Modern Warfare 3's story will "build up on the key themes," started in MW2, says Bowling

Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling has said the team's "learning new ways to tell stories and learning new ways to deliver experiences," and feels these lessons have paid-off with Modern Warfare 3.

Speaking with Joystiq during a Modern Warfare 3 event in New York this week, Bowling admitted to the site that after releasing MW2, the team reflected upon what it could do better in the next iteration. One of the things it felt it could do a better job on was the single-player storyline, and how to properly bridge the story between MW2 and MW3

"Every game we put out, we sit back and we look at 'What can we do better? What areas can we focus on to bump the experience up?' And story was one of those coming out of MW2," said Bowling. "We want it to build up on the key themes that we started in MW2, but really polish that storytelling ability.

"No Russian was a key story point for MW2. It's what really solidified Makarov as the villain that he is. It delivered the experience that we want it to deliver, that's why it always was in there from the start -- because we're telling a story and we're developing these characters, and that was an important stage in Makarov's development.

"To the fans, and especially to us on the development team, having that payoff and seeing this conflict and the momentum it's gained over the years finally unfold as the war rages in all the major cities ... it's very important."

Earlier this week, it came out of the event that Party Chat would be enabled during certain modes in MW3, and that maps would contain no more than five hotspots.

Modern Warfare 3 is out November 8 for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.