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I’ve played some multiplayer matches of the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and it might be the most different the long-running first-person shooter franchise has felt since the Modern Warfare reboot took it in a new direction back in 2019.
Everything once again feels rebuilt from the ground up, with a plethora of unique systems designed to improve the look and feel of both gunplay and movement. Weapons now convincingly fit in the virtual environment, lowering when you press up against walls and benefitting from more realistic bullet trajectories when you hip-fire. Meanwhile, maintaining momentum from your slides, automatically leaning around walls, and being able to latch on to ledges adds a new level of fluidity and creates plenty of novel ways to navigate maps.
According to studio multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot, all of these changes have been carefully tested and are rooted in player feedback from 2019's Modern Warfare and 2022's Modern Warfare 2.
"When we made Modern Warfare 2019 and when we made Modern Warfare 2, we made some changes that were healthy for the game, but actually made the game feel a little bit less fun and less responsive. So we learned from that," he tells me at a behind-closed-doors preview event in developer Infinity Ward's Los Angeles office.
"We said 'no, with this game, anything you want to do, we let you do,' but we make sure the result is balanced."
Moving forward
The intention is to create systems that appease fans of both the more tactical pacing of recent Modern Warfare games, but also the faster, arcade action of classic Call of Duty titles.
"When we look at the game being more tactical, we look at the more accurate hip fire, the gun actually shooting where you're shooting, so you feel like you're more connected to the weapon," he said. "I think that helps with the player who wants to play more tactically.
"But then the player who wants to be fluid and move, once you get going, we make sure that you don't feel like [you're being restricted]."
Lead game designer Jackie Reynolds also seems confident that Modern Warfare 4 will deliver the best of both worlds for fans. "I think what we've seen a lot with the franchise over the years is that one of those play styles seems to be the best," he adds.
"One thing that we're really tirelessly running, whether that's through movement or any of the other systems, is whether we think each individual play style is being addressed."
"You can only go so far playing the game every day, so we've brought in higher-skilled users, we've brought in other influencers, we've brought in Call of Duty League pros," reveals Cecot. "We've brought in all these people to play and give feedback, so we're making sure that we're hitting all those notes."
It's a major departure from how previous games have felt, but both developers are optimistic that all these changes will go down well with the community and help give the upcoming title its own distinct identity.
"We're looking at the genre, we're looking at how our game plays, we're bringing people in. So the differences we've made, I think, are all healthy changes," Cecot argues.
"If you're going from Modern Warfare 2 to our game, it's way more responsive, way more clear.
"Players are more visible, red dots on the mini map, the game's way more understandable. We feel very strongly that it's healthy that within the franchise we are different because if you're buying the same game each year, that's not healthy, so we want to make sure that the changes we make in our game are true to what we believe Modern Warfare should be, and that we're making the right changes to make that feel unique and different enough."
It all seems very promising, and I was impressed by my brief hands-on time, but we'll have to wait and see what other fans think when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 drops on October 23, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
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