Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, in many ways, revolutionized the way online games were played. Its class and rank system were one of the first and finest examples of this system in an FPS game. While I have fond memories of the earlier games, playing both on PC and console, this first look at the Modern Warfare beta is a conflicted one.
The community ‘feels excited with weary caution’ is the best way to describe it. Call of Duty has had a negative few years, with the ultimately successful but flawed WW2 and the Black Ops series steering away from the slow-paced boots-on-the-ground gameplay that CoD is famous for. Call of Duty Modern Warfare, according to Infinity Ward, is returning to the old ways.
The first teasers of Modern Warfare were promising – fans and critics alike were surprised by the grittiness of the gameplay, a sort of ground-based realism that has been missing in the recent Call of Duty games. Ground-pounding, drones and jet packs have transformed the intense arcade shooter into something a bit wacky with a widely disliked microtransaction system.
While it’s not clear yet whether the newest Call of Duty will have microtransactions – though it’s extremely likely with a screenshot appearing from the Beta with the dreaded words ‘Supply Box’ appearing over a post-match reward – this Beta was all about the gameplay. It is worlds apart from Black Ops 3.
It’s still clearly a Call of Duty game, but the gunplay feels chunkier, with significant recoil patterns to control, and versatility with the extensive gun customization options. There is a super-sprint feature which comes as about close to a special ability as you’ll find in Infinity Ward’s newest title.
There is no mini-map. A point of contention, with some fans taking to Twitter to complain to the devs about the lack of a map, it actually takes the gameplay in a new direction. You still have a 3 killstreak UAV to unlock, as you have done in just about every Call of Duty game to ever exist. The devs announced today that they will be testing the minimap to see how it affects gameplay.
While the game evidently still has its buggy issues, head-camping glitch spots, and hit-reg that sometimes feels very unsatisfying, there’s no doubt that this is a different kind of CoD game. A Beta is a good representation of gameplay but does not reflect actual release quality – and it has to be remembered Activision doesn’t have a great record for its game launches.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare arrives October 25th, 2019, while the Betas for PC and Xbox arrive later this month.
