I’m not alone in thinking that Call of Duty is in a downward spiral. With its annual releases, plummeting quality and predatory monetisation — among other issues — I’m not alone in suffering from franchise fatigue.

Last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was easily the worst game in the entire 23-year franchise. When I reviewed it last December, I labelled it a creatively bankrupt mess of poor design and bad ideas. The series was effectively dead in my eyes thanks to a lacklustre multiplayer and a campaign seemingly designed by ChatGPT.

So when Modern Warfare 4 (MW4) — or Modern “Four-fare”(please laugh) — was revealed a few months ago, I was sceptical at best and completely indifferent at worst.

Fortunately, I was presented with a game build that had a decent degree of polish; it needed to be, considering the game is a month away from its release. During the open beta weekend, I found that there were significant improvements to the gunplay and the multiplayer maps on offer were all quite good.

The best part about these annual betas is that they’re effectively glorified demos for the forthcoming title, so I can try it out for free and decide whether or not to spend my money. The good thing with this is that it came with plenty of content, including a campaign mission and a Warzone map.

It goes without saying that because this was a beta, everything I discuss is not final and could change. I’ll hand out a score once I review the final game come October.

Same shtick, different disc?

So, does MW4 feel any different to the previous CoD title? Well, it didn’t leave me hollow and depressed after playing it. A very low bar, I know, but still it felt different enough from older titles to be interesting, even in this build.

A lot of this was down to the gunplay (which I’ll get to), but also a streamlined movement and mantling system to help you dart across the map like a rocket-propelled hamster. Unlike MW3, movement in this felt fast and snappy.

There were even new environmental props like drainpipes one can use and shimmy along to get around the map and ambush players.

Unfortunately, elements like skill-based matchmaking (SBMM), where you are matched with other players based on skill level and not connection, and lag issues were present. Performing well in one game would get you matched with professional-level players two games later, punishing good play and causing internet lag because matchmaking prioritises skill over connection. This has been a constant issue with CoD, and unfortunately, it was no different here.

Aiming true

But the biggest change by far was in the shooting, and how the game dealt with something called “weapon bloom” — this is the random movement of bullets under continuous automatic fire; a drop in accuracy which cannot be controlled by managing the gun’s recoil. It’s an absolute pain. So MW4 decided to scrap it entirely.

Shooting felt much more accurate even with stock weapons because bullets went exactly where I aimed with little to no spread or randomness. As a result, gunfights felt more satisfying to engage in compared to previous entries, and hip-firing was also far more effective.

Unlike some of the other new features, this was not a gimmick, but a fundamental change in the game for the better, making me really consider making a purchase.

Speaking of the weapons themselves, CoD continues to lead the industry when it comes to visual fidelity and handling animations.

Like other titles, the weapons in the beta were extremely well detailed and animated just as well. Inspection animations demonstrated this well, with the player character removing the magazine, performing press checks, or, in the case of a pistol, disassembling it and putting it back together again.

Unfortunately, whoever mixed the audio decided to make the guns overpoweringly loud compared to literally everything else. Realistic, yes, but extremely annoying when trying to hear footsteps or my friends on Discord.

Also, the iron sights on the weapons that I used (mostly assault rifles, shotguns and submachine guns) had clear sight pictures, and it was very easy to acquire targets. It also saves one of the gun’s five attachment slots, offering more flexibility in weapon customisation.

The lay of the land

Gunplay aside, the other part of the CoD equation is a small map which enables fast, reflex-heavy gun battles, but they are also a bit of a double-edged sword since their layouts can be restricting and repetitive, and more recent maps have left me unimpressed.

CoD has adopted a formula for each of its maps: three clearly defined lanes connected by small passageways, and vertical access going no higher than one storey. While it makes gameplay faster, I feel it also makes it less flexible in terms of what a player can actually do. MW4 is no exception.

Granted, we only got access to six maps during the beta weekend, but this formula was prevalent in all of them, with one or two exceptions. ‘Silkworm’, ‘Rooftops’ and ‘Cachette’ were my favourites (particularly the first) since they were easily navigable, good for objective modes and, in the case of ‘Rooftops’, enabled multiple sightlines at different ranges. It’s also the only map with varying verticality, so I appreciated that.

I had fun playing on all six maps except for ‘Transit’, because they’ve taken a square play area, dotted it with parked buses and set you loose on it. This map is tiny, and the chaos of 12 players all rushing each other with shotguns was good for a laugh, but got stale quicker than you can get from one end to the other.

Also, I noted framerate drops on ‘Transit’, but oddly enough, it was really severe in one particular corner of the map. It was as if stepping into that spot (just before the A flag on Domination mode) brought my PS5 to its knees. Hopefully this gets fixed, and there are no other issues like it in the final game.

New kid on the block

I also tried out one of the new modes parroted in the game’s marketing: Kill Block. This is a 10 versus 10 deathmatch mode where all players are given the same randomised loadout. But there’s a twist: the three-section map is constructed from portions of other maps, and the layout changes every two rounds. Effectively, the level is evolving as the game progresses.

On paper, this doesn’t sound like a bad idea: the changing map gives players variety in how they can engage — developer Infinity Ward claims there are over 500 combinations of maps — and it brings sections from older CoD maps back, like ‘Crash’ and ‘Firing Range’.

In practice, I’m torn on how to feel about it. The games I played were genuinely quite fun, but having the map change every two rounds made orientation really confusing. This problem became more prevalent because the walls all feature the same cardboard texture, so they look identical.

Apex, really?

One of the big innovations teased by the developers was “Apex Attachments”: a weapon attachment unique to a gun, and unlocked once you reach that weapon’s maximum level. Annoyingly, I had no clue what it would be until I hit the max level, but these were generally ammo conversions or attachments giving weapons an alternate fire mode.

For the Oris 8.6 marksman rifle, the Apex Attachment was a caddy on the gun’s side holding throwing knives, which could be seamlessly tossed at enemies up close. For the Rezi 12 shotgun, it was a pump-action conversion with explosive shells.

These were very hit-or-miss and honestly felt more like gimmicks rather than having a meaningful place in your loadout. The shotgun conversion was useful because of the greater damage, but the Apex for the M4 rifle was an ammo conversion to pistol-calibre rounds and ruined the gun.

The Apex for the AK-47 was 50-50: one of the attachments was an ammo conversion to 5.45mm rounds — giving you better control and a high rate of fire at the expense of damage (I liked this one) — while the other was a railgun (yes) that took too long to charge up, and given the fast pace of the game, was largely useless.

A cubic metre of salt

Overall, I was impressed by the beta for MW4 and the content that was on offer. It provided a fun, fast shooter experience with massively improved gunplay and decent maps. There were issues, sure — framerate drops, weird audio and gimmicky ideas disguised as innovations — but it seemed like we would get a solid entry for the series.

But then realisation set in: this is Call of Duty. The same franchise where SBMM decides who wins and loses games; where Beavis and Butthead are getting into gunfights with Roger from ‘American Dad’; where new entries are cranked out every year with seemingly no quality control.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun with MW4 and was reminded of what a good CoD felt like again. But the direction the series has taken has me firmly on the fence about buying this year’s title.