Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Beta Impressions

In the final months of 2019, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare acted as a newly-formed appendage.

Hours on end were spent playing Infinity Ward’s “‘soft’ ‘reboot'” to the detriment of my sleep and a horde of other games I would have otherwise played. Like many Novembers and Decembers, Call of Duty had its temporary hooks in me as many zeitgeist games often do. It’s just part of the life and work I choose. But where I often race to Prestige and then slowly peter out, Modern Warfare didn’t burn at both ends so rapidly. It was like Black Ops 3 all over again, just with more boots on the ground.

Something about Modern Warfare‘s juggling of camping and run-and-gun, a bulky progression system, and a handful of stellar maps resonated with me. Cold War lost steam almost instantly because of a busy holiday season and the launch of new consoles. Vanguard had the gusto–I sunk about 100 hours a few weeks in–but life got in the way.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, despite its naming convention, wants to capture the same fire its predecessor did. After spending several hours with the game’s Beta the past two weekends, I’m extremely curious as to how Infinity Ward’s seemingly drastic changes in an otherwise familiar gameplay loop are going to mesh with players.

One of the most initially jarring aspects of Modern Warfare II is the perk system. In many ways, Infinity Ward is bucking the trend of the past several Call of Duty games. Gone is the absolute customization where players could fill every attachment slot on a gun and have the exact operator they wanted from beginning of a match to end (minus in-game loadout changes, of course).

This year, all perks aren’t unlocked the instant a match begins. Players have four perks that can be assigned during a match. Two of these “base” perks are active the instant a match begins, a third “bonus” perk goes live around four or five minutes into the match, while the final “ultimate” perk starts around eight minutes in. Based on performance, the final two perks can be unlocked faster.

Base perks aren’t entire game changers and are familiar staples to Call of Duty. There’s Overkill allowing two primary weapons to be equipped, Tracker that leaves a brief footprint trail from enemies, Scavenger that resupplies ammo from dead players, and a handful of others.

Bonus perks are somewhat more handy, such as Spotter that shows equipment and killstreaks through walls, Cold Blooded that makes players immune from AI tracking, and Focus which reduce ADS flinch and longer Hold Breath duration.

Ultimate perks are also familiar staples but sometimes trigger an action when earned. Ghost is a personal favorite that makes players undetectable by UAVs, Hardline reduces killstreak and scorestreak costs. Survivor lets players revive downed friendlies faster and can enter Last Stand on death with the ability to self-revive once a life. Bird’s Eye zooms out the minimap but also pings enemies on the map when earned.

During the Beta, there were perk packages tailored to specific playstyles that helped indecisive players But the ability to equip your own loadout does exist when all perks are unlocked. For a large portion of the beta, I didn’t pay much attention to fine-tuning my perks because progress doesn’t carry over.

However, I did notice that base perk selection felt extremely important as they would shape the opening minutes of a match. It’s an interesting system to hold back multiple perks from players based on time and performance. I understand wanting players to start out at a more even level but there might be a danger in one or two over-performing members of a team turning a quick advantage. Perks have never been the end-all-be-all of a Call of Duty match. That being said, skilled players know how to perfect loadouts and I can see rapid unlocking of Ultimate perks being an issue.

But I think it’s also important for Modern Warfare II to create its own identity and the perk system is one of the ways Infinity Ward is doing that. It’s a unique twist that could unlock some potentially interesting play, especially among competitive modes. Plus, in objective-based maps the sheer amount of points being earned by capturing zones may encourage players to actually play as a unit to earn perks faster.

Strange as the perk system may seem, gun progression was a strange beast that I truly didn’t grasp that well during the beta. Infinity Ward seems to be moving players away from the camo grind by having guns belong to various families. To unlock guns, players first need to level up a specific gun in a branching tree. Attachment unlocks appear to be tied to specific weapons but when earned are unlocked for all guns in that family.

Sound confusing? It kind of was partially because the beta didn’t really direct players towards a better understanding of the system. During the first weekend, I wanted to unlock the only SMG that was available (at least I think it was the only one). To do that, I first had to level up an assault rifle to maybe 15 and then perhaps another gun to the same level before the SMG unlocked.

Because the beta doesn’t not have all content available, it was hard to understand if I was being gatekept by this trial period or if the progression system was actually that obtuse. I read a lot of people online wondering how they could unlock red dot sights only to be directed that they first had to unlock the sight with another gun so it could be used for others.

Exacerbating the confusion was the subpar UI that made menu navigation and readability not the best. When trying to dig deeper into these weapon trees and progression, the screen didn’t seem to scroll to the right, allowing me to see full progression. Attachment description text would often clash with other text. While this is a beta period, it felt strangely unoptimized. Because of this, I spent less time investigating clumsy menus and more time just trying to start a match because, again, much of this should hopefully be cleared up when the game fully launches.

Modern Warfare II plays extremely similarly to its predecessor and that alleviated most of my issues that I had over the two weekends. The game feels a lot weightier than the past two entries, where movement of the operator and shooting feel a lot more deliberate. Mounting is back to stabilize recoil and in some instances, players can grab a ledge and shoot a pistol with one hand, adding a sneakier element to gunplay.

Time to kill is fast, as it always has been with Call of Duty games. But because weapons can only have five attachments this time around, I predict that a meta might emerge that allows guns to be drawn as fast as possible. Frequently, it felt that if a player had the jump on me, they were going to get the kill. Reaction times have always been crucial but if someone can aim down the sights faster than you, you’re dead.

Camping is always a point of contention with the community. Many think it’s cheap for players to hunker down in an area and just wait for others to run past. Modern Warfare II does encourage methodical play but running and gunning is and always will be viable. Players need to keep in mind that there are advantages to both. Maps are going to have long lines of sight that make sniping preferable. Close quarters exist to dart in and out of.

Often I prefer to change up my style during matches. After a point, running around blindly stops becoming rewarding. So then I pick out a spot of map to cover and just pray that I’m good at pushing back any resistance. Modern Warfare II caters to everyone and there will certainly be a clash of ideologies as player groups butt heads. Time to kill is always going to be too short or too fast. Assholes bunny hopping around corners are going to be something that can be countered. No-scoping will infuriate everyone and, hopefully, Infinity Ward will always be on the case with a fix or leaning into player feedback.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II didn’t show all of its cards during the beta period. But I found a lot of enjoyment out of it without going too hard in the paint. I want to leave some surprises for myself when the game fully launches and I know that a lot actually does change between builds. I had a blast being at the top of the leaderboard in my lobby and got infuriated when I was being trounced. Every year there has been a new Call of Duty but a similar experience. My hope is that with Modern Warfare II, the rhythm set with how great Modern Warfare 2019 will continue. So far, the future looks promising.