Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta shows the franchise quality is back

The largest Call of Duty beta ever kicked off on Friday, and the quality of the multiplayer and single-player game means that the franchise quality is back after an weak year in 2025. I played a lot on Friday and so I was able to level up to 20 and then get my main gun, the Han assault rifle, to 24. When I finally added the attachments to it, the gun became a lot more deadly, and I was able to carry a sniper rifle by using the Overkill perk. The fact that the quality is good after the disastrous campaign and multiplayer of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — something that Activision had to apologize for — could mean millions more fans for this year’s Call of Duty game. We won’t jump the gun and say that’s going to happen for sure, but the beta is going well and players should be excited about the return to quality for Activision’s Call of Duty studios. I would estimate 2,000 to 3,000 devs worked on it from across 13 game studios at Activision — led by Infinity Ward. There was nothing spectacular in my gameplay. During the two hours of Call of Duty: Next, I played with influencers. They slaughtered me during Search and Destroy and I wasn’t taking anyone out at first, but I finally got the hang of it and got seven kills in one match. The Kill Block mode was easier than I feared. In that new mode, the terrain rearranged itself after every round. With the Gunfight mode blended with it, you only got one life. It was hard, but I won the match for us with one lucky round.https://www.youtube.com/embed/y3DCOqGwzSs?feature=oembed I got a lot of time in on the Silkworm (battle in a Seoul retail district) and Rooftop Levels. I also played a lot of Transit213, which was like a bus graveyard. It was a tight map, like the Shipment and Cargo maps from past multiplayer modes. And it was nonstop action. I also got to play one of the campaign levels and it was very good. You play as part of a South Korean army squad, defending the country against an attack from North Korea. In this level, your squad had to participate in a ground attack against a nuclear facility that the North Korean troops had taken. You had to release water that could cool the damaged nuclear reactor and enable others to escape from the area. https://www.youtube.com/embed/NBAL-UXTg4c?feature=oembed It was a harrowing mission, where you had to fight in the trenches in short-range infantry combat, then get in a vehicle and take the fight to the facility, then you had to fight inside and escape from the place before it all collapsed. It was real Call of Duty, coming back in a way that I really liked so far. If this is a sign of things to come, then I think Call of Duty will recover its audience this year in some fashion, before Grand Theft Auto VI takes all the players. But once I leveled up my gun, I really liked the fast and frenetic combat where I could fire both short range and long range shots and take down multiple enemies at a time. I even had some up rounds, where I had more kills than deaths. Infinity Ward’s priority in leading the 13 studios that worked on the game was getting backed to realistic and grounded action. They did a good job from what I’ve seen so far. https://www.youtube.com/embed/jUAUHeEcgqo?feature=oembed The timing is good, as Electronic Arts is releasing its best maps and modes for Battlefield 6 now with its Season 4 content, which includes the naval combat of Tsuru Reef and Wake Island. Those experiences along with Carrier Strike mode are Battlefield at its best. It’s great to see Call of Duty and Battlefield going head to head in this way. If you haven’t tried the beta this weekend, you’re missing out. Give it a try because Call of Duty is back. I’ve put some of my better rounds in this post. Check them out. Disclosure: I played the game on Steam on a Falcon Northwest PC with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card and a 27-inch Sony InZone monitor M10S II gaming monitor. The gaming PC and display kept up with the game, with performance with a QHD 540Hz refresh rate and rapid 0.02ms response time. The post Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta shows the franchise quality is back appeared first on GamesBeat.

Aug 23, 2026 - 00:25

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta shows the franchise quality is back

The largest Call of Duty beta ever kicked off on Friday, and the quality of the multiplayer and single-player game means that the franchise quality is back after an weak year in 2025.

I played a lot on Friday and so I was able to level up to 20 and then get my main gun, the Han assault rifle, to 24. When I finally added the attachments to it, the gun became a lot more deadly, and I was able to carry a sniper rifle by using the Overkill perk.

The fact that the quality is good after the disastrous campaign and multiplayer of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — something that Activision had to apologize for — could mean millions more fans for this year’s Call of Duty game. We won’t jump the gun and say that’s going to happen for sure, but the beta is going well and players should be excited about the return to quality for Activision’s Call of Duty studios. I would estimate 2,000 to 3,000 devs worked on it from across 13 game studios at Activision — led by Infinity Ward.

There was nothing spectacular in my gameplay. During the two hours of Call of Duty: Next, I played with influencers. They slaughtered me during Search and Destroy and I wasn’t taking anyone out at first, but I finally got the hang of it and got seven kills in one match. The Kill Block mode was easier than I feared. In that new mode, the terrain rearranged itself after every round. With the Gunfight mode blended with it, you only got one life. It was hard, but I won the match for us with one lucky round.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/y3DCOqGwzSs?feature=oembed I got a lot of time in on the Silkworm (battle in a Seoul retail district) and Rooftop Levels. I also played a lot of Transit213, which was like a bus graveyard. It was a tight map, like the Shipment and Cargo maps from past multiplayer modes. And it was nonstop action.

I also got to play one of the campaign levels and it was very good. You play as part of a South Korean army squad, defending the country against an attack from North Korea. In this level, your squad had to participate in a ground attack against a nuclear facility that the North Korean troops had taken. You had to release water that could cool the damaged nuclear reactor and enable others to escape from the area.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NBAL-UXTg4c?feature=oembed It was a harrowing mission, where you had to fight in the trenches in short-range infantry combat, then get in a vehicle and take the fight to the facility, then you had to fight inside and escape from the place before it all collapsed. It was real Call of Duty, coming back in a way that I really liked so far. If this is a sign of things to come, then I think Call of Duty will recover its audience this year in some fashion, before Grand Theft Auto VI takes all the players.

But once I leveled up my gun, I really liked the fast and frenetic combat where I could fire both short range and long range shots and take down multiple enemies at a time. I even had some up rounds, where I had more kills than deaths. Infinity Ward’s priority in leading the 13 studios that worked on the game was getting backed to realistic and grounded action. They did a good job from what I’ve seen so far.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jUAUHeEcgqo?feature=oembed The timing is good, as Electronic Arts is releasing its best maps and modes for Battlefield 6 now with its Season 4 content, which includes the naval combat of Tsuru Reef and Wake Island. Those experiences along with Carrier Strike mode are Battlefield at its best.

It’s great to see Call of Duty and Battlefield going head to head in this way. If you haven’t tried the beta this weekend, you’re missing out. Give it a try because Call of Duty is back. I’ve put some of my better rounds in this post. Check them out.

Disclosure: I played the game on Steam on a Falcon Northwest PC with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card and a 27-inch Sony InZone monitor M10S II gaming monitor. The gaming PC and display kept up with the game, with performance with a QHD 540Hz refresh rate and rapid 0.02ms response time.

The post Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta shows the franchise quality is back appeared first on GamesBeat.

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