We’re deep in the second and final session of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta. This open portion is available on one more platform – Switch 2, and can be accessed without the need for a pre-order. It also includes a sampler of Warzone’s next Resurgence map and two Ground War maps, alongside all the maps and modes from the first beta weekend. None of that appears to have moved the needle, at least on Steam.
The beta’s peak concurrent player count of 115,145, which was achieved over the first weekend, has yet to be beaten. The closest it has got was a little over 113,000 on Friday, likely due to player interest in Warzone. Of course, it’s always worth keeping in mind that we have no visibility on PlayStation 5, Xbox or Switch 2 numbers – it’s possible some or all of those platforms saw big turnouts in the second weekend.
All that said, Steam is often a good barometer for the performance of most major games, and it’s notable that despite the new stuff and the beta’s free accessibility, the numbers didn’t improve.
Beyond simply comparing and contrasting numbers, there’s also the matter of the key gameplay changes Infinity Ward introduced to the beta this session to address the most popular points of feedback.
Once players got their hands on the game during the first weekend, it became clear that movement was going to be the first point of contention. Many believe the game’s movement speed and movement abilities make for an uncontrollable pace, so Infinity Ward wanted to change several of those parameters to see if they’ll make a difference. Even for a beta, this is unusual, especially considering the extent to which the developer was willing to go to address feedback.
For starters – as an experiment – the developer removed Tactical Sprint by default, tying it instead to the Blood Rush Perk. Tactical Sprint offers faster sprint speeds but delays how quickly you can get your gun up. Despite that penalty, players figured out years ago you can eliminate that by sliding out of it, essentially giving you two advantages. This was on display all across the first weekend, hence the change. Slides were also nerfed, with their distance and speed cut, and the slide-to-jump delay increased.
Time to Kill was another hotly-debated topic in weekend one because of how fast it felt. Infinity Ward addressed that by reducing the damage of every gun in the beta. Together with the movement changes, the pace of the game has slowed, and the time it takes to kill an opponent has increased alongside it.
The transformative patch tweaked spawns, too, to cut down on the chaos of the first weekend, where players were spawning at random points across the map next to teammates, rather than in more predictable spots at the edges of the map. The patch also made Killstreaks harder to get by increasing the required number of kills by one across the board to prevent spam.
As a result of all that, the beta’s second weekend feels considerably different to play than the first. But whether or not you agree with the changes, I feel they offer enough incentive for both disgruntled players and those happy with the game’s previous state to see the differences for themselves. At least on Steam, that clearly hasn’t borne out by the numbers.
