I spent 90 minutes with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer. Here's the deal.
I've played almost every Call of Duty and usually do one lap around the ranks. I rarely prestige. I prefer the Modern Warfare series, but I think Infinity Ward could use a little Treyarch influence.
This year's Call of Duty is officially Modern Warfare 4. It's set mostly in South Korea, has a regular campaign, and brings back the DMZ extraction mode. But for many, the big deal is that this is Infinity Ward's first game in four years.
That's the longest the original Call of Duty makers have gone without leaving their mark. A lot has changed since then: Activision is now part of Microsoft, which has been busy trashing its reputation with AI hype and cooperation with Israel's actions in Gaza. Meanwhile, Call of Duty hit another rough patch: Modern Warfare 3 was a rushed, unpopular sequel from a different team. Black Ops 6 was well-received, but its quick follow-up Black Ops 7 wasted that goodwill.
So Infinity Ward is in a similar spot to 2019, when the series was losing steam and the Modern Warfare reboot brought it back. Will Modern Warfare 4 do the same? After 90 minutes with its multiplayer, I'm not sure it's a huge leap, but I'm confident it'll be the best-playing Call of Duty in years. Here are some quick thoughts from my demo:
Gunplay: Sublime
When it comes to the little things that matter to longtime fans, they're nailing it. The audio, animations, and feedback are top-notch. I shot a revolver so loud I flinched. Then I tried a bolt-action rifle so bassy and powerful that I suddenly became a sniper guy. The yearly grind can get boring—I don't care about camos or stickers or prestige—so for me, it's the fundamentals that keep things interesting. I'll max out that revolver because it's fun to shoot, not because of a checklist.
In terms of raw FPS craft, this is head and shoulders above the last two Black Ops games, which look and sound fine. It really does matter who makes Call of Duty.
Apex Attachments: Very Cool
Modern Warfare is finally embracing attachments that change a gun's identity. Like Black Ops 7's prestige attachments, apex attachments are sidegrades unique to each gun, unlocked when it's fully leveled up. Each gun has at least one, some have two.
They're pretty wild. Examples include:
A shotgun with explosive rounds
A revolver with a grip that lets you fan the hammer
A sniper rifle with side-mounted throwing knives you flick at players
A prototype North Korean silenced SMG that's quieter than anything else
An airburst launcher for the AK that kills behind cover
An SMG conversion mod for the M4 that brings back the P90-style magazine from MW2
Ammo that spots enemies
Anything that makes attachments more meaningful than moving sliders up and down is a positive change. I'm bummed that unlocking even one requires using a gun for a long time, though. They were all unlocked in the demo build, and it was a blast to mess with the airburst AK and cowboy revolver. I also love that these attachments are designed for specific weapons, giving guns a role beyond their class. Apex attachments use their own slot in Gunsmith, so you won't have to sacrifice your favorite stock or sight unless there's an unavoidable conflict.
Movement: Fluid but Maybe Too Fast
Infinity Ward talked a lot about movement. It feels like ages ago we were arguing about sprint speeds and slide cancelling in Modern Warfare 2, and the studio has been working on that feedback. The result is faster and less restrictive movement than their last game—closer to Sledgehammer's adjustments in Modern Warfare 3—but not as athletic as Treyarch's omnimovement.
Mantling is now extremely fast and fluid, so climbing over cars or low walls barely slows you down. Sprinting out of slides is smoother, and Modern Warfare 4 should be kinder to those used to jumping or sliding around corners. That sounds like a step in the wrong direction to me—Call of Duty's map design and heavy aim assist make these techniques more annoying than expressive—but they weren't on display in my room of mostly press.
Maps: Meh
Pretty, but exactly what you'd expect. We played a handful of 6v6 maps launching with Modern Warfare 4 plus one special Gunfight map with sections that change between rounds. The standard maps follow the tired three-lane formula with only glimpses of verticality. Still, they feel closer to real places than Treyarch's maps tend to.
10v10 Gunfight: 👍
You never know when the center of the battlefield will suddenly be Crash from Call of Duty 4, or Killhouse, or World War 1 trenches.
It's Gunfight with bigger teams on bigger maps. Teams spawn with identical loadouts for single-life elimination rounds—clear the other team or capture a flag at the center to win. Gunfight might be the best side mode Call of Duty has produced in a decade, and it scales up well.
This is where we tried Kill Block, a map broken into one-third chunks that change between rounds. Many chunks are based on classic Modern Warfare maps, so you never know when the center will be Crash, Killhouse, or WW1 trenches. It's a neat idea, and it apparently supports over 500 combinations. Infinity Ward mentioned Kill Block will be used for more than just Gunfight.
Details: FOV, Depth of Field, Muzzle Smoke, Hipfire
A surprisingly large part of Infinity Ward's presentation focused on small quality-of-life updates made possible by extra dev time. If they hadn't pointed them out, I might not have noticed:
Enhanced FOV: Not in the demo, but apparently Modern Warfare 4 will use camera trickery so players get the spatial awareness of a high FOV without making targets smaller on screen.
Depth of field: Infinity Ward admitted most CoD players turn off depth of field because the blur on iron sights can obscure targets. They've adjusted it so it doesn't do that—sounds more like a bug fix to me.
Muzzle smoke/flash: Players complained that Modern Warfare's muzzle flashes and smoke are too big and hurt accuracy, so now they subtly disappear at the center of the view to keep sightlines clear.
Hipfire: This was confusing. Infinity Ward says Modern Warfare 4 won't have recoil bloom—bullets always go where the gun points. That made me think hipfire might be more accurate, but in practice, it seems mostly visual: hipfire is as inaccurate as ever (subject to attachments), but your on-screen model now matches where bullets go. Essentially, your gun shakes wildly to better communicate recoil, making underbarrel lasers more useful.
Loadouts: One Change I Love
In Modern Warfare fashion, loadouts have been simplified since last year. Guns take five attachments, all with positives and negatives. It's a standard three-perk system with no combo abilities or wildcards.
The only change worth calling out is one I'm surprised hasn't happened until now: both killstreaks and operator skins are equipped per-class. So you can design a loadout around stealth or support, and pick a skin that matches. It's minor, but I can see it making my classes feel more custom.
