Modern Warfare 4: First Beta Weekend Ends with Mixed Reception

The first beta round for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 concluded on August 25th at 10 AM PT (7 PM German time). For four days, pre-order customers on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC were able to test what Infinity Ward has planned for the multiplayer – and the initial assessment is more mixed than euphoric.

How Was the Modern Warfare 4 Beta Received by Critics?

Reviewers and players describe the first weekend as a “small step in the right direction,” but without real enthusiasm. Specific criticisms include an overly weighty, “rubbery” movement feel, imprecise weapon handling, and an extremely high game pace with a very short time-to-kill, which, according to several testers, leaves little room for tactical play. Technical issues also arose: numerous PC players reported frame-pacing problems despite high frame rates and noticeable input lag with mouse control – even on high-end hardware. On the positive side, the disappointment was significantly less than with last year's Black Ops 7 beta weekend.

What Do the Steam Player Counts Show?

The extent to which the mixed reactions truly resonated can be seen in the Steam figures: the beta peaked at 115,145 concurrent players at launch, but fell to under 38,000 within a single day – a decline of approximately 65 percent. While some of this is normal for a weekend-only beta with limited content, such a steep drop is still considered a warning sign in the community regarding the current build's retention power.

What Does This Mean for the Upcoming Open Beta?

For those who missed the first weekend, there's a second chance: the open beta will run from August 28th to September 1st, for which, unlike the Early Access weekend, neither a pre-order nor a beta code is required. This leaves Infinity Ward with approximately two months until the release on October 23rd to fine-tune movement, netcode, and performance. We already covered how the beta launch originally went here – whether the points of criticism will be addressed by the open beta is likely the crucial question for many fans now. From our perspective, the movement feel is the main sticking point: pure balance adjustments to weapons can still be refined well within two months, but building a fundamentally different movement feel is considerably more complex.

Source: Notebookcheck, Gamereactor

Did you play the Early Access Beta yourself? Tell us in the comments if the new movement feel convinced you or if you have rather mixed feelings!