What I Liked, and Didn’t Like, About the Modern Warfare 4 Multiplayer Beta
Recently I had the opportunity to go hands-on with the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Beta. The beta included a number of modes, including a campaign preview, Ground War, Kill Block, Warzone, and multiplayer. For the purpose of this article, I wanted to focus on my personal favourite part of Call of Duty, the multiplayer. As such, the focus is on the things I liked, and didn’t like about the multiplayer, including Deathmatch, Kill Block, and other modes. Ground War, Warzone and the campaign will not be discussed. If you’re interested in learning more about the Modern Warfare 4 campaign, we’ve got you covered.
The Things I Liked in the Modern Warfare 4 Beta
1) New Pistol Assassination
When I first experienced new pistol assassination – the wrong end of it, mind you – I first thought it was a glitch. Some player ran up and killed me with a single pistol shot to the head, complete with a graphic animation. Then it happened again only moments later. Certainly, this guy had found an exploit, right? I did some research, only to find out that there is a new, non-documented pistol assassination. It’s triggered by being within close proximity of an enemy, while holding a pistol, and pressing the melee button. It’s ridiculously satisfying and has brought me so many “hell yeah!” moments.
In previous Call of Duty games, I was the guy that had a launcher as my secondary to help take care of Killstreaks/Scorestreaks. In MW4, I plan on being a bit more selfish and keeping a pistol handy for these satisfying assassinations. Thankfully, there is a SAM Airburst Turret field upgrade that I can equip so I can still contribute to shooting down Killstreaks – so not completely selfish!
2) New game modes.
Modern Warfare 4 brings a handful of new modes to the mix to help spice things up. Inflation is reminiscent of Plunder from Warzone. You take bundles of cash from the enemies you kill, building up your personal cash reserves and adding to the team score. If you’re killed, your cash is left on the ground for the taking. There isn’t any way to save your money throughout the match, so you have to be careful and work with your team. Because money can’t be saved, killing someone with a huge bundle of money and taking it for your own can swing the score to your teams favour. This can cause plenty of momentum swings throughout a match.
Kill Block is another new mode, and one that seems to have generated a lot of buzz since it was first announced. The map is made up of three separate sections that change each round. The different sections are composed of unique new areas including some iconic Call of Duty areas such as Crash from previous games. Because the map changes each round, it prevents players from memorizing every nook & cranny. This forces players to be a bit more cautious and adapt their playstyles. During the Beta, we were only able to test this mode out with Gunfight. While Gunfight can be enjoyable, I personally was looking forward to experiencing Kill Block with some classic Deathmatch. The prospect of a “new” map every game sounds awesome. Kill Block has a ton of potential.
3) New Maps.
With every new Call of Duty, we get a swath of brand new multiplayer maps, and traditionally Beta’s are an opportunity for fans to test out a handful of them. This time around, we got to test out 6 multiplayer maps. The 6 brand new multiplayer maps included Rooftops, Silkworm, Transit 213, Cachette, Lotus and Lithium.
Rooftops, Transit 213, Cachette were smaller maps with relatively small to medium areas of engagement. These were my preferred maps, as it allowed players to get into the action quick. Rooftops included a cool mid-map building that was perfect for run and gun action. Transit 213 featured a number of buses that we could navigate through. Unfortunately, Transit 213 also included an area of the map that was raised up with only one point of entry, creating a bit of a snipers nest. I hope they block off the raised area when the game launches. Cachette was a series of farm buildings, which again created for some very intense close-quarters combat.
Lotus, Lithium and Silkworm were larger maps. Both Silkworm and Lithium had some lengthy areas that were ideal for snipers. I definitely preferred the layout of Silkworm over Lithium, as it seemed to provide better routes around the map. Lotus was my favourite of the larger maps, as it featured plenty of smaller buildings throughout to help mitigate snipers and provide close-quarters combat engagement points.
Things I Didn’t Like About the Modern Warfare 4 Beta Multiplayer
1) The Movement
The pace of movement in Modern Warfare 4 took step back from previous Call of Duty entries. Where Black Ops 6 and 7 felt more fast and fluid, Modern Warfare 4 feels very boots to the ground. Gone is the ability to wall jump, which definitely restricted some map navigation. The overall movement speeds are slower. Omnimovement is present, but in a far reduced capacity. There will be no more exciting dive kills off of ledges or any other action you would see in the latest blockbuster movie.
The one saving grace was the inclusion of Tactical Sprint, which at least allowed players to sprint a short distance and get to engagement quick. For whatever reason, the developers removed Tactical Sprint in the second week of the beta, relegating it to a Perk. For players like myself that utilized Tactical Sprint consistently, we’re now forced to waste a Perk to use the added sprint. Developers also slowed down the overall speed. This was all an attempt to lower the time-to-kill in matches, but what it seemed to do was create a slow and sluggish movement system that catered more to snipers and campers. Movement will be a contentious issue for sure, but if they don’t speed things up, Modern Warfare 4 will be a campers’ paradise.
2) Beta Blues
As is the case year over year, the beta presents a number of frustrations right out the gate. As mentioned above, movement – and the tweaking of movement – was one such issue. Other issues included weapon balancing and poor spawn points.
Fortunately, this is all part of the process with a beta. So, while it felt like a frustration during our initial playtime, the good news is the developers have plenty of data that should allow them to tweak the overall multiplayer to create a more balanced game.
Even during the beta, we saw plenty of weapon adjustments and spawn adjustments. They still had issues, but it was a start. With weapon balancing, the biggest issue was the incredibly over-powered marksman rifles and sniper rifles. There were rifles that acted like pistols with quick aim-down-sights (ADS) and minimal flinch but could kill with a single shot. Snipers have always been a plague in Call of Duty, and in my personal opinion, they should be removed completely. Until then, hopefully we’ll see them adjusted to have slower ADS and increased flinch to stop them from being so dominant.
3) Audio Issues
This last one falls into more of a “technical” category, but it needs to be discussed. Call of Duty games always strive for a level of realism in games, which includes how environments might sound, operator voices, weapon sounds, footsteps, etc. Unfortunately, the audio mix in Modern Warfare 4 seemed to try to do way too much. Playing the game without headphones was simply impossible. At least with headphones, you could zero in on audio directions a bit better.
Environmental sounds, like the sounds of battles taking place beyond the map, need to be reduced or maybe even removed. The sounds of far off gunshots and explosions are too detracting from the match. Yes, it might add an element of realism, as if you’re a part of a greater war. The problem is it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish the current battle sounds from these background sound effects.
Killstreaks, especially UAVs, should have some sort of audible “hum” so players can better distinguish when they’re being watched. This has been tried before in previous Call of Duty games, and it was appreciated. Match announcers need to provide useful information, but maybe not so frequently. We don’t need a callout every damn time a match swings in one teams favour, especially within the first few moments of a match. Footsteps should be adjusted too. We should be able to hear enemy footsteps better than our own footsteps or those of our team. Yes, that’s not realistic, and yet, it would benefit all players, so why not?
Conclusion
As a fan of all Call of Duty games, I am genuinely looking forward to Modern Warfare 4. There are some issues that need to be addressed. I played some Black Ops 7 shortly after playing the Modern Warfare 4 beta and it’s wild how different these two games in terms of pacing. Modern Warfare 4, especially during the second week, felt quite slow and sluggish. I understand the hope is to reduce the Time-to-Kill so players aren’t dying so quickly. I also understand this won’t ever match the pace of the Black Ops games. However, I worry that keeping things slow will just encourage players to camp more – and that’s not fun for anyone, campers included.
Despite the issues, there were still many things Modern Warfare 4 did right. I’m confident the team at Infinity Ward, as well as supporting teams, will continue to tweak the multiplayer to find a balance that should appeal to most players.
Modern Warfare 4 arrives on October 23, 2026 and you can pre-order it now. COGconnected will have more coverage on the upcoming Call of Duty game between now and launch. See you on the battlefield!