take out a bunch of attackers and get a nice score chain going; then while the attackers are clustered up for an objective, I drop a mortar strike on them.
That little moment goes back to the headline: it feels like a Bad Company 2 moment, but with a Medal of Honor twist to it. Keep an eye out for further impressions, and a 1UP Live Demo during E3.
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