The fourth Modern Warfare game won’t have a 4 in the title. That’s because 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare isn’t a sequel, but a “re-imagining” of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series.
With this reset of Modern Warfare’s storyline, Infinity Ward hopes to create a relevant, realistic world with events that feel “ripped from the headlines” while also bringing back familiar characters from past games in the series like Captain John Price. Unlike Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Modern Warfare will have a singleplayer campaign on top of the usual multiplayer modes and co-op missions.
Here’s everything we know about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Singleplayer campaign
The campaign will feature missions in a number of European cities as well as the Middle East. In addition to playing as special forces soldiers armed with high-tech combat gear, players will also take the role of “rebel freedom fighters” who use improvised weapons like Molotov cocktails and IEDs and have to rely on guerrilla tactics to defeat Tier One enemies.
One Modern Warfare singleplayer campaign mission we saw a demo of takes place in North London after a terror attack in Piccadilly Circus. SAS teams infiltrate a townhouse to eliminate a terrorist cell, hunting for the cell’s leader, known as The Wolf. Another mission shows the origin story of Farah, a rebel freedom fighter whose town was bombed and invaded by Russian military forces when she was a child.
Spec Ops Survival for PC
As part of Activision and Sony’s ongoing partnership with Call of Duty, the PS4 will be the only place to play the Survival Spec Ops mode until October 1, 2020. The traditional co-op missions of Spec Ops will be available to everyone.
Fun fact: By the time Survival comes to PC and Xbox One, we’ll be getting ready for the release of next year’s CoD. I’m sure everyone will remember and return to it by then.
After the announcement, Infinity Ward narrative director Taylor Kurosaki addressed some complaints on Twitter yesterday, saying that Survival mode, “which is a sliver of Spec Ops,” is the only exclusive content.
To be clear, our all-new Special Ops mode will be releasing on all platforms on October 25th. We’re looking forward to revealing Special Ops on October 8th. When we launch on October 25th, everyone on all platforms will be getting Modern Warfare which includes Campaign, the all-new Special Ops mode and the entirety of Multiplayer, which is a massive experience we’ve worked to create. Special Ops Survival is an additional, classic mode that will be available on PS4 Infinity Ward senior communications manager Ashton Williams
Gunsmithing
The new weapon customization option Gunsmithing will allow you to customize your primary and secondary weapons with the precise type and style of firepower you require for any type of multiplayer game mode. What’s important to know about Gunsmithing is that it will force you to choose what upgrades you value most. You’ll only be able to apply five upgrades to each gun, even though there may be more possible components to customize.
No Season Pass
It feels like an unusual and somewhat refreshing bit of news: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare won’t have a season pass.
the team is eliminating the traditional season pass, so that they can deliver more free maps and content as well as post-launch events to all players.” Activision
The realism ruleset
Morgan Park got to go hands-on with Modern Warfare’s “realism” ruleset for team deathmatch and found the slower pace some of the most fun in team deathmatch yet. Firefights are snappier and more lethal and
I find myself sprinting less and relying more on hearing to detect threats before they appear. No HUD also means that keeping track of my remaining ammo is guesswork at best. Morgan Park
Gun Fight
A new multiplayer mode called Gunfight pits two teams of two with randomized loadouts against one another on very small maps. So small that you’re expected to kill one another in 40 seconds or else the rules change to force your hand. The 40-second mark might bring a capture the flag element or decide a win based on which team has the most health at the end of a timer. There’s no reviving or healing in Gunfight so the matches do seem to end prior to the rule shakeup.
Battle Royale
Supposed references to 40 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer modes in the beta’s source code include a Battle Royale mode with the tagline “Eliminate Everyone. Survive.” Infinity Ward hasn’t commented on the existence of the mode in the code, but it hasn’t ruled out battle royale in past interviews.
Whatever the mode looks like in Modern Warfare, it won’t be treated with the same focus as Black Ops 4.
We’re excited for large player counts and things like that, but right now we’re really focused on core multiplayer Design director Joe Cecot
In the Modern Warfare beta, the performance took a noticeable hit while playing the 64-player Ground War mode. A battle royale mode with the same player count could work (Apex Legends only supports 60 players per match and feels good). If Infinity Ward really is emphasizing core multiplayer modes, then the majority of the modes from the code dump (including battle royale) might only be playable on a limited-time basis.
Kill Streak Rewards
Killstreak rewards return in Modern Warfare, and they’ll only make you more fearsome. Rewards for uninterrupted killing sprees that we know of so far are a care package with juggernaut assault gear, a manned infantry assault tank with a .50 cal machine gun, and an aircraft that sprays the battlefield with white phosphorus to blind and burn enemies.
Ray Tracing
Modern Warfare will support DirectX Raytracing (DXR) on PC. And that means we can surmise that Activision and Call of Duty will be working with Nvidia and the GeForce RTX cards to support the feature. Ray tracing will even be used for audio. In a press briefing, Stephen Miller, Audio Director for the game said,
With the weapon reflection system, it uses ray tracing out into the environment and plays three sounds at point of impact. So as you’re running around you actually get different sounds constantly as it behaves with the geometry. Audio Director Stephen Miller
Supporting DXR means that Activision/Infinity Ward is upgrading the IW engine to support DirectX 12 since that’s a requirement for all games that support DXR. We’ll have to wait and see how that affects performance once Modern Warfare launches, as traditionally DX12 engines have favored AMD hardware.