The Modern Warfare II beta is over and has drawn more players in front of the console and PC than any CoD title ever before.
Although Modern Warfare II’s beta left audiences divided, it goes down as the biggest and most successful in Call of Duty history, breaking records in several categories at once.
New beginning successful?
Developer Infinity Ward should be more than happy with the results of the two beta weekends of Modern Warfare II. The new Call of Duty set three records and motivated more people to play the beta than ever before in CoD history.
Over 169,000 players simultaneously played the Modern Warfare II beta on Steam. In total, more than 8 million hours of game time were generated. Infinity Ward was thus able to set the records for the most players, hours played and matches played during a Call of Duty beta – and that in just two weekends.
On Twitter, the developers expressed their gratitude for the successful launch and promised in a blog post to solve the problems that became apparent during the beta by the release on 28 October.
Thank you CallOfDuty players! Together you’ve made the ModernWarfare2 Beta the biggest Call of Duty Beta ever 💚
And we’re only getting started, preparing for Campaign Early Access, and the global launch on Oct. 28th ➡️ https://t.co/xvLUdvHXcf pic.twitter.com/b6u8UxLDxR
– Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) September 27, 2022
These numbers are even more impressive when you consider that they only affect players on Steam. Xbox and PlayStation users are not included on the Steamcharts.com platform. The actual number of beta participants is therefore likely to be quite a bit higher. The announced “A new era for Call of Duty” thus seems to have got off to a successful start.
The sales figures on Steam also speak for themselves. Modern Warfare II is well on its way to becoming the best-selling CoD game of all time and knocking Modern Warfare (2019) off its throne.
But for that to happen, MWII would have to break the 30 million barrier in terms of copies sold, something only Modern Warfare (2019), Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3 have managed to do so far.
Beta has revealed weaknesses
Even though the beta was the most successful in CoD history, it also revealed many weaknesses that the game is currently struggling with. The developers would do well to learn from past mistakes and take the community’s feedback seriously. There is no shortage of criticism and suggestions for improvement from the players.
There is still enough time until the release on 28 October to respond to the feedback from the community and to initiate appropriate changes. The developers should pay special attention to the criticism of the gameplay. For many players, the changes compared to the predecessors Modern Warfare (2019), BOCW and Vanguard went too far.
After nearly 30,000 votes we have the most landslide victory of any poll I’ve EVER run on this account.
88% of players say they want a classic minimap / red dots to appear on their minimap in ModernWarfare2
12% of players said they didn’t want a classic minimap in MWII pic.twitter.com/QHTQPGlYvg
– ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) September 19, 2022
In particular, the changed minimap, the still immature SBMM and the new perk system have met with little approval from the community. Other changes such as the new weaponsmith or the well-designed 6 vs. 6 maps, on the other hand, were well received. Unfortunately, the great numbers are also marred by the first reports of cheaters in the beta.
We can only hope that Infinity Ward will manage to solve most of these problems by the time of release. Otherwise, the fantastic start could quickly turn into a nightmare for the developers.
