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Modern Warfare 2 is only going to get better
Hold up! Don’t like reading? Watch instead…
A lot of you said I was bullshitting when I told you Infinity Ward was listening to the community this time.
And despite the “false” bannings, lag, and bugs & crashes that have sadly become launch-day norms, the tea leaves are revealing nothing but good shit coming our way.
It started with these 4 signs:
1. September’s Call of Duty Next hammered home that we were headed into a new era of CoD.
2. Joe Cecot nuked his Twitter account which falls in line with the “clean slate” strategy.
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War sold far less than Modern Warfare 2019, and Call of Duty: Vanguard sold even less than Cold War.
4. And most deliciously, multiple AAA developers and studios took massive Ls this year at a time when economies are tanking.
Activision definitely saw that the phrase, “Too Big to Fail” was bullshit, shareholders are scared, and no one wants to fuck around and piss off customers — Hi, G4, Paypal, Twitter, Netflix, Saints Row, and I could go on…
So what happened when Modern Warfare 2 finally launched?
Infinity Ward tweaked the lobby disbanding problem as promised. Anecdotally, I haven’t seen a huge change, but I’ll wait for bigger channels than mine to do more “scientific” experiments.
They also reduced the footstep audio distance. You can still sound whore, but what this does show is Infinity Ward blinked. If footstep audio is still too loud, we now know it’s more likely that they’ll soften it rather than ignore us.
And finally, they gave us icons over enemies’ heads to help with player visibility. Again, another indicator they flinched when the community spoke up.
The CoD community obviously has a greater leverage position at this point in time and we need to use it.
I doubt we’ll get any SBMM compromise, but in the spirit of Rainbow Six Siege — which Infinity Ward seems to be biting with all of their point-counterpoint gadgetry — could we see red dots on the minimap available as a late-stage perk?
Conclusion
The typical launch day nonsense will get ironed out and when it does, Modern Warfare 2’s strong fundamental base is going to shine.
The guns slap and feel amazing, the maps are made for multiple play styles — not just red dot chasers, and the entire package can only get better from here. I can’t wait to see how the new DMZ mode handles.
See you on the battlefield, and as always, stay cool, gentlemen.
