After months of promotions, Beta events, and slow trickling of information, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is finally available to play. The game is currently going live across the world, prompting a frenzy of social media activity to celebrate the launch. Activision made a simple announcement of the release, tweeting; “Time to go dark.”
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Launch
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the latest edition to the series to come from Infinity Ward. It follows last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 from Treyarch. Indeed, it takes a very different approach to its most recent predecessor; serving as a “soft” reboot of the Modern Warfare series. Activision and Infinity Ward have emphasised the supposed maturity and realism of its story campaign, while the game also features a PvE Spec Ops mode with its own story. This mode is designed for four-player co-op.
Modern Warfare is also the first game in Call of Duty history to feature cross-play, a feature which is available throughout the game’s modes. This means that gamers on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 can play together. (Although the game does separate players on controller input, with default restrictions separating players with controllers and those with mouse and keyboard.) The addition of cross-play also means that the PlayStation will not be getting any post-launch content early. However, the PS4 does get the Survival mode of Spec Ops as a one-year timed exclusive.
While Modern Warfare does, of course, feature plenty of multiplayer modes, the game does break somewhat with current conventions by forgoing a Battle Royale mode. It does, however, feature a very large Ground War mode. (Although it also supports much smaller, fast-paced multiplayer with modes like Gunfight.) All of this is now available to players who have pre-loaded the game. Those who haven’t can now start downloading.