Since the beta ended last month, we’ve been dying to get back to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II’s multiplayer mode, and we’re even more excited after experiencing the campaign mode the past few days (which you can find our review of here). Here we are in front of the multiplayer phase, which will remain with us this time for two years, not one year as usual, so did the Infinity Ward studio manage to lay strong foundations that make it able to develop and improve this phase over two years?
Modern Warfare II Multiplayer content at launch
- 10 6v6 maps
- 5 Ground War maps that offer all-out war for up to 64 players
- All the popular game modes like Domination, TDM, FFA and Hardpoint, plus new game modes Knockout and Prisoner Rescue
- And, of course, you can enjoy the third-person view on its own Playlist
- That’s in addition to all the weapons, Perks, and Killstreaks you can imagine
- The game will offer a Playlist dedicated to fans of realistic warfare and Tier 1 difficulty with the launch of the first season on November 16th.
The gameplay is the best Call of Duty has to offer
Movement and Gunplay
We guess there is nothing to say about Call of Duty’s gameplay, it’s undisputed the best in first-person shooters. What’s great about the full version of Modern Warfare II is that it’s much smoother in motion than in the beta version, which makes the overall multiplayer experience more enjoyable.
The use of weapons of all kinds gives a sense of power in your hands, as you feel the reaction of the weapon even if you are playing on a mouse and keyboard. It’s fabulous, and this feeling will increase if you’re playing with a controller, especially the PlayStation 5 Dualsense. This is one of the games that really made us feel the power of weapons and it is significantly better than MW2019 and Warzone.
Modern Warfare II offers you the possibility to do Dolphin Diving and that feature is able to get you out of many difficult situations. Just make a front jump like this out of any door or from any window and you will find it saving you from many situations in which you would inevitably die. Also, the new climbing feature allows you to peek over the walls using your pistol before climbing completely, which gives you the opportunity to eliminate any enemy at the top that does not see you.
Distinctive new game modes
As we explained in our talk about the beta version last month, the game offers some new game modes such as Prisoner Rescue, which can be considered the Hostage mode of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, in addition to the Knockout mode, in which you and your team have to keep a specific package and prevent the other team from taking it. .
It saddens us that the full version does not offer any new modes other than these, and we think it would have been better for the Infinity Ward studio to put these modes in the final version in order to offer players a different and surprising experience instead of having them previously in the beta version with no surprises in the full version.
Noticeable changes to vehicle handling
One of the criticisms of MW2019 is that the vehicle control wasn’t the best compared to games that are mainly based on this type of gameplay like Battlefield. At the time, Infinity Ward studio was still trying many things with the Ground War pattern, and it seems that this time it managed to solve the problems!
Now driving various vehicles across large maps has become a lot of fun, especially since controlling them has become much smoother and more fun. In addition, as a normal player on the ground, you can eliminate vehicles more easily, unlike the 2019 parts, which makes the gameplay more dynamic and balanced.
Some modifications to the basics of the game
Perks have been a staple in the Call of Duty series for years. In this part, Infinity Ward studio decided to make some adjustments to make players more active in the map. The new system is Perk Packages. Each Package includes 2 basic Perks that you will receive at the start of each match and will always be with you. Over time in the match, you can get an additional Perk, then eventually you will get the Ultimate Perk. This makes you as a player always want to keep moving and doing activities within the map to get stronger Perks faster!
We advise you to design your own Perk Package that matches your play style. There are Packages available automatically that you can choose from, but as you progress in the game, you will need to create your own Perk Packages that suit your own play style!
One of the things that some people will ask about in the gameplay is skill-based matchmaking, and we think there is nothing to say. Like it or not, you are bound to experience the game with this system that will not be removed.
The Gunsmith system is genius, and every gamer will love it
As we’ve mentioned over and over again, the new Gunsmith system in Modern Warfare II is one of the best weapon mods we’ve ever seen in a first-person game!
You can literally create your own dream weapon by modifying and customizing it as you see fit. All the weapons in front of you in the game are customizable to suit your playing style, making you able to enjoy this experience more than any previous instalment in the Call of Duty series.
If you open an attachment for a specific weapon (say, a specific Muzzle or Stock), you will be able to place the attachment on all other weapons of the same class. Meaning if you unlock Attachment for Assault Rifle, you will be able to use it on all other Assault Rifles. The same idea applies to SMGs and other weapon classes. This of course makes the gaming experience more enjoyable and reduces Grind and playing for long periods of time to unlock all attachments for all weapons.
Are all maps designed well?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no, specifically in the Ground War maps, most of which look very similar. We wish Infinity Ward would focus on making some of these maps more unique than others so that they would stick in players’ minds better than that.
Fortunately, the same does not apply to the small 6v6 maps, most of which are unique and different from everything. The Crown Raceway map in particular is one of the most enjoyable maps in the game for its unique and different design. But despite that, there is a very bad map called Santa Sena Border Crossing, and we think it offers one of the stupidest maps designs We have ever seen, as it is the number of cars that can explode in a small area, which makes your death very easy and illogical!
If you like co-op, Spec Ops is for you
Apart from the multiplayer phase, we must not forget the Special Operations cooperative phase. This phase was not presented in the best way in the 2019 version, and unfortunately this year’s version is not much different (at least at the time of release). Currently you can play 3 missions in this mode:
- Low Profile Mission: Infiltrate a town in the dead of night to uncover information and clues left by the Assassin Organization before exiting the scene. Stealth is the key to survival
- Denied Access mission: Mounted weapons prevent reinforcements from entering the farm. With the help of a vehicle, navigate the winding streets to destroy these weapons, then speed to the escape plane
- Defender: Mt Zaya: A love letter to Survival Modes fans, defend the observatory against increasingly difficult waves of enemies trying to detonate bombs. Between each wave, you can spend coins to get items like killstreaks, self-revive kits, and armor plates.
The missions are great in every way, but there are only three of them at the time of release. We were hoping at least we’d see 5 or 6 Spec Ops missions. Fortunately, during the coming seasons, we will witness the release of the RAIDS game mode, which can be considered a comprehensive expansion of the Spec Ops phase, as RAIDS completes the events of the main game’s story with distinctive and different tasks.
What does technical performance look like in multiplayer?
Like the story mode, the experience was on the following computer:
- Intel Core i3 10100F
- 16 GB of DDR4 RAM at 2666 MHz
- Nvidia GeForce RTx 3050 8 GB
- NVMe SSD Storage
Since we focus on multiplayer and want to get the best possible performance, we set the game to medium settings at 1080p with Nvidia DLSS enabled on quality mode. On the other hand, we got frames ranging from 100 to 120 frames per second in the small maps (6v6), and the frames ranged from 80 to 100 frames in the large maps of up to 64 players.
Technical performance was not stellar as the game crashed more than once throughout our experience. In addition, the multiplayer mode is not able to properly use the power of the graphics card. For example, when we tried the story mode, the graphic card consumption reached 95-98%, and this is a logical limit, which is what is required. But when we tried the online phase, some maps reach this limit, and other maps cannot break the 85% barrier, which reduces frames!
What about acoustic design?
Modern Warfare II offers one of the best sound designs in the gaming industry, and this is what we mentioned in our review of the story phase and we talked about earlier in our impressions of the beta version. The final version has improved the sound design, specifically the sound of the players’ footsteps, which has become more realistic and you can locate it better. We advise you to wear a gaming headset that relies mainly on surround sound so that you can locate your enemies from behind the wall so that you have the advantage when you decide to engage them in gunfights.
The beauty of the sound design is not limited to the design of footsteps and enemies, but also makes you immersed in the game as you enter into the clashes and hear the sound of the most realistic gunshots ever. It is a great and very enjoyable auditory experience.
Carryminate evaluation
- Play Style: 8
- Map design: 7
- Gunsmith system and mods: 9
- Cooperative missions: 7.5
- Technical performance: 6
Advantages
- Play style at its best
- The 6v6 map design is fairly good
- The Gunsmith system is genius
- Premium content for the online multiplayer mode at the time of release
- Great variety of weapons, gear, perks, and killstreaks
- The ability to customize everything as it suits you
- Fantastic sound design
Disadvantages
- Similar design to Ground War maps
- Santa Sena Border Crossing is one of the worst map designs we’ve seen
- Unfortunately, very few Spec Ops missions were available at the time of release
- Technical performance is not stable
