It didn’t take long for someone with an accent I couldn’t identify to shout down the mic to tell me how terrible I was at the game. It lacked slurs, sure, but don’t worry, the full-fat Call of Duty experience is still present here in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, with a little bit extra thanks to every PS5 controller coming with a microphone, ready to share your inputs and ambient sounds (including crying babies) with everyone else on your team. At least they’re easy enough to mute.
If you’ve played a Call of Duty game in the last few years, you should already know what to expect. Modern Warfare II brings the visuals and gameplay style of the 2019’s Modern Warfare to current-gen consoles, meaning it looks better than ever, and even includes 120fps options for those with a fancy enough TV or monitor. Yes, it’s the usual experience, but at launch it leaves us with a few questions.
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The thing is, you’ll be thrown off when what you expect isn’t actually here. At launch, MW2 feels a bit barebones. It’s a Call of Duty game, sure enough, but when removed from the fairly explosive single player campaign, the multiplayer seems a bit thin on the ground. For example, there’s no Hardcore mode yet. It’ll be coming in a future update, and while time-to-kill is reasonably low in the base game, it’s still a weird absence. So is the lack of a Combat Record to see your overall stats, such as your K/D ratio. Oh, there’s no Battle Pass, either, with the portion of the main menu remaining greyed out currently.
We can expect to see much of this to be introduced in the near future, hopefully alongside November’s launch of Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, but the fact that this game feels so lacking currently really is inexcusable. And it’s especially disappointing considering that what is here is, while basic, very good.
This is definitely Call of Duty. The range of weapons, skins, and attachments are all in place, and yes, you can earn precious gold camos for your guns as long as you fulfill special challenges. Even if you ignore leveling up to the max of 55 and earning the Juggernaut Killstreak, there’s still plenty to dip into and experience – even if you can’t check your K/D ratio afterward.
Yes, there’s the classic blend of Call of Duty game modes, but we also get to grips with the likes of the Ground War mode. Ground War can feature up to 64 players with loads of vehicles on the map, leading to chaos and destruction in a similar vein to the best Battlefield games. The maps are smaller here than what you’ll typically find in Battlefield, but they’re still often a bit too big, making navigating them on foot difficult, with snipers posted on almost every hill and overlook.
Spec Ops returns with a different take on the multiplayer maps, allowing you and a friend to team up and undertake a series of co-op missions. These missions take place on familiar maps, but will have you fighting against NPCs and preset waves of enemies. Invade here, hold this position, defend from waves of foes, move on, etc. It’s a decent way to spend some time with a friend, but it shouldn’t be considered an essential part of the experience by anyone, really.
Those smaller maps do a good job though. Unless it’s Rust, Terminal, or Nuketown, I am never going to be able to remember Call of Duty map names, but Modern Warfare II’s Breenbergh Hotel and, um, the one where you can swim underwater a bit, are great maps that have the potential to be immediately recognizable, if not nameable. However, an abandoned desert town makes for both rubbish scenery and a boring shooting range.
But if you’re a dedicated player, you’re here for the guns and the shooting. MW2’s guns, as of right now, feel well balanced. Shotguns won’t be killing foes from a distance, but if you manage to surprise someone from around a corner, you just need one shot. SMGs are rapid-fire and allow you to move swiftly, as usual, and if you have a speedy shooter you can rinse through foes in record time. Assault rifles also feel incredibly solid, not having the high TTK that plagued other COD games, drawing out battles far too long. Here two shots from a powerful pistol can down a foe, and that’s really the way it should be.
Of course, that low TTK can feel punishing when you’re out in the open, and is likely why Ground War won’t be a mode many players will spend a lot of time with. If you love vehicles or sniping, it’s ideal, but otherwise you’re better off focusing your efforts on the traditional multiplayer maps and the usual blend of Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, Domination, and more.
There is also a third-person mode, which brings Modern Warfare II in line with other popular shooters. This of course allows you to peek around corners without making yourself vulnerable, boosting how effective it is to hide behind cover. It also makes your aim slightly less accurate, and your crosshair just might get caught on cover and walls if you’re not careful. Most Call of Duty players will inevitably ignore this, sticking to what Call of Duty is known for – the first-person perspective and fluid gameplay. However, if you do happen to feel more familiar with third-person blasters, then that might be a better option.
More options are good, and crossplay enables people from any console to join one another in battle. But it does also mean you run the risk of going up against mouse and keyboard players in battle, and you can expect their aim to be generally a bit better than your controller-wielding pals. This would be fine, but you are only able to disable crossplay on PlayStation consoles, and Ground War requires crossplay to fill up the lobbies.
Ultimately, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II feels like a solid and fun Call of Duty game, but the lack of features at launch renders it feeling a bit like Street Fighter V when it released. Solid, gets the job done, but is in dire need of updates to bring it up to the level of quality and diverse gameplay of past games. Hardcore mode coming in a later update is fine, but the lack of a Combat Record is entirely baffling, even if it ends up being temporary.
What we’re left with is a game that’s more promising than it is impressive. The campaign was an explosive and exciting romp, but in a vacuum, the multiplayer feels too familiar places, and lacking in others. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will probably become a great multiplayer shooter in the next few months, but at launch it’s making me wonder if too much was sacrificed in order to get Warzone 2.0 out this year too.
Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.
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