Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is actually the seventh Modern Warfare game. The slate was wiped clean with 2019's Modern Warfare, but to developer Infinity Ward, the sub-series' principles remain the same going into Modern Warfare 4.

"We wanted to chase this gritty, grounded, almost ripped from the headlines style Modern Warfare game – where it feels not exactly like the real-world, but something that could be in the real-world," says Jack Hoppus, multiplayer technical designer. "We were really laser focused on boots on the ground, [a] return to form with traditional modern warfare, and that was the guiding principle."

In the original trilogy, we followed soldiers across the world as they tried and failed to prevent World War 3. In recent years, Modern Warfare's perspective has shifted to spec ops, its casts working behind the scenes to foil more self-contained threats. But Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's campaign trailer shows North Korea invading the Korean Peninsula, and its scenes of full-scale army assaults are reminiscent of when London, Paris, and Washington DC were turned into battlefields in the first three games.

True grit

That "boots on the ground" focus has been the guiding light for Modern Warfare 4, says Hoppus. "It's been a unifying factor. Everyone at the studio is really aligned on the visual style and the tone we're setting."

"Historically, in our recent titles, it's been really spec ops – really highly trained militant forces – and it's been a while since we've seen the grunt perspective, and that's something that I'm also really looking forward to in our campaign," he adds. "Seeing this group of ragtag soldiers try to navigate their way through this conflict is something that's really interesting."

In realizing that tone at the action layer, Infinity Ward is aiming for a "grounded, fluid movement" system for Modern Warfare 4. That's not always something I've associated with Call of Duty – preferring the likes of Battlefield or Escape from Tarkov for weightier combat. With Call of Duty's quicker style of play, I ask Hoppus how that heft will be conveyed.

"It really comes down to the movement and also our weapon fidelity. So, we are committed at Infinity Ward to making these guns feel strong, feel powerful, but also not compromise on gameplay. We want them to feel satisfying to shoot. We don't want you to feel like you are holding a piece of plastic. We want you to feel like you're holding this high caliber, strong weapon that a highly trained soldier would use, right? But we don't want it to feel heavy in the sense that you're clunky with it. We make a first-person shooter game, so the gun is the hero of our game – it's deserving that we spend a whole bunch of time on weapon fidelity. So, the gun will dynamically, with how close to a wall you are, it'll actually tilt up, and you'll hold it closer to your chest. Or, as you enter a doorway, your gun will pivot with your arms like a highly trained soldier."

"All of those [features] are meant to feel like you are in the driver's seat, like you have agency, and it's also a balance of our movement as well," Hoppus continues. "We understand that the world is moving fast-paced now, so players want to slide and get up in other players' faces and try to break ankles. But we also want to have something for the tactical player that maybe wants to take intentional gunfights, check corners, and hold positioning. We want to create a game that, if you take really smart battles, you can win. But, if you're really mechanically good, you can also win those fights. [We] find the balance between both of those."

Speaking selfishly, I always prefer when Call of Duty opts for more considered movement. I can usually tell whether I'll gel with an entry based on how much I dig its marksman rifles, which I relay to Hoppus. "I am a marksman rifle player myself," he grins, "and I think you're gonna be having a great time this year [...] They feel great, more so in this game than any game I've played before."

Now approaching its 23rd iteration, Call of Duty has poked and prodded in many directions over the years. Infinity Ward has been at the heart of it all – and heading into Modern Warfare 4, I'm curious to learn how the studio approaches new entries. Is it a case of looking back through the years, at specific touchstones, or perpetually building upon the latest game?

"As one of our directors would say, we're always building from the things we couldn't do in the last game. So when we were building Modern Warfare 4, it was a lot of what we couldn't do – or what we didn't do great – in Modern Warfare 2. That's where all of our movement fidelity came in."

He points to similarly-scoped changes, like "stripping away the complexity" of weapon platforms and the gunsmith system to better incorporate shared attachments between guns. "We're always looking at the past, but we're also looking at what we can do that's cool and new this game."

Ahead of Modern Warfare 4's launch on October 22, we've rounded up the best FPS games you can play right now

Call of Duty publisher Activision is severely ratcheting up its years-long campaign against cheaters, publishing actual footage of a cheat maker being served a cease and desist order.

The game's main line of defense against cheaters is its kernel level Ricochet anti-cheat system, which is installed at the kernel level of your operating system and loads with the game to detect cheats from a privileged position in your PC's security system. That alone stirred some controversy when it was implemented back in 2021, but there's no denying it works. Since then, Activision has caught hundreds of thousands of Call of Duty and Warzone cheaters, but the fight rages on as they adapt and circumvent the latest anti-cheat measures. Now, Activision is going after something closer to the root of the problem: the people actually making cheats.

"RICOCHET Anti-Cheat doesn't end when your match does. Cheat makers operate around the world. So do we," reads a tweet from the official Call of Duty Twitter account. "We're taking the fight directly to cheat sellers.

"Last weekend during the Closed Beta, we went to Ohio to takedown Elocarry. That's not an isolated case..."

In the above video, you see what appears to be an attorney or process server drive up to a purported cheat maker's home, ring the doorbell, and hand a legal notice over to the accused. "What's this?" the person asks. "Attorneys for Activision and, uh, it's a cease and desist order for you."

When the recipient asks for more information, the server tells them to contact the attorney involved and the conversation ends. Naturally, the accused's visual identity is blurred out and their name redacted, but Activision confirms the video is "an excerpt from a real recording." Unnamed but still shamed.

In follow-up tweets, Activision shows the receipts apparently backing up its claim that this isn't the first or only person it's taken legal action against due to cheating in Call of Duty, with several more images of alleged cheat makers being served legal notices.

"In our ongoing fight against cheat developers and sellers, we've disrupted more than 375 cheat reseller operations, served more than 80 cease-and-desist demands and shut down more than 30 vendors," the publisher says. "And there's more to come, including litigation when necessary. We're prepared to take cheat developers and sellers to court to protect fair play.

"BUILD CHEATS. SELL CHEATS. WE WILL FIND YOU."

Activision adds that its latest anti-cheat measures are targeted at "the people and businesses behind cheating products" so that it can "disrupt the ecosystem that profits from them." Included is a screenshot of what appears to be a cheat seller informing its customers of a pause in operations.

"It's another way we're working to make cheating harder - not just for the people using cheats, but for the people building and selling them," Activision says.

Activision is obviously no darling, but this is an easy win for their PR team. If the accused cheaters and cheat sellers are really guilty, they're actively getting in the way of thousands of people simply wanting to enjoy the games they bought with their hard-earned money. Cheating will always be a thing, and Activision itself seems to acknowledge that, but anything that makes it harder and more legally risky to do is a good thing in my book.

Now onto more important matters: After Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta, devs promise to fix Captain Price's hair as his unexpected balding goes viral

The Modern Warfare 4 beta started over the weekend, and besides all the chatter about balancing and time-to-kill, it's Captain Price's haircut that's caught the attention of many. Our man should maybe get a new barber, and this iteration's developer, Infinity Ward, and Call of Duty publisher, Activision, are actively working to find him one.

Soon after the preview period started, fans began to notice how the handlebar-mustache-sporting soldier wasn't looking too good this time around. Gone is his well-kept head of hair, and what remains is a choppy-looking mess. "Lieutenant Cost," he's been dubbed by online revelers.

Developer Infinity Ward is on the case, since the number of comments and pictures on social media was hard to ignore. "We're aware of an issue with Price's hair not appearing correctly when viewed at the lowest level of detail," a tweet from one of the official accounts says. "The team will be addressing it in a future update."

This is an important caveat: the screenshots aren't from the game running across all standard machines. They're from people on lower specs. There are always trade-offs when it comes to making sure the game runs on low-powered machines, and it seems Captain Price's bedhead was one of them.

The post actually makes a slightly passive-aggressive pass at this fact. "Ultimately this will not be an issue if players meet our recommended specs," the tweet adds.

While it's understandably frustrating to be the butt of a joke that's missing context, there's a substantial audience whose specs are low for whatever reason, and they shouldn't feel like their experience is substandard. It's not the first time the franchise accounts have posted like this either. At least the Captain's hair will be done up properly, likely with a better hair transplant than your uncle got on holiday that time.

"CoD got it. Halo didn't" – Black Ops 1 and 2 ports battered Halo Campaign Evolved on PlayStation last month, analyst says, because $60 for a "graphical touch-up" is a rough sell

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders are now live and with two editions up for grabs, a couple of bonuses to choose from, and some early discounts in the UK, things are already heating up ahead of October 23.

Here's what you need to know. Both $69.99 / £69.99 Standard and $99.99 / £99.99 Vault Edition MW4 pre-orders are now available, though retailers are adding their own bonuses onto the former. Amazon's standard edition copies also come with five hours of double XP (at launch) and Best Buy's (Currys in the UK) comes packaged up with a free steelbook. That's if you're not interested in any digital extras.

The Vault Edition is your digital deluxe, available via Xbox or PS Store (or with a Steelbook at Best Buy if you're in the US). The boosted MW4 pre-order comes with:

• Hostile Alliance Operator Pack
• Special Forces Operator Pack
• Signature Weapon Collection
• BlackCell
• DMZ Deployment Bonus
• Hunter Killer Operator Skin
• Gilded Pearl Camo Pack
• Campaign Early Access (October 16)

So here's what I would do. Amazon is your go-to if you're after the standard edition. You're still getting something extra in that double XP, but the site is still currently guaranteeing release day delivery. Best Buy will swap those points for a steelbook, but speedy delivery isn't confirmed as such on the listing itself.

In the UK, you'll be heading to Currys. Amazon is matching the same price, and swapping the steelbook for double XP, but strangely delivery times are a little less concrete at the time of writing. On the flip side, Currys has free release day delivery advertised with that shelf piece as well.

Pre-order Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 in the US

Standard Edition

Vault Edition

Pre-order Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 in the UK

Standard Edition

Vault Edition

We're also rounding up all the latest Marvel's Wolverine pre-orders and showing you where to pre-order Wolverine PS5 consoles, controllers and more.

The beta for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is currently underway, and the next patch will focus on fine-tuning time-to-kill. Complaints have been coming in about how quickly players are getting popped, leading developer Infinity Ward to get under the hood of various weapons in the FPS.

The studio tweeted about the incoming changes earlier today, August 24. "Another [Modern Warfare 4] Beta update is headed to you soon," says the post. "We're working on adjustments for several weapons that will increase the minimum TTK. Bug fixes too."

If it's not obvious, time-to-kill - or TTK - refers to how long it takes to bring someone down from after you first pull the trigger through to their actual death. It's the kind of thing you probably don't actively think about, but would notice if it's too off-kilter, either because it's taking too long to get a kill, or you feel you're dropping too soon.

From the sounds of things, it's an issue across much of the inventory in the upcoming shooter. Tinkering with even just a few of the guns requires careful attention, because any overcorrections will just breed other problems.

For a franchise that's been going as long as Call of Duty, what feels right can be a matter of perception. One back-and-forth in the responses to Infinity Ward's tweet demonstrates this perfectly.

A fan says the TTK should be more like Ghosts, because that "was perfect." But then, in a reply to that one, another player shoots Ghosts down and says that Modern Warfare 3 should be the benchmark.

I'm sure the devs have their own goals and ideas of where these numbers should land. Infinity Ward says fuller patch notes are coming tomorrow, so we'll see then how much gameplay is to be impacted.

New Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 PS5 update turns the ports into Modern Warfare 4 ads

Earlier this year, PS4 and PS5 got native ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2. Now, Microsoft and Activision are turning these beloved FPS titles into billboards for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, with a big ol' pre-order button for the upcoming game stuck right there in the main multiplayer menu.

These new "pre-order MW4" options appeared after recent updates to the PlayStation versions of both Black Ops 1 and 2. Call of Duty news account CharlieIntel tweets images of both the updated menus, which gives the Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders equal billing with such features as "play online" and "options."

Of course, it's not unusual for modern online games to include regularly updated "news" feeds that often include what are basically ads for new DLC or upcoming sequels. But ports of the OG Black Ops games were well-received, in part, because a big chunk of the COD fandom is frustrated with the state of the modern games. Those same players are, at their most polite, giving a big "yeah, no thanks" to these ads.

Clearly, Microsoft wants every eye it can get on Modern Warfare 4. While Black Ops 7 sales are monstrous compared to almost every other game in the industry, it failed to beat Battlefield 6 on the US sales charts last year. That's the first time in the long rivalry between the two series that EA's FPS has come out on top. Certainly, not the outcome that Xbox was looking for after its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is falling, and all it cost was day one access to new Call of Duty games.

You can reset the timer, because once again, there's tension between Call of Duty devs and players over online multiplayer. In this instance, Modern Warfare 4 utilizing the matchmaking system from Black Ops 7 Season 5, at least during the upcoming beta, is causing a stir.

To put it succinctly, players simply don't want it, and the official Call of Duty Twitter account's responses aren't helping. "Players are sticking around longer and playing more matches," a tweet reads.

"Since Season 05, quit rates are down across every skill group. For more than half of players, they dropped 41%," the post continues. "Search times are also down vs. Season 04. Average ping has improved too."

The Call of Duty account then revealed more stats on what the devs saw in open matchmaking. There were over 32% higher quit rates, over 14% fewer kills, and over 50% left "Not Fun" ratings. Those are substantial numbers, and paired with the 141% hike in players quitting Nuketown, suggested another structure for doing things was favorable.

Members of the fanbase are contesting these figures. Community notes state search times are actually up, pointing to a video testing such from YouTuber XclusiveAce. Infinity Ward's later claim that 50% of players exit a game when there are disbanding lobbies, a figure that's been dubbed "misleading," citing a guide from the franchise's official site.

Replies by now have gotten a little petty and barbed, and it's worth keeping in mind the beta hasn't actually kicked off yet. ModernWarzone, a dedicated outlet for this FPS series and Battlefield, has been involved in back-and-forths with various representations of Call of Duty on Twitter.

A final statement was made by the central, namesake account. "We asked for feedback and you definitely gave it to us. And that's what a Beta is for," the tweet reads. "We’ll be here online, and in your lobbies, improving as we go. Matchmaking isn't just data, it's a feeling. So jump in, feel it for yourself in Beta."

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 early beta runs from August 21 through to August 25.

"CoD got it. Halo didn't" – Black Ops 1 and 2 ports battered Halo Campaign Evolved on PlayStation last month, analyst says, because $60 for a "graphical touch-up" is a rough sell

An analyst has shared why Call of Duty's Black Ops 1 and 2 ports are vastly outperforming Halo: Campaign Evolved on PlayStation.

Over on Twitter, Alinea Analytics head of market analysis Rhys Elliott posts a chart of estimates of July's best-selling games on PlayStation consoles. Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 ports are right at the top, with the latter estimated at 8.2 million sold, making it far and away the highest-selling game of the month, while Black Ops 1 is estimated at only 3 million.

Halo, on the other hand, was estimated to have sold around 351,000 copies in July.

"Beyond the CoD doing ports doing GANGBUSTERS, the thing that stands out is Halo's notably slow start on PlayStation, which ironically stings even more next to the success of two effort-light CoD ports," Elliott explains. Not to mention Halo's stock has somewhat fallen in the last decade and a half, with Elliott adding, "One can’t help wondering what could have been if Halo had kept the trajectory it had around Halo 3 and Reach."

And ultimately, he believes price is the main factor, saying, "A proven, beloved old game, dropped at the right moment and, just as importantly, at the RIGHT PRICE, can out-earn almost anything new and buy a bit of breathing room in the slate."

And while the Call of Duty ports are kind of expensive, they launched with a pretty significant limited-time discount for PS Plus subscribers. Elliott adds, "CoD got it. Halo didn't. Sixty dollars for what’s essentially a graphical touch-up of a 2001 game was always gonna be a rough sell, and players clearly weren’t having it."

Halo: Campaign Evolved was the 4th most popular game on Xbox at launch in the US but only 29th on PS5, analyst says

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's PS4 and PS5 port just got some backend updates as Activision works to "improve match security" amid reports of a hacker on the loose altering players' accounts.

Over the last few days, multiple players reported running into a hacker in their multiplayer lobbies who maxed out their accounts, even setting them to Prestige levels that don't actually exist. Some also reported experiencing game crashes after this, preventing them from playing. Thankfully, it's not taken too long for the devs to get on the case.

"We've released backend updates to improve match security as we review accounts with incorrect Prestige levels," a tweet from the official Call of Duty Updates account today reads.

Players are warned that they might "briefly see an account ban notice when they're removed from a match or session so our systems can correctly apply updated account data," but it doesn't necessarily mean they've actually been banned – it's just a "byproduct of legacy systems used by older titles," it adds.

"If you're able to reconnect after receiving this notice, your account has been processed successfully and no further action is required," it continues. "If you're unable to reconnect, your account has been identified for enforcement based on evidence of intentionally obtaining unauthorized Prestige levels or other violations of our Terms of Service, including account manipulation."

In theory, then, anyone who was randomly targeted by the hacker won't see any negative consequences, but it might be a different story if the account manipulation was intentional.

Based on the responses to the tweet, this process seemingly hasn't been entirely successful – some folks are reporting that no changes have been made to their affected accounts at all. Others are also irritated that they already reset their stats themselves after getting hacked – they're apparently back to square one with no way to get themselves back to their progress before having their accounts manipulated.

Perhaps most concerning is that the post doesn't mention any action being taken against those responsible for the hacks in the first place, raising the question of whether Activision is actually dealing with the root issue, which isn't exactly inspiring confidence in players that the situation is resolved.

Activision seemingly didn't bother fixing a 15-year-old Call of Duty: Black Ops exploit for its new port, modder says, but it's now investigating the leftover PS3 issue.

A now infamous hacker is reportedly going around Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 lobbies and bricking players' accounts in the game's new PlayStation ports.

Activision recently ported the first two Call of Duty: Black Ops games to PS4 and PS5 consoles, but the original games' vulnerable infrastructure seems to have been unchanged, which already led to years-old exploits remaining intact.

Things have gotten slightly worse in Black Ops 2's multiplayer, as a hacker who goes by the name 'C Isn't Sharp?' has been showing up in lobbies and messing with other people's accounts in various ways. Streamer TimTheTatMan fell victim to the hacker, who pushed his account to Level 55 and Prestige 16 - a Prestige level that doesn't even exist in the game proper. (Good spot, IGN.)

Some players have reported that being hacked has also left them unable play online matches at all since the game apparently keeps crashing thereafter. Certain players also claim their progress in other areas of the game have been reset after a chance run in with the hacker.

Right now, the only apparent fix is to look out for C Isn't Sharp's bright green name in lobbies and immediately close the game to stop your account from being altered. Hopping out of the lobby seemingly doesn't stop your stats from messing up, no matter how quick you are.

15-year-old exploits and now a boogeyman hacker haven't done much to turn public opinion around on the new Black Ops port, which were already getting side-eyed thanks to their $40 price tags - no to mention the $30 extra that it'll cost you for the map packs.

Despite all the commotion, Call of Duty is doing what Call of Duty always does: sell. Last month, both Black Ops games landed within the best-selling PlayStation games chart in the US.

Activision admits Call of Duty matchmaking used to be better, updates Black Ops 7 with a new system inspired by "classic games" like Black Ops 1 and 2

They don't make 'em like they used to, but this week, Season 5 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will introduce an updated matchmaking system that's more in line with how they used to make 'em.

In a new tweet, the official Call of Duty Twitter account reflects, "Over the past year, we've continued to learn a lot about Multiplayer matchmaking through player data and community feedback."

This comes on the heels of the recent PS4 and PS5 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2, which has finally given the latest PlayStation consoles official versions of the first two games in this sub-series. Their release also stoked discussion of how Black Ops used to feel (spoilers: sometimes full of cheaters).

"We're also excited to see all the recent love for Black Ops and Black Ops II, which reinforced that there are many elements of those experiences that players appreciate," Activision agrees. "Starting this week with Season 05, we're updating Black Ops Classic, Quick Play, and Party Games in Black Ops 7 with a new matchmaking system inspired by those classic games."

With this change, the exact vibe of which will warrant some hands-on testing in the days ahead, Black Ops 7 will "continue to offer" modern Open playlists, and Activision says "we'll also include Open playlist options in the upcoming Modern Warfare 4 Beta." But if you're an older Call of Duty fan who maintains that the newer games have lost a little something, you may be in better company than you realized.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 expands Ricochet anti-cheat to combat exploits in Ranked after banning over 263,000 cheaters already this year.

The war against cheaters continues, with Activision bringing in the latest round of protections for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. The publisher is utilizing the Ricochet software to help handle ne'er-do-wells in the FPS, in order to better single out the more discreet exploits players are taking advantage of.

Ricochet is already part of the framework for the latest Call of Duty, and Warzone 2, but now Activision's revealed the partnership is being extended. "Through June, Ricochet Anti-Cheat banned more than 293,000 accounts year-to-date while making it harder for cheaters to create new ones," a social media statement reads. "In Season 5, we're further expanding our hardware ban capabilities."

This was prompted by a rash of poor behavior in Ranked, where the higher-skilled players frequent. Cheaters are getting smarter and more intricate, only using tools for specific instances, making it harder to catch them in the act.

Cases are getting so minute, in fact, that Activision says only a small portion of the accounts that get spotted and banned stem from video evidence captured by others. What you can see as another competitor in the same match is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data the devs are gathering.

"Public clips can help flag cases that deserve a closer look, but they account for about 0.11% of all enforcement actions," the post reads. "The remaining 99.89% are driven by detection data, investigations, in-game player reports, and internal monitoring. In other words, the work is happening well beyond what players can see publicly."

Ricochet, then, "combines client protections, server-side analysis, and dedicated investigation tools" for a robust set of defences against malicious carry on. A kernel-level driver can spot third-party software that shouldn't be part of the in-game experience, layering the hurdles for cheaters.

The message ends by pointing that while "bans matter," you may not see the banhammer come down straight away. Timing is taken into consideration, to help avoid exploiters adapting too quickly to the latest defences.

This is a constant bugbear, but with any luck, Black Ops 7 and Warzone 2 will see a decrease in such activity. At least, for now.

Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 ports were both in the top 10 US PlayStation games last week despite cheating and DLC mess

The Call of Duty Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo presents players with an opportunity to earn a unique weapon skin, by completing a specific challenge as quickly as possible. The first 100,000 players to hit the target will receive a camo stamped with a serial number in the order they are unlocked, so grabbing low digits will confer significant kudos when you show off this weapon finish in Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

A recent blog post outlines how to unlock this special skin, but that includes a lot of details so I'm here to quickly outline exactly what you need to do to add it to your Gunsmith collection. You'll have to act fast if you want to secure one of these unique items, so here's how to unlock the Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo in Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

How to access the Gilded Ruin Camo in Call of Duty

To access the Gilded Ruin Camo in Call of Duty, you need to pre-order Modern Warfare 4 (Standard or Vault Edition) prior to July 23, 2026 and the launch of Black Ops 7 Season 05 to instantly receive the Gilded Pearl Camo Pack. This will give you immediate access to the Moonlit Pearl Universal Camo, and unlocks the challenge to earn the Gilded Ruin Weapon Camo on July 23, 2026 at 12noon PDT / 3pm EDT / 8pm BST.

If you place a pre-order after this time you will still receive the Gilded Pearl Camo Pack and unlock this challenge, though your chances of earning the Serialized Gilded Ruin Weapon Camo will be significantly reduced due to the time-sensitive nature of the task. Don't forget that pre-ordering the game will also get you Early Access to the Modern Warfare 4 beta from August 21, 2026, a full week ahead of the Open Beta.

How to earn the Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo in Call of Duty

To unlock the Gilded Ruin Weapon Camo in Call of Duty, you need to complete the Gilded Pearl Camo Pack Challenge which involves earning 5,000 Skulls across various game modes in Black Ops 7 and Warzone. Skulls are awarded per Elimination, at different rates per game mode as outlined below:

• Endgame: Defeat enemies for 5 Skulls per Elimination
• Multiplayer: Defeat other players for 10 Skulls per Elimination
• Zombies: Defeat enemies for 1 Skull per Elimination
• Warzone: Defeat other players for 30 Skulls per Elimination

You can swap between different game modes during this challenge and your earned Skulls will carry over, as there is just a single overall Skull Score being tracked. Once you hit 5,000 Skulls in total, claim the Gilded Ruin Universal Camo and if you were one of the first 100,000 players to reach the target then you will also receive the Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo with your unique serial number attached!

After all 100,000 of the serial numbers have been allocated, completing the challenge will just unlock the standard Gilded Ruin Universal Camo. This can be used alongside the Moonlit Pearl Universal Camo in Black Ops 7, then when Modern Warfare 4 launches on October 23, 2026 both will be unlocked instantly for use there too.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Despite being a bit of a terrible deal, the PS4 and PS5 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 both charted among the most played games on PlayStation in the US last week.

Earlier this month, Activision released the rumored Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 ports on PS4 and PS5. And despite being the highlight of the franchise for many people, these ports haven't exactly gone down well with fans.

First off, unless you have PlayStation Plus to take advantage of a limited-time discount, both games are $40 each, and $30 on top of that for the DLC map packs, which fragments the player base between those who do and don't have DLC… the already fragmented player base, as there's no crossplay between PS4 and PS5.

And on top of that, the game swiftly became rife with cheaters – presumably due to the fact that 15-year-old exploits haven't been fixed – making the online just a bit of a miserable experience.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker - US Top 10 Titles by Total Weekly Active Users (Not Concurrent) - W/E Jul 11, 2026- Call of Duty: Black Ops I & II debut in top 10 on PlayStation- Palworld jumps from 57th on Steam a week ago to 2nd with v1.0 official launch

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-21T14:54:39.588Z

And yet, the nostalgia for these two games has proven potent, as thanks to Circana's Mat Piscatella, we know that both games debuted in the top 10 most played games on PlayStation in the US. Black Ops came in at ninth place, with only Madden NFL 26 behind it in the top 10, while Minecraft and Marvel Rivals came in eighth and seventh before Black Ops 2 appeared at number six. However, the regular old Call of Duty (the app that encompasses the likes of Warzone) came in fourth, giving Activision's shooter three spots in the top 10.

Predictably, the top 10 outside of these two games is filled with titles that were also in last week's ranking, with Fortnite, NBA 2K26, and Roblox holding the same top three spots. As for last week's big release, Assassin's Creed Black Flag: Resynced, the chart notes that it launched within the top 30 on PlayStation. So nostalgia is potent, but maybe for some things more than others.

Here are the 10 best Call of Duty games of all-time.

The Modern Warfare 4 open beta is here with weekend 2 kicking off and letting all players get in on the FPS action. Of course, you need to make sure you've got your Activision account set up and appropriately linked if you want to play Modern Warfare 4 ahead of its October release date.

And if you're playing on PC, you need to meet the minimum specs and have TMP 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled - this blog post has the full details! Otherwise, I've got you covered if you want to get stuck in with the MW4 beta, with details on when it starts and end, what's available, and what rewards you can get.

Pre-ordering the game also gives access to the challenge that unlocks the Call of Duty Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo, so check out the details here.

When are the Modern Warfare 4 beta dates?

The Open Beta weekend starts on Friday, August 28, at 5PM UTC and ends on Tuesday, September 1, at 5PM UTC:

• US Pacific: 10AM, August 28 - 10AM, September 1
• US Eastern: 1PM, August 28 - 1PM, September 1
• UK: 6PM, August 28 - 6PM, September 1
• Central Europe: 7PM, August 28 - 7PM, September 1
• Eastern Australia: 3AM, August 29 - 3AM, September 2
• New Zealand: 5AM, August 29 - 5AM, September 2

You can also pre-load the open beta build right now so that you'll be ready to dive in as soon as it goes live.

All Modern Warfare 4 beta maps and modes

The full details of what's included in the Modern Warfare 4 have finally been announced, and it includes the usual selection of 6v6 multiplayer modes along with some new ones. You'll be able to play these on six maps.

Gunfight also returns on the new evolving Kill Block, and you can play Ground War's Combat Outpost mode on two large maps that accommodate infantry and vehicles. Like last week's early access weekend, you'll also be able to play the Entrenched mission from the campaign.

Here's the full list:

• MAPS:
  • Core 6v6 maps:
    • Cachette
    • Lithium
    • Lotus
    • Rooftops
    • Silkworm
    • Transit 213
  • Ground War maps:
    • Imjin Farmlands
    • Wolves Stadium
• MODES:
  • Core 6v6 modes:
    • Team Deathmatch, kill the enemy before they kill you
    • Hijack, a new mode where teams fight over a Data Spike and must plant it in the enemy team's Comm Station to earn points
    • Inflation, another new mode where killing enemy players awards you cash and the wealthiest players are marked as high-value targets
    • Domination, capture and hold flags to build up points - first to 200 wins
    • Hardpoint, Capture and hold the zone to earn points
    • Kill Confirmed, collect dog tags from defeated enemies to score points and collect allied tags to deny the enemy team points
    • Search and Destroy, all players get one life and teams alternate between attacking and defending, where attackers attempt to plant a bomb at one of two of the defenders' sites
  • Gunfight (3v3, 10v10, Kill Block): All players get one life and the same random loadout and compete to wipe out the other team across multiple rounds
  • Combat Outpost (24v24, Ground War): Domination-like large-scale objective mode that features vehicles as well as standard infantry
• "Entrenched" campaign mission

Players who pre-order the Vault Edition of Modern Warfare 4 will get access to additional content during the beta, including:

• Hostile Alliance Operator Pack
  • Price
  • Valeria
  • Ghost
  • Blix
• Special Forces Operator Pack
  • COM SFT (France)
  • KSK Amphibious (Germany)
  • SK Special Forces (South Korea)
  • SAS (United Kingdom)
• Signature Weapons Collection
  • Kastov 762 Assault Rifle and “Voltspine” Blueprint
  • ISO Nightshade Submachine Gun and “La Sombra Venenosa” (“The Poisonous Shadow”) Blueprint
  • Rezi 12 Shotgun and “Shattered Code” Blueprint
  • Oris 8.6 Marksman Rifle and “Volt-Edge” Blueprint
  • Combat Knife (Melee) and “Sombra Besada” (“Shadow’s Kiss”) Blueprint

Modern Warfare 4 beta rewards

You can earn the following rewards by levelling up during the Open Beta weekend:

• Level 4: “Through the Paces” Legendary Emblem
• Level 8: “First Served” Weapon Charm
• Level 12: “Meonjeo” Legendary Weapon Sticker
• Level 16: “Last Charge” Legendary Calling Card
• Level 20: “Dread Tiger” Operator Skin – Reece
• Level 23: “Field Tested” Epic Spray
• Level 26: “Beta Rights” Epic Loading Screen
• Level 30: “Beta Forged” ISO Nightshade Weapon Blueprint

When will the Modern Warfare 4 beta end?

The Modern Warfare 4 beta is officially scheduled to end on Tuesday, September 1, when the Open Beta draws to a close. The previous Black Ops 7 beta did get extended by an extra day though, so this end point isn't set in stone yet depending on how the rest of the MW4 beta period goes.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

It's that time of year, as publicity starts ramping up for the next Call of Duty game. The next installment is Modern Warfare 4, from Infinity Ward, and on the heels of the first demonstration of the FPS as well as the initial bout of open beta testing, the studio teased some incoming changes.

On Twitter, the official Infinity Ward account took a second to address that most omnipresent of Call of Duty subjects: leveling up. "We see the conversation around weapon progression," the post reads. "We’ve got more to share on leveling and the grind soon. We got you on this."

No other details are given, but this is a discussion that comes up every Call of Duty installment, and it's a tricky subject for studios. Players want to feel rewarded and enjoy gradually unlocking their skins and such, but they don't want it to be too easy or too much of a slog.

Finding that balance is a constant back-and-forth for the devs. What kind of rewards do you make available? What should the criteria be for each prize? How high should the leveling go? Black Ops 7 goes up to level 100, which seems like overkill, but then 30 or 40 is probably too low, even to start.

The Modern Warfare reboot in 2019 serves as a worthwhile benchmark for the series, at least going by community sentiment.

"[Modern Warfare 2019] progression was good imo. Not too easy, not too hard, balanced," says a commenter on Reddit. "Please no more armory unlocks. just do the same thing you did with [Modern Warfare 2019]," adds another.

Broadly speaking, the 2019 Modern Warfare offered straightforward progression for your standard guns, though there were issues in other areas. Specific challenges for camo, for instance, required you to jump through a lot of hoops in terms of kills. It was imperfect, but the foundation was there.

We'll have to wait and see what Infinity Ward has to say here for what Modern Warfare 4 will offer. People got their first chance to check it out at Fanatics Fest, with a demo of new mode Kill Block.

The open Modern Warfare 4 beta, then, arrives on August 21 for those who pre-order. If you'd like to get in on that, you'd best put your money down soon, otherwise you'll be waiting until October.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 DMZ devs have been "paying attention" to other extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, but think they've got them beat on "weapon feel"

Despite having 15 years between them, Call of Duty: Black Ops' PS4 and PS5 port is seemingly suffering from the same exploits that its PS3 version has also been a victim of.

Activision released both Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 for the PS4 and PS5 last week in the form of straightforward ports, not remasters – both games are also on Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility. While making two fan-favorite games available to more people should've been a slam dunk win for Activision, XP exploits quickly made multiplayer lobbies nearly unplayable for large waves of Black Ops 1's online population.

As spotted by IGN, YouTuber Tdawgsmitty recently chatted with a modder who explained that the problem might actually be a leftover exploit from the original game's PS3 and Xbox 360 days. Right now, there aren't any aimbots and such flooding the game, but people are modding save files to farm more XP than is usually possible by spamming themselves with grenades, say, which is ruining competitive games for regular players.

"Essentially, what you're doing is that it's like PS3 where you copy [a save file] to your USB, and there's a website that lets you unencrypt it," the modder says. "The site lets you use a jailbroken PS4/PS5, and it will decrypt it for you. The save data is the exact same as PS3. What sucks about this port is that Iron Galaxy [and] Activision didn't bother changing the encryption on the files, which is the whole reason why this is available right now. That's the only reason why."

Activision disabled "select playlists" a few days ago while it investigates reported issues. It then updated some playlists with "a server-wide fix," though the modder suggests other game modes are still exploitable.

For now, reminisce with the best Call of Duty games of all time.

Things aren't going well for the new ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and its follow-up on PlayStation 4 and 5. Mere days after launch, players found the lobbies to be absolutely riddled with cheaters, to the point that the FPS is basically unplayable, prompting Activision to take drastic action.

These versions of Black Ops 1 and 2 launched on July 9, and it wasn't long before reports emerged of fans having a frustrating time due to hacks and exploits. Not just your routine exploits either, custom lobbies have made it so that you can jump to the top level by grenading yourself right as a match starts.

This is leading to entire teams blowing themselves up, giving the opposition the win by default. What fun, eh? Who needs bullets and guns and actually playing the game properly? Seeing this rather large wildfire of issues, Activision quickly shut everything down by flat-out disabling certain playlists for the time being.

The publisher announced this on the Call of Duty Updates Twitter account on July 13. Since then, the "first phase" of hotfixes have been rolled out. Playlists have gotten a server-side fix, and anyone lumbered with negative XP has now been reset to level 20 for regular progression.

That second one is due to a bizarre hack on the first Black Ops. Killing someone in a round of Domination where a player is already at the top level will either catapult you to level 50, or take away the same amount of experience from overall score, putting you in minus figures and locking you out of playing altogether because the game reads you as less than level 1.

I'm not a gambling man anyway, but I definitely wouldn't be taking that risk. Activision had made it clear the multiplayer infrastructure is built on new servers, to prevent age old glitches and issues re-emerging. Sadly, hackers have only gotten worse in the 16 years since the first Black Ops, and the fact these re-releases are coming at a $40 premium just makes this all the more irritating.

"Call of Duty is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe": New Xbox CEO brags as more of its games turn to film and TV

The original Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are now available natively on PS5 (and PS4) thanks to shadow-dropped new ports, and the prices haven't aged a day.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is $39.99 at base or $19.99 with PlayStation Plus through August 6. Its season pass comes with the First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation, and Rezurrection content packs, and is $29.99 or $9.89 with PlayStation Plus, also through August 6.

The same prices and limited-time PlayStation Plus promos apply to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and its season pass, which includes four DLCs – Revolution, Uprising, Vengeance, and Apocalypse – along with the Nuketown Zombies map and an "Exclusive Calling Card - 'The Deuce.'"

Cross-platform multiplayer is notably not supported by these versions, which is one of several complaints circulating among Call of Duty fans, along with player base fragmentation resulting from the expansion packs being sold separately. Modern Warzone notes that Wager Matches and Theatre mode are also missing from the PlayStation ports.

All in all, post-discount, you could be spending as much as $140 to get everything in both games. On the one hand, this comes as no surprise; this is exactly how much these games and content packs cost on Steam, for comparison. The PS Plus deals do take the edge off, if only for now, and you will need a PS Plus sub to play online to begin with. It does feel kind of weird to pay this price for the season passes of 16- and 14-year-old games, I'll agree. After all, those seasons have long passed.

Here are the 10 best Call of Duty games of all-time.

As Xbox CEO Asha Sharma continues to expand the publisher's game worlds into the realm of TV and film, she also has some fighting words for the biggest movie franchise of all time. "Call of Duty is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe."

Xbox's new boss took the reins earlier this year and is now overseeing a reset that could potentially lead to studio shutdowns or layoffs, but one thing she's not scaling back on is the company's mammoth expansion to the big screen. Live-action feature films based on Gears of War and Sea of Thieves are going ahead, as is a sequel to A Minecraft Movie. Amazon Prime is also at work developing a third season of Fallout and a Wolfenstein streaming series.

But Call of Duty is maybe the company's biggest bet, with a new live-action film coming from Taylor Sheridan (Sicario writer and Yellowstone creator) and Peter Borg (Deep Water Horizon) currently set for 2028.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Sharma seemed pretty confident about the project's prospects and Xbox's increasing popularity in Hollywood.

"If you think about it, we've got the number two show of all time on Amazon [Fallout], Minecraft was top five in 2025, Call of Duty is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So it all measures. [There's] more appetite to work with us on titles than ever before," she says.

How she's qualifying Call of Duty's bigness compared to the MCU isn't totally clear. Movies in the joint Marvel Cinematic Universe have collectively made over $30 billion across 37 or so installments. While we don't have comparable numbers for the total gross of every Call of Duty game, Sharma's statement is still totally believable.

Call of Duty is almost always the best-selling game of any given year, Activision almost always monetizes them until and after the next one comes out, and the series has two free-to-play cash cows in the form of Call of Duty Warzone and Mobile. Whether that translates into box office success is another question. CoD doesn't have an icon to rely on, like a Super Mario or a Jack Black-shaped Steve, after all.

"You won't see us try to become the biggest linear provider in the world or anything like that, but I think great games are culture, and culture is entertainment," Sharma says.

In the meantime, check out every upcoming video game movie on the horizon.

Don't expect Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 to come remastered when they hit PlayStation consoles.

Call of Duty's scoring some easy goodwill points by bringing two of the series' most universally loved games to the PS4 and PS5 sometime next month. As developer Treyarch works with Iron Galaxy to make it happen, the company has now clarified what form the original Blops games will take.

Eurogamer reports that the upcoming ports are re-releases, not remasters, a point Activision supposedly emphasized to the outlet. Firm details are still up in the air, but next-gen graphics, new features, and sky-high framerates are likely off the table with this new distinction.

Remaster tags normally imply that some work went into jazzing up a game to add modern bells and whistles to it. With these being simply ports, you can more or less expect to play Black Ops and Black Ops 2 as they were on the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, Treyarch has promised that campaign, multiplayer, and zombies are included.

As Eurogamer also notes, the bigger question is whether these upcoming ports will use the same server infrastructure and lobbies as the PS3 version, which are infamously subject to hackers and cheaters nowadays. We should find out more as the re-releases approach their July release windows.

Until then, my best bet is that PlayStation owners will soon gain access to the same classics that Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S folks have been able to buy and play via the console's backwards compatibility program.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 DMZ devs have been "paying attention" to other extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, but think they've got them beat on "weapon feel."

Modern Warfare 4 is the Call of Duty I have been waiting all generation to play. It's a slickly produced first-person shooter that truly feels as if it is pushing at the boundaries of what this series can achieve when it's firing on all cylinders.

Activision has finally allowed its vast network of video game studios (who keep the gears of this annualized machine turning) to cease support for the PS4 and Xbox One, and the results are astonishing. There's a fluidity to the movement systems; weight to the weapon handling; a density of detail to the visual and auditory design that's apparent from the first kill to the last. You love to see it.

Jack O'Hara, the co-studio head of Infinity Ward and game director of Modern Warfare 4, believes the decision to leave last-gen systems behind has had a transformative effect on ideation and execution. "The processing power of the PS4 was great in its time, but it was starting to get in the way when it came to certain innovations. Support was making the development of new features harder, because you have to account for the differences between platforms."

"Console generations have been living for longer and longer, so we got better and better at optimization, but it does reach a point where you might be optimizing more than you're making something new. So, once you reach that threshold, you have to make the call," O'Hara adds. It's an exceptionally reasonable argument that has led to compelling results.

I'm told that Infinity Ward has engineered a lot of technology to deliver better balanced firefights. "Every shot should tell the truth" is a phrase I have heard more than once. Basically, there's a stronger alignment between bullet trajectory, weapon motion, and operator stance. Target visibility has been refined as IW introduces solutions to longstanding issues with bloom and depth of field. Weapons now make micro-adjustments as you push into tight spaces and begin to peek corners. It's wonderfully immersive, and feels utterly fantastic.

There's a control and a stability to the way that Modern Warfare 4 plays that simply wasn't present in Sledgehammer Games' disastrous Modern Warfare 3. Infinity Ward has effectively picked up from where it left off with MW2 in 2022. The recoil patterns and damage profiles are familiar, so too is the snappy TTK – though IW promises it's slightly less severe this time around.

"We are dialing in on the details to make that TTK feel consistent and strong," says Jacky Reynolds, multiplayer design lead. "One thing I'm really stoked about is that we made the TTK slightly longer at further ranges. If you played MW2, you probably felt yourself getting beamed across the map a lot. You'll feel that a lot less in Modern Warfare 4." Fighting at range requires more precision aiming than before, but Call of Duty is as lethal as it's always been once you're within sprinting distance of an enemy.

Consecutive Black Ops releases means Call of Duty has been saddled with hyper-mobility for two years. While I was certainly a fan of the omni-movement system within certain contexts, I was worried its introduction had defined a new direction for the wider franchise. IW has leveraged elements of this system to generate more fluid transitions around maps, and to give you new ways to change angles or adapt to pressure. So while you can't sprint, slide, or dive in any lateral direction like you could in BO7, you can now take advantage of backwards slides, mantle cancels, and faster climbing.

Combat Ready

I'm impressed with what Modern Warfare 4 is shooting for. I was able to play two multiplayer maps, and they are very in-keeping with the traditional Infinity Ward style – largely designed around three distinct lanes, promoting constant engagement and shifting momentums. There are some nice tweaks elsewhere too. The Riot Shield being reclassified as 'Equipment' and degrading through repeated use. There's now two Prestige paths, and IW is also very proud of a new Apex Attachment system – a set of unlocks that drastically transform a weapon's lethality and adaptability. Absurd incentives for weapon progression meet a more robust Gunsmith, enhanced customization, and a redesigned Create-a-Class system. There are more maps, modes, weapons, killstreaks, skins, and so it goes on and on.

All told, Modern Warfare 4 recalls memories of Call of Duty at its finest, albeit with a slick new-gen set of refinements, evolutions, and improvements. Beyond multiplayer, Infinity Ward has a lush campaign offering, following the exploits of Task Force 141 in the western hemisphere and a team of ordinary soldiers battling on the frontlines of a Korean war, and a returning DMZ mode that seems primed to take the fight right to Arc Raiders and Marathon. It's still early days, but I can't shake this feeling that Modern Warfare 4 couldn't have come at a better time for Call of Duty.

The series had clearly reached a breaking point. Back-to-back instalments of Black Ops and Modern Warfare titles created fatigue. Overbearing integration between mainline games and Warzone sowed frustration. There's a general sense that Sledgehammer and Treyarch (with three and two contributions this generation, respectively) haven't done enough to push the series forward – problematic as Arc Raiders, Battlefield 6, and a resurgent Overwatch offer competition elsewhere. But there's a quality to Modern Warfare 4 that is undeniable, and I'm desperate to play more.

Modern Warfare 4 is set to release on October 23 for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X. However, the new game for 2026 will no longer land day one on Xbox Game Pass.

Call of Duty studio Treyarch has confirmed that Black Ops 1 and 2 will escape PS3 jail with new PlayStation ports coming in July.

In a Wednesday tweet that closely followed a post from fan account PlayStation Game Size, which teased incoming news for the first two Black Ops games, Treyarch says, "It's official: the original Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are being ported to PlayStation in July, courtesy of our partners at Iron Galaxy."

In a reply, Treyarch adds: "Both will include Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies."

Iron Galaxy is a large studio with a long history as a support and co-developer between some original releases. It's been a staple of Activision Blizzard's lineup for a while, contributing to the likes of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Overwatch. It also worked on versions of Bethesda games like Fallout 76 and Skyrim, and big PlayStation games like The Last of Us or Uncharted as they came to PC. Most recently, Iron Galaxy handled Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4.

Treyarch's post suggests Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 will receive fresh PS5 ports in July, though PlayStation Game Size indicated both PS4 and PS5 were in the works. PS4 games are supported by PS5, so both would make sense.

The studio's wording may sound odd since the Black Ops series launched on PlayStation – that is, the PlayStation 3, third of its name – alongside PC and Xbox 360 in the 2010s. However, due to differences in backwards compatibility and legacy support, which are somewhat complicated by the new Call of Duty umbrella launcher used for modern games, the first two Black Ops entries are still stuck in PS3 jail, with no way to play them on PS5. Xbox fans can play the original 360 versions on Xbox One and Series X/S.

There are understandable questions about where these ports will be priced after all these years. Black Ops 1 still goes for $40 on Steam when it's not on sale, for reference. If nothing else, it's fundamentally good to see more games become more accessible and keep up with new platforms, especially some of the more formative Call of Duty installments.

Black Ops vet says his mystery PlayStation project wasn't a live-service game, and even if Sony shutting down his studio "f***ing sucked" he reckons it's just because "times change".

Infinity Ward has been watching the rise of extraction shooters, like Arc Raiders and Marathon, as it put together its own version of the genre in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's DMZ mode.

Multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot tells Xbox Wire that the team has been "paying attention to the genre," playing popular games to find out "what's clicking with players, what feels good, what doesn't feel good."

Cecot specifically says that the beta for DMZ lacked "meaningful player growth," which happens to be a major part of Arc Raiders' appeal. To fix that, the updated DMZ mode will give you a persistent inventory of gear and a central base to augment and upgrade your loadouts.

That said, extraction shooters require a level of commitment from players that can make it hard for new games to succeed. Cecot seems confident that won't be a problem for DMZ in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, though. He touts its open world full of mini events and unique locations as well as the pace and aesthetic of its combat as the kind of things you won't find in other games.

"Our rich sandbox combined with our first-person military theme is something that's going to really resonate with people," Cecot explains. "And I think our weapon feel and our movement are a step above most of the games."

We may be talking about Call of Duty here, the first-person shooter series of the last decade and change, but those are still some fighting words for popular games like Arc Raiders. I don't think the other games would've stuck so hard if their weapon feel was bad, which just means Infinity Ward is going to have to knock it out of the park to live up to those claims.

Luckily, if DMZ isn't cutting it right away, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will also have a full campaign and suite of multiplayer modes to play while the kinks get ironed out. You'll be able to see how it fares on October 23 for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 boss promises transparency over SBMM: "All will be revealed soon"

We don't yet know whether or not Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will feature skill-based matchmaking (SBMM), but one Infinity Ward lead promises the devs will be "transparent" about the situation soon.

SBMM is a divisive topic within the Call of Duty player base – while as the name suggests, it's a system that aims to match players with similar skill levels against each other for a more balanced experience, some argue that doing so makes the game feel less casual and more sweaty, removing the joy from matches where you're head and shoulders above the competition.

Right now, neither Activision nor Infinity Ward have confirmed the extent to which SBMM will be implemented in the upcoming game (if at all), but we at least know that we should find out soon. Asked about it on Twitter, Infinity Ward co-studio head Mark Grigsby simply responds: "All will be revealed soon, and transparent."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 went through a few ups and downs with its own SBMM – in the runup to its release, it was announced that "at launch, Open Matchmaking with minimal skill consideration will be the default matchmaking." Then, it was later clarified that this wouldn't apply to all playlists, with the majority "similar to the Beta experience where skill is minimally considered." Not everyone was happy about this – some called it a "rug pull" and a "backtrack," and perhaps this could be influencing the devs' immediate promise to be open about their plans this time around.

This is already going down well with fans, too. "It's actually crazy think that if you go back just 2-3 years you'd have never seen a studio head of COD openly replying to someone asking about SBMM. Crazy how things have changed. Only uphill from here," former CoD leaker Ghost of Hope responds.

"If he can deliver on this, then there might be hope," another replies.

Frankly, it seems incredibly unlikely that Infinity Ward will be able to please everyone in practice. For as many people who love the feeling of destroying their opponents, you'll no doubt have just as many who'd be left frustrated in the face of constant annihilation thanks to being matched with players more skilled than them. How the devs will tackle this, then, remains to be seen, but at least they're planning on telling us.

Modern Warfare 4 goes head-to-head with Arc Raiders and Escape from Tarkov as Call of Duty's extraction shooter mode DMZ returns.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders are alive and kicking following the game's reveal yesterday, and there's some decent extra swag up for grabs. You'll need to put your order in early if you want access to the open Modern Warfare 4 beta in August. We now know that early access period will run from the end of August to the beginning of September, meaning you can get a considerably early look ahead of the October 23 release date.

That means it's time to get those copies locked in, and retailers are already starting to compete. Amazon and Best Buy are your top bets in the US right now. The former is offering five hours of double XP with its standard edition Call of Duty pre-orders, while the latter can send you home with a steelbook case. In the UK, Currys is my go-to. While UK players can also double their points with Amazon, Currys is throwing in that steelbook with a 10% discount on the game itself.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders come in two shapes right now: a Standard Edition with the full game and that open beta access, and a Vault Edition with additional cosmetics, packs, multiplayer bonuses, and BlackCell. Activision is also running a loyalty scheme this time around. Essentially, anyone who has already played a CoD game released after 2019 can score 10% off their Vault Edition pre-order (Warzone doesn't count).

Both Modern Warfare 4 editions are now available to pre-order on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC - but Activision notes we'll be waiting a little longer for the new Nintendo Switch 2 versions.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders in the US

Standard Editions

The standard $69.99 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-order comes with access to the open beta included. That's the only way you'll be able to play ahead of that release date. Thankfully, Best Buy and Amazon are throwing their own incentives into the ring with steelbooks and double XP offerings.

Vault Edition

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 Vault Edition pre-orders are the digital deluxe versions, with the open beta access included as well as additional in-game cosmetics (with, apparently, a more "grounded" approach), items, and currency:

• Hunter Killer Operator Skin
• Hostile Alliance Operator Pack
• Special Forces Operator Pack
• Signature Weapon Collection
• BlackCell (one season)
• DMZ Deployment Bonus

UK pre-orders

Looking for something to play on? We're also rounding up all the best PS5 bundle deals and the latest Nintendo Switch deals on the market.

Activision is promising a more grounded approach to the cosmetics and collaborations in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 after the company fell victim to Fortniteification and injected its military shooter series with meme fodder for years.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 became official yesterday: the new Infinity Ward FPS is launching later this year for PC, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PS5 with a new campaign and the multiplayer modes you'd expect. And on the eve of its announcement, Infinity Ward took a second to clear the air.

"Every aspect of Modern Warfare 4 is anchored in the game's narrative," the developer tweets. "Every feature, every decision needs to feel authentic to what Modern Warfare is, and that includes cosmetics and collabs. We're committed to keeping it grounded and transparent, and we want to hear from you on what you'd like to see in our game."

For the past few years, the series' multiplayer matches have followed Fortnite's 'anything goes' attitude: online lobbies have gone from soldiers in tactical gear to lobbies where Nicki Minaj teabags American Dad's Roger before getting blown up by Beavis and Butthead.

Complaints around the meme-fueled cosmetics and crossovers got so loud that other non-CoD developers had to assure their own players. An Arc Raiders lead vowed that you wouldn't see T-Rex costumes or the like in its extraction shooter, while a Battlefield 6 producer also took the opportunity to say the series needed to feel grounded, as well.

Crucially, Modern Warfare 4 is likely to still have crossover content added at some point, but the studio is at least aware that anything coming from the transmedia multiverse should be in line with the series' aesthetics. We'll see if that holds after the shooter comes out in October.

Modern Warfare 4 DMZ is a new Call of Duty extraction shooter

Activision has decided it wants back in on the extraction shooter action, which is no surprise given the meteoric rise of the genre following the success of Arc Raiders, Marathon, and Escape from Tarkov escaping from early access. Modern Warfare 4 will herald the return of DMZ, which developer Infinity Ward describes as being "the definitive Call of Duty extraction experience."

Details are light on the ground right now, but here's the high-level description to give you a sense of what Modern Warfare is shooting for here:

"DMZ is the definitive Call of Duty extraction experience, a living combat sandbox where every deployment is a new story. Deploy solo or with a squad into a volatile conflict zone as an off-the-books asset tasked with recovering advanced military technology left in the wake of war. The conditions in the exclusion zone are always shifting, with changing weather, dynamic military objectives, and hostile forces moving throughout the zone."

"Loot, fight, negotiate, betray, and extract with whatever you can carry," the product description continues. "The harder you push, the harder the world pushes back. Every run is a risk, every encounter a choice, and no two deployments play out the same way."

It's an intriguing tease of the Modern Warfare 4 DMZ offering, which is expected to launch as part of the package on October 23, 2026, for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X alongside an ambitious campaign and overhauled multiplayer experience.

This isn't the first time that Activision or Call of Duty has played in the extraction shooter space. Infinity Ward was actually experimenting in the genre pretty early on, with a beta version of DMZ arriving as part of Modern Warfare 2 in 2022.

While I didn't really touch on it at the time, I remember playing a fair amount of the DMZ beta for my Modern Warfare 2 review, and I just didn't really get it. Not the creative ambition mind, but the genre at large – Escape from Tarkov was no friend of mine, and I'd had varied experiences with the Dark Zone elements of The Division and Crytek's Hunt: Showdown.

Still, Infinity Ward has teased that it learned a lot from the process – and is readying to land a more complete extraction shooter experience shaped by feedback, experience, and new systems. It's unclear when Activision will pull the curtain back on DMZ in Modern Warfare 4 – or how it'll land in the extraction shooter market alongside rivals like Arc Raiders and Marathon – but with Xbox Games Showcase right around the corner as part of the Summer Game Fest 2026 schedule, perhaps we won't have to wait long to learn more.

Modern Warfare 4 is coming to PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X on October 23, 2026. Check out other key releases that are arriving ahead of GTA 6 in our schedule for all the new games of 2026.

Modern Warfare 4 is coming to Nintendo Switch 2. The news arrives as Activision announces its plans for Call of Duty 2026, with Infinity Ward once again at the helm as it strives to deliver the most ambitious package in the series' recent history. A campaign dealing with an invasion of South Korea, seen from multiple sides of the conflict; a multiplayer offering that's promising more precision and accuracy than ever before; and the return of DMZ, the Call of Duty extraction shooter. And for the first time in over a decade, owners of Nintendo hardware can get in on the action.

"It's been smooth, to be honest. Things just work," says Jack O'Hara, co-studio head of Infinity Ward in an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+. "The game got up and running on the platform really quickly once we got the hardware. So far it's been really good. To be honest, it's been really fun to be on a new platform."

The last Call of Duty game to release on Nintendo hardware was Infinity Ward's 2013 effort Call of Duty: Ghosts, although it's by no means the only title in the series to land on the platforms. In fact, O'Hara chuckles as he recalls shipping Modern Warfare Reflex Edition for Wii back in '07, along with a smattering of other titles for Nintendo DS. Still, the return of Call of Duty to Nintendo hardware has been a long time coming – and court-mandated.

It seems like ancient history now, doesn't it? But back in 2023, Microsoft ended up aligning a 10-year contractual agreement between Activision, Nintendo, and Xbox in an effort to clear its $68.7bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard through the court system following heavy scrutiny from organizations like the FTC and CMA, as well as legal challenges from Sony – who feared Xbox would make Call of Duty an Xbox platform exclusive.

The agreement not only ensured that Call of Duty games would land on Nintendo consoles for a period of 10 years, but that they would have 'full feature and content parity' with versions of the games on other platforms. I asked O'Hara whether Modern Warfare 4's multiplayer on Switch 2 would share servers with those playing on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, and he had this to say: "Right now we support crossplay between Switch 2 and the rest of the platforms. But we'll see at launch exactly where the mix ends up."

Modern Warfare 4 is being developed natively for Nintendo Switch 2, in a partnership between Infinity Ward and Digital Legends. If you aren't familiar with the studio, Digital Legends was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2021 for its two decades of expertise in developing mobile titles. The team helped ship Call of Duty Warzone Mobile and has otherwise assisted in the production of Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 in the years since.

Modern Warfare 4 is coming to PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X on October 23, 2026. Check out other key releases that are arriving ahead of GTA 6 in our schedule for all the new games of 2026.

Activision has revealed the first Call of Duty 2026 details, confirming the Modern Warfare 4 release date and platform information alongside one of the most compelling launch packages the series has seen this generation. Developer Infinity Ward is back in action with a campaign set across the Korean Peninsula, an ambitious multiplayer offering with a renewed focus on grounded combat, and the return of DMZ – the Call of Duty extraction shooter experience.

The Modern Warfare 4 release date is confirmed for October 23, 2026, with Activision confirming that the new FPS will launch on PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X. Infinity Ward has confirmed that there will be no Modern Warfare 4 PS4 or Xbox One edition, with the studio opting to focus on current-gen hardware as it strives to push the series in a more ambitious direction.

MW4 will also be the first Call of Duty game to release on a Nintendo platform since 2013's Call of Duty: Ghosts. In an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+, Infinity Ward co-studio head Jack O'Hara tells me that "it's been kind of fun to be on a new platform" as he discussed getting Call of Duty running on the hardware and clarified whether the version will share servers with PC, PS5, and Xbox players.

The Modern Warfare 4 campaign is striving to capture two worlds of armed conflict. Infinity Ward tells me that the game will split its globe-trotting action: you'll follow special operations unit Task Force 141 as they deal with the fallout of the MW3 ending (assassinating an active service U.S. Army General tends to have consequences), as well as a squad of soldiers on the frontlines of a full-scale invasion of South Korea. Infinity Ward believes this divide will deliver "a Campaign that feels both blockbuster in scale and grounded in authenticity."

As for the multiplayer, there's a big focus on returning to the grounded combat that made the Modern Warfare reboot feel so transformative. Omni-Movement returns from Black Ops 6 & 7 in a sense, with the system massively reined in to focus on more fluid transitions around the maps. Infinity Ward is also promising a suite of upgrades to core weapon systems – more precise aiming models, the removal of 'weapon bloom' from hipfire, and other similar overhauls to try and deliver more consistent and predictable gunplay.

And lastly, Infinity Ward has confirmed that DMZ will return with Modern Warfare 4. This is the Call of Duty extraction shooter experience, "a living combat sandbox where every deployment is a new story." The studio hasn't offered much more detail than that right now, although a studio rep has teased that "conditions in the exclusion zone are always shifting, with changing weather, dynamic military objectives, and hostile forces moving throughout the zone."

DMZ was first introduced to the Call of Duty ecosystem back in 2022, arriving in beta form with Modern Warfare 2. It sounds as if the mode has evolved fairly substantially since then, and it'll certainly be interesting to see how DMZ lands in a shooter landscape so thoroughly dominated by the likes of Arc Raiders and Marathon.

So that's Modern Warfare 4 in brief. It's clearly an ambitious offering – but then again, it was always going to have to be, given how poorly the back-to-back installments of MW2 into MW3 and BO6 into BO7 were received by the wider Call of Duty playerbase. I should also flag that Modern Warfare 4 will no longer launch day-and-date into any tier of Xbox Game Pass; instead, it'll arrive a year later, due to a change in direction from new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who removed COD from Game Pass to help bring the price of the subscription service down.

I did ask Mark Grigsby, co-studio head of Infinity Ward, whether the decision had any impact on Modern Warfare 4's development or whether the team was just focused on getting the game over the finish line: "Business is business," he told me, "focus on the game."

Modern Warfare 4 is coming to PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X on October 23, 2026. Check out other key releases that are arriving ahead of GTA 6 in our schedule for all the new games of 2026.

It sure looks like Activision is gearing up to announce the rumored Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, as a mysterious live stream teases something after a number of leaks and rumors.

Right now on the official Call of Duty YouTube channel, you can watch a stream titled "카메라 004 | LIVE," which machine translation says simply means "Camera 004 | LIVE" in Korean. The stream itself has already changed significantly in the time I've been watching it – what started as a view of a street somewhere in Korea, complete with ambient noise and power cables gently swaying in the breeze, changed to show soldiers moving through the area, before an enormous explosion set the scene ablaze. Since then, the image has been much darker, and viewers have been able to hear people screaming, air raid sirens, and more explosions.

Being on the Call of Duty channel, it's obvious that this is a tease for something new, but as VGC points out, leaks that have preceded this mean we probably have a pretty good idea of what's coming.

Last year, former Call of Duty leaker TheGhostOfHope (who earlier this year stated that "Activision has legally demanded that I stop leaking and disseminating confidential information") claimed that the 2026 CoD release would feature North and South Korea in its campaign, with 141, the SAS, and Republic of Korea Army being the three main playable factions as you attempt to stop a third world war. What's more, the game was apparently titled Modern Warfare 사 – the Korean character has multiple meanings, but most notably in this case can mean 'four.'

While the leaker's shutdown could be interpreted as confirmation of accuracy, it's worth noting that the official Call of Duty account previously denied that TheGhostOfHope was right about everything, saying: "Even when leaks are wrong, they still hurt the people building the game and mess with player expectations."

Even so, that wasn't the only rumor. Just yesterday, reliable leaker Billbil-kun shared what they claim is blurry cover art for "one of Activision's games: 사." Although it's blurry, you can pretty clearly make out three soldiers standing side by side. NateTheHate – a prominent Nintendo leaker who accurately leaked the Switch 2 reveal, as well as the new Star Fox game amongst other things – took to Reddit to say that this will be the first Call of Duty game on Switch 2, too.

The official Call of Duty channels haven't yet confirmed any of this, but with the stream ongoing, it seems like it's probably only a matter of time before we see what it's all about. A release around October or November has been the pattern for the series since its inception 23 years ago, so it stands to reason that we could expect the reveal for the next one to arrive around now – watch this space.

For now, be sure to check out our list of the best Call of Duty games of all time.

After the studio lost funding from NetEase, former Call of Duty dev David Vonderhaar's studio BulletFarm has confirmed that it's working on a new game.

Yesterday, NetEase veteran Simon Zhu announced a new holding company named GreaterThan Group to invest in multiple game studios, including Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic development team Arcanaut Studios led by Mass Effect veteran Casey Hudson. Zhu said in a press release that GreaterThan Group is "bringing common sense back to the games industry" and that the group's role "is to create the right conditions for creators to work on their dream projects."

Another studio now backed by GreaterThan is BulletFarm, founded by David Vonderhaar, who is best known for his work on the Call of Duty: Black Ops series (with Cold War being his final entry) as well as Warzone. In a post on Twitter, the studio announces that – despite the previous loss of funding – "BulletFarm lives. Same name. Same DNA. Same commitment to the player experience."

The post praises its new partner, saying "GreaterThan Group's core value of empowering development studios enables us to focus entirely on building a world-class team: one empowered to create experiences that leave a legacy for players around the world." It confirms: "We're in the early stages of creating a completely new first-person multiplayer/co-operative experience under the GTG banner, with high-intensity action, systemic gameplay, and cinematic immersion at its core."

Speaking to Bloomberg, Vonderhaar drops a bit more detail about the project, saying that the studio is "definitely not" making a military simulation. He adds that "it's not a Call of Duty killer," but rather something creative that he likens to "if David Lynch made shooters," with a description that seems to confirm it's a PvPvE game. He also notes that he hopes to complete the game in roughly three years.

Activision kills Call of Duty rumor: next game will not be on PS4, ending last-gen support nearly 6 years after PS5 and Xbox Series X launch.

The next Call of Duty game will not be available on PS4 or seemingly Xbox One, ending six years of last-gen support for the series.

The official Call of Duty Twitter account addressed the future of the franchise in a post earlier today, stamping out recent rumors claiming that Modern Warfare 4, widely but somewhat arbitrarily believed to be the next installment, is currently being tested on PS4. (If nothing else, we know that Activision will "no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops," meaning another Black Ops game is out of the running for now.)

"Not sure where this one started, but it’s not true. The next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4," the series' account writes. This post notably doesn't specify PS4 and Xbox One, but it would be unthinkable for just one last-gen console to get a port, and this reads more like Activision targeting those PS4 rumors directly.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's cross-gen release last year disappointed some fans hoping to see the series break free from dated hardware and push the bar on current-gen consoles exclusively. Granted, per our Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review, it also disappointed in several other ways and most certainly did not push the bar.

Call of Duty has been a mass-market money machine for decades, which has long led owner Activision (and now new parent Microsoft) to target the biggest install base possible. Consequently, a lot of Call of Duty games have been cross-gen years into new console cycles. The series' PS3 and Xbox 360 support continued in some capacity until 2015, about a decade post-launch, and ended with Infinite Warfare in 2016 as the first current-gen exclusive of its time (side games notwithstanding).

Terrifyingly, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are already approaching six years old. Call of Duty games tend to be fall releases, so by the time the next entry arrives, it might actually be six years since the November 2020 console launch. With the PS4 era officially dropped as of the next installment, this generation's Call of Duty window has closed a bit slower.

The price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is falling, and all it cost was day one access to new Call of Duty games.

Activision's long-gestating, live-action Call of Duty movie finally has a release date.

Paramount announced a June 30, 2028 release date during its presentation at CinemaCon (H/T The Hollywood Reporter). Peter Berg is set to direct, write, and produce the film alongside Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, who will also write and produce.

"I told everyone we were only going to make a movie if its right. In David Ellison, we found that partnership," producer Rob Kostich, also president of Activision, said during the panel. "We want to make sure that the authenticity of it is captured on a human level so that it feels really real and infuse that with epic scope."

A movie based on the Call of Duty franchise was first announced back in 2015, with Italian filmmaker Stefano Sollima set to direct. After the film missed its 2019 released date, Sollima announced in 2020 that the project had been put on indefinite hiatus.

It wasn't until September 2025 that the film got the official greenlight from Paramount, with the director and writer announcement coming in October. The studio, in conjunction with Activision, released a statement saying that the film is "designed to thrill its massive global fan base by delivering on the hallmarks of what fans love about the iconic series, while boldly expanding the franchise to entirely new audiences."

For more, check out our list of the best Call of Duty games of all time, or check out our list of all the upcoming video game movies in 2026 and beyond.

A prominent leaker for the Call of Duty franchise has been shut down by Activision. To add insult to injury, the publisher took one last chance to quash the legitimacy of the information they provided.

On March 4, TheGhostofHope, a Call of Duty reporter who claimed to have insider info related to the FPS series, posted about legal ramifications preventing their work from continuing. "Activision has legally demanded that I stop leaking and disseminating confidential information related to Call of Duty/Activision," they write on Twitter. "I am complying with their demands."

TheGhostofHope will continue to cover the games in some capacity, but only based on "official" news, rather than providing or commenting on current leaks and rumors. Their bio now denotes them as "retired."

In response, Call of Duty-related YouTuber Tdawg tweeted out, wondering if this means TheGhostofHope was " right about everything?" Not quite the case, apparently.

"Nah," responds the official Call of Duty Twitter account. "Even when leaks are wrong, they still hurt the people building the game and mess with player expectations."

Ouch. Regardless of your feelings on leaks, how they impact people's perception of what's coming is a valid concern. If an insider claims something you've been hoping will be included in the next Call of Duty or an upcoming season of multiplayer, and it's not, it can be disappointing, through no fault of the development team.

At the same time, it's always concerning to see publishers put the boot into any journalistic practice, and it seems TheGhostofHope was truly cornered. This will no doubt reverberate through the Call of Duty leaks community, perhaps leading to other personalities leaving the scene. For now, one trusted voice has been stifled.

Call of Duty is cracking down on cheaters ahead of season 2 and the launch of ranked play with "major technology innovations" and bans on third-party devices: "Cheating can cost more than a win."

Activision is ramping up its perpetual battle against Call of Duty cheaters with significant new anti-cheat measures ahead of Black Ops 7 and Warzone season 2's launch later this week.

In a new Call of Duty blog, Activision assures players – as much as it can, anyway – that it's taking action to ensure Black Ops 7 and Warzone ranked play is as fair as possible right at launch and that cheaters are sifted out before matches even start.

"Season 02 is almost here, and our top priority is clear: launching Ranked Play with the strongest protections possible, so matches are decided by player skill, not exploits," reads the blog.

"To that end, we're focused on making sure that players in these matches are using trusted, secure systems on both console and PC. We're achieving this by investing in major technology innovations in our anti-cheat systems and our security technology stack."

Specifically, Activision says it's adding "a new suite" of detections to its kernel-level Ricochet anti-cheat system that'll help identify third-party devices like Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix, which can be used to give players machine-perfect aim, and the accounts that use them.

On top of that, Activision says Ricochet is setting "a new industry standard in security" with "a stronger form of remote, cloud-based attestation" that operates on Microsoft Azure." This added layer of security will work to authenticate accounts and weed out cheaters before matches begin, and Activision says "most" players won't need to do any settings tweaking for it to start working.

"It's the most robust attestation technology available in gaming and bringing it first to Ranked Play helps ensure competitive matches are won on merit," boasts Activision. "These added protections help stop cheating before a match even begins, so games feel fair from the start."

Of course – as the Black Ops 7 beta proved back in October – the moment that new anti-cheat protections arrive, cheaters will inevitably start looking for ways to bypass them, creating an eternal push and pull between devs and these gosh darn tricksters. The impact of cheating in ranked play is naturally much more consequential than normal modes, and that's why Activision is taking these extra measures before ranked becomes available.

"We know what an unfair match looks like: losing a close gunfight to aim that never seems to miss, recoil that never kicks, or reactions that don't feel human," it says. "In Ranked Play, cheating can cost more than a win. It impacts Skill Rating (SR), momentum in your session, and confidence in the mode."

Here are the best FPS games to play right now.

Figuring out how to do the Black Ops 7 Astra Malorum zombies Easter egg isn't easy. There's a lot of steps and things you need to do, and figuring it all out blind is tough. Which is why got your back with a full guide and walkthrough to help you complete it.

This is the second Zombies map in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and this interstellar survival map ditches the upgradable truck you use to get around in favor of a roaming, unkillable boss that chases you and always comes back when you think you've finished them. There's a lot to do if you want to see it through to the end, so let's get started.

1. Turn on the power and the Pack-a-Punch machine

Like all COD zombie Easter eggs, the Astra Malorum main quest begins by finding and turning on the power and unlocking the Pack-a-Punch machine.

To do that you need to first repair the Harmonic Oculus, which is found in the Observatory Dome. To fix it you need to collect two Harmonic Components - one found in the Luminarium and the other is in the Machina Astralis. With those sorted you'll then need to defending the Oculus against a wave of zombies.

Once the Harmonic Oculus has been repaired, the Pack-a-Punch machine becomes available, so Pack-a-Punch your weapon to begin the next step.

2. Get the LGM-1

The LGM-1 is the new Wonder Weapon in Astra Malorum, and won't be able to continue with the Easter egg without it. To get it you'll need to kill OSCAR in BO7, the map's roaming boss. As I mentioned it's sort of unkillable, keeps coming back, and to get the LGM-1 you'll actually need to take him down three times with various contraptions found around Astra Malorum - each time you kill him he'll respawn and you can repeat the process a different way.

To activate the various traps you need to kill OSCAR you're going to need three spare parts:

• Car Battery
• Aberrant Wiring
• Damaged Drone

To get the Car Battery, use a Pack-a-Punched weapon to shoot the hood of Ol' Tessie at the spawn area. The battery will be inside.

To get the Aberrant Wiring, check all of the lamp posts around the map. One of them will be flickering. Shoot this flickering light to get the Aberrant Wiring.

To get the Destroyed Drone you'll need to take on OSCAR and take out one of his shield drones. You don't need to kill him yet, just grab the drone once it's down and run away with it.

Once you have all three parts, you will be able to start killing Oscar with Astra Malorum's various traps.

To start with, head to the Observatory Dome (the Pack-a-Punch room). Look around the room to find and shoot five steaming mechanisms on the wall.

Next, use the device next to the Harmonic Oculus. Line up the telescope's crosshair with the sun to summon a laser beam on the Pack-a-Punch platform. Once it's there l ure Oscar into the beam to kill him.

Next, head to the Luminarium and activate the trap in the center of the room. It'll start slowly damaging Oscar so lead him around the room until he dies, shooting his shield drones as they appear.

For the final trap, you'll need the Cryo Freeze ammo mod on your weapon. When you have it, use Cryo Freeze to shoot the purple crystals found all over the map. They'll drop special items called Absolute Zero Fragments.

When you have three Absolute Zero Fragments bring Oscar to the Museum Infinitum and activate the rocket trap. The Absolute Zero Fragments will create a frozen trail behind the rocket that will damage Oscar if it passes through the icy blast, so lure it into position and it'll die pretty quickly.

Once OSCAR dies in the third trap it will drop the LGM-1. You can do these traps in any order if it's easier so don't feel like you have to do it exactly in the order above.

3. Solve the Planets Puzzle

For the next step of the Easter egg, you have to follow Oscar around the map without being detected and listen to some audio logs he starts playing. Just stick behind him for a while once he respawns and he'll eventually start playing the logs on his speakers.

Eventually he'll play a recording of elimination 20, targeting Doctor Thurston. This is the one you need to listen to as Thurston will name three planets at random you will need to remember.

Each of these planets corresponds to a number, based on its location in our solar system. So Mercury is 1, Venus is 2, Earth is 3, and so on. Convert the three planets into a three-digit code and then head to the Pack-a-Punch room to input that code into the machine attached to a pillar.

4. Getting the Perfusion Machine

Inputting the correct code from the planets will activate a nearby lift. Climb up to this newly-accessible area and collect the Cryo Chamber Key next to the corpse up above.

Once that's done head to the Museum Infinitum and break open the glass display case in the southwest corner of the room to obtain a Rock Saw.

When you have that go to the Machina Astralis and open up the green cryo chamber. Interact with the body inside to extract its brain using the Rock Saw you just picked up.

Take the brain to the Luminarium and interact with the glowing purple container called the Perfusion Machine by the door to swap the brain for... another brain. Then, interact with the brain again to begin a one-minute survival challenge where you have to defend the area.

After fending off the undead attack, collect the brain and take it to the Machina Astralis where you'll find another Perfusion Machine. Connect the brain to complete this step.

Now head back to the Observatory Dome and use the telescope from earlier. This time, line up the crosshair with Mars.

When you find Mars, make note of the numbers in the bottom corner of the screen next to DEC. Input those numbers into the code machine near the stairs in the Machina Astralis room.

5. Solving the Reading List Book Puzzle

After inputting this code, head back down to the Perfusion Machine and take a look at the screen next to the brain. It'll display Dr. Thurston's reading list and you'll need to remember every book on the list.

In the Archive of Orbis, you'll find these listed books on the shelves as well as three busts in the room next to the bookshelves. If you interact with each bookshelf you'll see the titles of the books they carry and for every title that appears on Dr. Thurston's reading list, rotate the nearby bust once.

For example, the statue in the corner of the room is next to bookshelves containing Witchlight Codex, Silence at Singularity, and Pyramids of Cydonia. If you saw Pyramids of Cydonia and Witchlight Codex on the reading list, you'd rotate the bust twice as the shelves next to it contain two books from the list.

After rotating all the heads correctly to solve the reading list puzzle, the attic will open up. Climb up the ladder into the newly-opened hatch to grab Planet Neptune.

Take Neptune to the upper level of the Machina Astralis room and place it on the empty pole that's missing a planet. That'll complete the solar system diorama. Now you are going to need to align the planets a certain way.

6. Aligning the Planets

Around the map, you'll find scraps of paper with cardinal directions and planets written on them.

The first piece of paper is on the table near Stamin-Up in the Archive of Orbis.

The second paper is on a desk on the eastern side of the Machina Astralis.

The third paper is on a table by a lamp in the Luminarium.

Once you've seen all three notes, head back to the Machina Astralis and shoot the planets hanging above to rotate them into the right spots.

After moving the planets, interact with the Perfusion Machine to trigger a two-minute lockdown. Defend the teleporter from OSCAR and the undead. Make sure to destroy Oscar's drones as soon as they appear as they'll try to disable the teleporter.

7. Surviving Mars

After defending the area you'll be teleported to Mars. Pick up the Perfusion Machine up ahead and then place it into the strange machine overlooking the courtyard. A strange noise will play, and that's your cue to run to the window to the north.

You'll see four alien pylons in the distance. Shoot them in order from back right, back left, front right, and then front left. Then, shoot the pylon above the teleporter that brought you to Mars.

If you do all that correctly, a bird will start flying around the area. It's holding a key item called the Ascendant Eye. To get it, jump up and interact with the bird. Shoot the final pylon to freeze the bird so you can snatch it more easily.

8. Solving the Ascendant Eye Puzzle

Once you have the Ascendant Eye, place it into the pyramid pedestal in the southeastern corner of the area.

There are five more pylons on top of pillars around Mars. Use the LGM-1 to shoot and activate them.

Once the pylons are activated, head back to the Observatory Dome and use the Harmonic Oculus. It'll start to show a set of five symbols on the circular display to the right of the organ's keys, although one of the symbols will be obscured by static.

Make a note of the symbols and their order as they correspond to the pillars on Mars. Interact with each pillar's symbol in the order shown on the Harmonic Oculus to complete this puzzle. There are only five pillars and symbols, so use a process of elimination to figure out the missing symbol obscured by the interference.

At this point, you're ready for the final boss fight. Make sure you're prepared with Pack-a-Punched weapons, Gobblegums, and anything else you need.

9. Caltheris

Finally, it's time for the finale that everything has been leading up to: Caltheris. This is a multi-stage boss with a lot of stuff to manage, and it can be overwhelming for solo players so you'll probably want back. Interact with the Perfusion Machine to start the battle.

In the first phase, Caltheris starts out as a giant floating skull. To damage her, you need to kill zombies in the arena to charge a towering pylon. Once it's fully charged, you can interact with the Perfusion Machine to blast Caltheris for a third of her health bar.

While you're working on charging up the tower, Caltheris will target every player with a slow-moving laser. Stay on the move to avoid damage. Repeat the charging process with the other pylons to complete phase one.

When phase two starts Caltheris will transform into a golem and chase you around the arena. Use the LMG-1 to destroy her armor and reveal glowing blue weak spots that you can hit for easy extra damage.

Stay on the move during this phase - Caltheris has a deadly slam attack that can kill you easily if it catches you. She'll also toss rocks at you from afar, so make sure you're bobbing and weaving all the time to stay out of their way.

In phase three, she'll become Caltheris Ascendant. This is basically just a more dangerous version of phase two, complete with even bigger rocks and an even deadlier slam. Just keep moving and use the LGM-1 to destroy her armor so your allies can attack her weak spots again.

In the final phase Caltheris will grow even stronger and transform into Caltheris the Needle. She deals much more damage in this phase, and her rocks will leave electrified purple clouds around the arena. Stepping into one of these is a death sentence, so plan your movement carefully.

After slowly whittling down Caltheris' health bar, you'll finally emerge victorious. Enjoy the final Astra Malorum cutscene!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

To say Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has garnered a mixed reception would be putting it mildly. In response, Activision has pledged to make some stark improvements and "overdeliver" on the game, as well as announcing Black Ops and Modern Warfare games won't release back-to-back any more. The moves have gotten a vote of confidence from a former Microsoft executive, who’s now cheering from the sidelines despite some earlier criticism.

Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard and corporate vice president at Xbox, posted as much on Twitter. "Competition is good. I'm rooting for the Call of Duty team to come back with vengeance - for the players and their team," he states. "They work incredibly hard and remain very talented."

He ends with a throwback of sorts to an older, bolder statement: "We will get a better Call of Duty thanks to Battlefield." Big words, but there's been some truth to them. This is a hugely competitive year for Activision’s FPS series, with Battlefield 6 coming out weeks before Black Ops 7 hit shelves.

That lead time gave the new Battlefield an advantage to begin with, a disparity only compounded by the tepid response this Call of Duty received critically (it's on 67 on Metacritic at time of writing) and within the player-base. Having such a rival helps fuel innovation and the urge for recovery, though, leading us to here and now.

Whether the latest Black Ops manages to pull it back, we'll have to wait and see. The post about the state of the game promises the devs at Treyarch and Raven Software, "won't rest until Black Ops 7 earns its place as one of the best Black Ops games we've ever made." Lofty, but plenty are hoping to see it happen, including people who've been helping make and ship games for decades.

Chatter over Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's skill-based matchmaking kicks up another notch after player runs the tests and finds it isn't quite as open as we'd hoped.

Activision says Call of Duty will no longer be getting back-to-back Modern Warfare or Black Ops releases, signaling the start of a major change in the series' release order.

In a blog post from "Call of Duty Staff," Activision seemingly responds to the less-than-stellar response from critics and players to the recently released Black Ops 7.

"With respect to Black Ops 7, we set our sights to deliver a spiritual successor to Black Ops 2 and the studios have poured their passion into making a great game that all of us are very proud of," Activision says. "But it's one thing for us to say it, more importantly it's up to you to try it and judge for yourselves."

Judge it, players have. Black Ops 7 has "mostly negative" Steam reviews at the time of writing, with players heavily criticizing the story, multiplayer modes, and performance. Meanwhile, it has one of the series' worst Metascores at 67 and an abysmal 1.6 user score, suggesting "overwhelming dislike."

But Activision has a three-pronged plan to get everything back on track, starting with a free trial and double XP weekend starting "next week" that'll let everyone "experience the game firsthand and decide for yourselves" whether it's any good.

The second part of Activision's plan is "unprecedented seasonal support," but the specifics are yet to be spelled out. "Season 01 is the largest live season ever and we're just getting started," Activision says. "We won't rest until Black Ops 7 earns its place as one of the best Black Ops games we've ever made."

And finally, Activision is changing the way it releases Call of Duty games in a big way, ditching successive releases of Black Ops and Modern Warfare games. From now on, "we will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games," Activision says.

"The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year," it adds. "We will drive innovation that is meaningful, not incremental."

Activision says it'll share more details on all of this "when the time is right," but for now, it says you can rest assured that "the future of Call of Duty is very strong and we believe our best days are ahead of us given the depth and talent of our development teams."

Take a trip down memory lane with our list of the best Call of Duty games.

If you're trying to kill OSCAR quickly then you have a few options. This is a new elite enemy patrolling the latest Black Ops 7 Zombies map and being able to take it down is essential to complete the Astra Malorum zombies Easter egg.

Even if you're not trying to complete the map, OSCAR possesses a unique set of elite enemy abilities, which can make things particularly challenging if your paths cross. So having some knowledge on how to fight it can be useful.

Ultimately, have two choices for how to deal with this new addition – sneak around while trying to avoid it, or take it head one and kill OSCAR in BO7 Zombies! As I mentioned the second option is more interesting, and required to complete the Easter egg (it will earn you a Shiny Trinket you can use to release a friendly Ravager you'll find hidden around the map). But this obviously comes with increased risk as this robotic foe won't go down without a fight. For the best chance of success, here's how to kill OSCAR in Black Ops 7 Zombies.

What ammo mods is OSCAR weak against?

The bad news is that OSCAR isn’t weak to any of Black Ops 7 Zombies elemental ammo mods. To make things harder, while his HP bar isn’t huge, he constantly spawns UFO-like drones that give him a shield that grants immunity to all damage until they’re all destroyed.

The UFO drones, however, are weak to Brain Rot. You can also shoot them down with any other ammo, or just regular bullets, but it’ll take longer. When you’re surrounded by zombies and OSCAR is right behind you, taking the drones down fast quickly becomes a priority so try and grab the Brain Rot ammo mod quick in Black Ops 7.

How to easily kill OSCAR in Black Ops 7 Zombies

OSCAR is roaming the halls and rocky pathways of Astro Malorum as soon as the match starts and it'll usually become a nuisance sooner rather than later as you explore. The general idea really is that you should avoid OSCAR for the most part, but you can kill it with the right tactics.

To start with, focusing on the UFO drones to leave it exposed will allow you to steadily bring its HP down the old-fashioned way. But with the zombie horde to worry about that's a lot to juggle. Moreover, not only do its laser attacks hit hard, it's also able to buff zombies near it to run faster and hit harder.

So OSCAR is tough to kill and makes the conditions around him tough as well. That means the best way to kill it is to actually avoid it at first, at least until you’ve got enough points to activate traps.

There are plenty of traps scattered around the map, but you still need to get OSCAR to follow you so you can lure it into the damage. I’ve found the Apogee Annihilator to be the fastest way to kill OSCAR in Astra Malorum. This trap can be found right along one of the rocky exterior paths that come out of the observatory. It’s hard to miss, so memorize where it’s located as you look for OSCAR and bait it into following you there.

Once OSCAR is almost on top of the Apogee Annihilator trap, pay 1,500 essence points to activate its Astronomer Rockets bombardment, which rains explosives all over the surrounding area. Keep it close to the trap, and you can take it down in one go. At worst, you’ll have taken a good chunk of its HP bar out, and you can then repeat the process or finish the job with bullets although those UFOs will be annoying to deal with without the help of traps.

Killing OSCAR will grant you a bunch of resources and XP, as well as completing an associated challenge. It will also drop a Shiny Trinket tactical - pick it up and keep a look out for a green eyed ravager hiding in barricaded off areas (which appears as a white dot out of bounds on the mini map). Feed the Shiny Trinket to the Ravager three times across different rounds/areas, and it'll join you as a cymbal clanging ally.

Removing OSCAR also give you more freedom to explore Astra Malorum for a short while. However, he eventually respawns and starts doing his patrols again, so prepare to repeat this process. Especially if you're trying to complete the Easter egg as you'll need to kill him three times to do that.

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Black Ops 7 season 1 is arriving today at 9amPT and there is a lot of new stuff in it . Activision claim it's the 'the biggest season 1 ever' and looking at the list below I'm inclined to belive them. There's new Endgame events and skills, new reward across the board, fresh maps, modes, scorestreaks, weapons, attachments, zombies stuff, and that massive list I've just run through is only skimming what's coming on the roadmap.

So there's a lot going on, and to help you make sense of it all I've taken a look at all the main stuff that's coming in the roadmap in more detail below.

Black Ops 7 season 1 launch time and roadmap

The Black Ops 7 season 1 launch time is 9am PT on December 4.

The image above shows the full Black Ops 7 season 1 roadmap. You can zoom in to to see more because there is a lot, from maps to modes, Endgame content, multiplayer, zombies, weapons, and all the rest. Content drops are largely split between the December 4th launch, a mid-season drop, and 'in-season' stuff (so at some point). Now, because that roadmap is tiny and full of things, let's break it down and take a look at what's coming in more detail below.

Black Ops 7 season 1 new weapons

There are seven new Black Ops 7 guns arriving in season 1, either in season or via the Battle Pass, events, and challenges. That's certainly going to shake up the current Black Ops 7 meta, so let's take at what we're getting:

• Maddox RFB assault rifle (Battle Pass page 6)
• Kogot SMG (Battle Pass page 3)
• Ballistic Knife melee (Weekly Challenge week 1)
• Sokol 545 LMG (Event)
• Sturmwolf 45 SMG (Event)
• NX Ravager Crossbow Special (In-Season)
• Hawker HX Sniper (In-Season)

There are also 11 new weapon attachments arriving over the course of S1 to alter these and existing weapons, including the following confirmed options:

• Akita Scorchlink Akimbo - dual wield Akita shotguns
• Redwell Shade-X Suppressor - a suppressor that improves vertical and horizontal recoil but reduces damage range and bullet velocity
• CODA 9 adaptive discharge mod
• AK-27 Battle Scar conversion
• M8A1 Full auto conversion
• MPC-25 Contrabloom laser

Now let's drill into each weapon and see where their strengths and weakness lie.

Black Ops 7 Maddox RFB assault rifle

This is a full auto Black Ops 7 assault rifle returning from BLOPS 4. It's a fast fire rate option with some manageable recoil and a decent ammo reserve to allow sustained, accurate shooting. That can be enhanced as you upgrade it and unlock things like extended mags.

Black Ops 7 KOGOT SMG

The KOGOT SMG is a fast firing, high mobility SMG built for close range encounters. It's not built for high damage, so you'll need to take advantage of its speed as you race around opponents peppering them with bullets. You'll also have to master the recoil, especially if you unlock the akimbo prestige attachment.

Black Ops 7 Ballistic Knife

A Black Ops classic, the Ballistic Knife lets you fire the blade from the handle for an almost guaranteed kill on any unarmored enemy. It's mainly a bragging rights weapon, has shown by the range of prestige skins to unlock.

Black Ops 7 Sokol 545 LMG

Shaking up your LMG options, the Sokol starts with a 100 capacity mag, the largest LMG mag currently in BLOPs 7, so it's all about suppressive fire. It's also got the highest damage range, meaning you can hold enemies down effectively from much further away.

Black Ops 7 NX Ravager

The classic crossbow is back, allowing you to fire high damage bolts over great distances and letting you use explosive ammo to spread the pain far and wide. The Tribolt prestige attachment also lets you load three bolts at a time to increase your fire rate.

Black Ops 7 Hawker HX

It's a surprise return for this Black Ops 2 sniper. A bolt action option that has good handling, mobility, and decent one shot kill potential but pays for it with higher recoil, flinch, and a long reload.

Black Ops 7 season 1 community events

There are two season 1 community events currently confirmed for Black Ops 7 that will unlock a range of rewards (including two of the new weapons above).

• Rally Point Community Event - Work together to complete community missions to unlock rewards, including the NX Ravager Crossbow.
• Naughty and Nice Community Event - Naughty Challenges reveal rewards in bags of coal while Nice Challenges unwrap Festive Gifts to get rewards, including the Sokol 545 LMG.

New Black Ops 7 operators

There are three new operators joining Black Ops 7 in Season 1: Scorn, Alden Dorne, and The Replacer (Peter Stormare). Scorn is via the BlackCell Instant Reward Page, Alden Dorne is in the Battle Pass, and The Replacer is a free gift to everyone at the start of the season.

New Black Ops 7 Battle Pass and changes

The new Battle Pass will cost 1,100 COD Points and feature 11 Operator Skins and 26 Blueprints/Weapons, as well as attachments, decals, and more, with 119 rewards in total (including BlackCell).

The Battle Pass has also had a minor overhaul for season 1 with improved unlock timings, smaller, faster to complete pages, and the ability to earn Tokens via daily challenges in multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone.

Buying the Battle Pass will instantly unlock the following:

• 10% Battle Pass XP Boost
• Linked reticle for Optic attachments
• Chain of Command legendary Blueprint for the X9 Maverick assault rifle
• Rank and File large weapons decal.
• Alden Dorne Operator as well as the Adjutant Operator skin, and a Adjutant BlackCell variant for BlackCell

In addition there are two new season 1 weapons, the Kogot-7 SMG unlocked on page 3 of the Battle Pass and the Maddox RFB AR on page 6 (you can read more about them above if you check the side bar).

Completing the Black Ops 7 season 1 Battle Pass will unlock the following rewards:

• 200 COD Points
• Dissonance legendary Blueprint for the AK-27 AR
• No Slowing Down animated Calling Card
• Energized One animated Emblem
• Gift Card Ultra GobbleGum
• Disharmony Operator skin for Alden Dorne and the Disharmony BlackCell equivalent.

New Black Ops 7 maps

There are technically eight new multiplayer maps in Black Ops 7 S1 but three of them are remasters of old maps, and one is a Hijacked variant. So, that actually makes four new maps, all medium to small sized. Check out how they look in the gallery above and here some more info about them:

• Launch Maps
  • Utopia - 6v6, medium
  • Fate - 6v6, small
  • Odysseus - 6v6 or 2v2, small
  • Standoff - (Remastered from Black Ops 2) 6v6, medium
  • Sleighjacked - (Hijacked variant) 6v6, small
• Mid Season maps
  • Yakei - 6v6 or 2v2, small
  • Meltdown - (Remastered from Black Ops 2) 6v6, medium
  • Fringe - Returning Black Ops 6 Map/Black Ops 3 remaster

New Black Ops 7 modes

There are eight new modes in season 1 at launch and mid season, with two holiday modes for Christmas.

All five launch modes are returning from previous games, with only the mid season mode, Takeover, being a new one. That sees two teams of six fight to control three territories and earning points for every one controlled. When all three territories are taken they relocate and the cycle restarts.

These are all the modes arriving in Black Ops 7 season 1:

• New Launch modes
  • Prop Hunt (returning mode)
  • One in the Chamber (returning mode)
  • Sharpshooter (returning mode)
  • Sticks & Stones (returning mode)
  • Gun Game (returning mode)
• Mid season modes
  • Takeover (new mode)
• In-season
  • Holiday Havoc CODmas LTM
  • Snowfight CODmas LTM

New Black Ops 7 Endgame content

There are four new Endgame modes arriving in season 1, although the details are being drip fed out. Colossus of Avalon will see everyone battling to take down a giant robot. Toxic Tyrant is about fighting a 'hallucinatory biological weapon'. And the Wraith Wing event is about downing an advanced Guild aircraft with 'cloning capabilities'. The fourth world event has yet to be revealed in anyway.

There are also eight new exotic skills you can earn by completing world events and then level up to increase their base effects:

• Mega Punch - replaces your melee attack with a high damage knockback.
• Conjuration - summon toxic butterflies to attack enemies.
• Echo Shell - reduce damage taken from behind.
• Frost Cloud - damaging enemies has a chance to trigger a frost effect to slow them.
• Resurrection - become invincible when you die once per match.
• Shattered Shield - nearby enemies are stunned and take damage when your armor plates break.
• Graviton Reaction - taking melee damage can spawn a black hole that damages and moves enemies.

New Zombies content in Black Ops 7

Season 1 of Zombies introduces a range of new content to including a fresh maps, enemy, Wonder Weapon, traps, and more. There's also a range of returning perks, GobbleGums, equipment, and so on. Here's the breakdown:

• New round based Map - Astra Malorum (launch)
  • A mysterious observatory orbiting around the rings of Saturn.
• New survival maps - Exit 115 (launch) and Zarya Cosmodrome (mid season)
• New Enemy - OSCAR
  • A new robot enemy that scans for players and attacks them. Also deploys a range of defensive measures like shields, Tesla fields, and drones. Find out more about how to kill OSCAR in Black Ops 7 Zombies here.
• New Wonder Weapon - LGM-1
  • A gun that shoots homing saucers with laser attacks.
• New traps - Stellar Dissector and Apogee Annihilator
  • The Dissector casts out a net of laser beams while the Annihilator is a large rocket launcher.
• Returning Perk - Mule
  • Carry an additional primary weapon.
• Returning Ammo Mod - Light Mend
  • Reduces bullet damage but has a chance to create a healing glyph when you hit an enemy that homes in on damaged allies.
• Returning Ammo Mod - Shatter Blast
  • Explosive damage.
• New GobbleGums
  • Elemental Exposure - In Zombies this makes your weapon always inflict damage that matches the target's elemental weakness. In Dead Ops Arcade 4 it makes you invulnerable to hazards for 10 minutes (not in boss arenas).
  • Slaylist - plays a random Zombies song.
• Returning equipment (mid-season)
  • Returning Lethals
    • Impact Grenade, Thermo Grenade.
  • Returning Tacticals
    • Shock Charge.
  • Returning Support
    • War Machine, Grim Reaper, Death Machine, Combat Bow.

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Black Ops 7 wants to be an interconnected social hub unlike any previous Call of Duty. Alongside the returning online staples of multiplayer and co-op Zombies, there's a co-op campaign – the first since Black Ops 3 – to shake up the usual single-player explosion fest and Cold War-inspired paranoia that the Call of Duty sub-series is known for. It's an understandable change made to meet these social goals but, as a sucker for online co-op, it's also a welcome one – until you start playing.

Playing the co-op campaign with pals can be quite fun, in spite of its bizarre hallucination set-pieces and lackluster gunfights against both the bellicose Guild and ravenous nightmare creatures. But that doesn't distract from the levels that are obvious mashups of ready-made assets and ideas lifted from other co-op shooters, like Destiny 2. Then, after a first credits fakeout, you're unceremoniously dropped into even more Black Ops 7 and you find out where it's all leading. You thought always-online, no-pausing, no-checkpointing, health-bar-chipping action was annoying? You ain't seen nothing yet, soldier.

On patrol

The ultimate expression of this design philosophy is Endgame, the final mission of Black Ops 7's co-op campaign. It's effectively a replayable PvE-only extraction mode, featuring all sorts of random objectives and events to complete. Each challenge you overcome helps you get better gear and useful scorestreaks for added destruction, but also bolsters your Combat Rating – a score that determines your overall power and unlocks upgrades, letting you more competently battle foes in the higher-tier zones of Avalon. If you die or fail to extract within the 50-minute time limit, you lose your Combat Rating, upgrades, and guns.

Broadly, it's just a combination of almost everything you've seen already in the campaign set on the full Avalon map with a new progression and upgrade system slapped on. It doesn't help that, by large-scale battle royale map standards, Avalon is quite unremarkable, largely devoid of standout landmarks, and the escalating difficulty of each zone makes it hard to see and appreciate much of it. To me, Endgame feels less like a nail-biting battle to clear out the Guild for good with everything on the line and more like a slightly intense version of patrolling a planet in Destiny 2, completing small missions and public events, occasionally bumping into other players along the way.

The higher the tier of the Avalon region you're in, the more bullet-spongey the enemies are. Every upgrade you get makes you feel more like a superhero, rather than a covert soldier. Although, I can't deny that getting access to the full sandbox of campaign gadgets and gizmos for your base loadout is nice. Using the grappling hook and wingsuit to glide great distances feels extremely slick and satisfying – much better than driving an armored car – but it's not a good sign that my favorite part of the extraction shooter mode is flying around.

Successfully extracting means you get to keep your power leve– erm, Combat Rating – alongside accrued gear and perks for your next deployment. The idea is that over a period of successful runs, you'll grow in power and seek greater challenges in the more dangerous regions of Avalon, until you're able to tackle the ultimate boss, the nefarious Dr. Falkner. You'll hopefully remember him as being an almost comically weak villain earlier in the game but he's far from a pushover in Endgame, relatively speaking.

My first clear of the final boss was as part of a high-level trio, seeing us riddle enemy after enemy with bullets for about 14 minutes. Confusingly, Dr. Falkner appears not as a single man as you saw him earlier in the story but as a series of apparently unending, ghoulish minibosses, requiring all their health bars to be eroded into dust before you can confirm the kill. That then leads into an underwhelming finale that really doesn't reinforce the campaign well at all, setting up Mason and the rest of Spectre One for an unending villain-of-the-week, Guild-whacking loop that I'm not sure will hook anyone.

Endgame is perfectly fine for casual NPC blasting at its low-level entry point. But the intensity and difficulty of the mode's own endgame, deep into Zones 3 and 4 of Avalon, reduce it to an unrewarding slog. Sure, being able to zip around with a squad makes Endgame it all more tolerable, and there's even a nice enough feel of camaraderie in an online Call of Duty mode as you haphazardly team up with other random players. But it's a far cry from a true co-op campaign, a la Left 4 Dead, or the social experiences of Destiny 2, or even Arc Raiders. It makes for a largely inoffensive but also not especially interesting mode.

This wonky experiment only makes it clearer that the more experimental aspects of Black Ops 7's campaign miss more than they hit. Everything about this year's campaign feels like a misfire, even if, at times, I admire the attempt to hit its odd choice of target - with Season 1, those targets are only going to get more weird as world events involving giant robots and manifested VTOLs hit Avalon. That's not to say I don't think a co-op campaign itself is a bad idea, but it needs serious time and effort dedicated to it to be worthwhile, and I can't help but feel like Call of Duty is really beginning to suffer from off-years between its larger scale releases.

Check out the best Call of Duty games for ones you could play instead!

After assuring fans that skill-based matchmaking would take a backseat in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, one user has tested this, and it seems like it isn't quite as open as people hoped.

During the Black Ops 7 beta, Treyarch made waves with the community by introducing open matchmaking via a special playlist, which was celebrated by the community at large. After testing skill-based matchmaking again for feedback (which everyone still disliked), it was announced that Black Ops 7 would implement open matchmaking as default.

However, since release, some players have begun to feel it isn't quite as open as it was in the beta and suspect it isn't as open as many had hoped, given promises of "minimal skill consideration."

Youtuber XclusiveReloaded put this to the test, comparing games on his main account versus a brand new account. The tests found that when playing on their high-tier account that his ping was significantly lower than it was when playing on the new account (one out of 10 games were in the 20 ms range compared to eight out of 10 on the new account).

This shows that in some cases skill difference is being considered above ping, which in turn results in a different gameplay experience depending on your skill level. While XclusiveReloaded does concede that it's still a better experience than previous Call of Duty entries, he concurs that it's a step down from the beta experience.

Naturally, fans are not happy about this perceived rugpull, with the ModernWarzone Twitter saying, "Just watched Ace’s entire SBMM video and… not looking good." They also expressed hope that Treyarch responds to this, saying "his results definitely indicate a trend of skill not being minimally considered in his matchmaking."

Meanwhile, ModernWarzone owner DougDagnabbit adds that these are "Genuinely such sad results." He adds, "It’s at least been proven that skill is considered above ping in some instances, which should NEVER be the case... Just gotta laugh at this point."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review: "I respect Treyarch's attempt to make the weirdest Call of Duty possible, but it results in a campaign misfire and multiplayer that's hardly revolutionary."

With the best Black Ops 7 M15 Mod 0 build, you'll be able to lay down highly accurate fire and battle at a multitude of ranges. By default, the M15 has some pretty solid stats – decent damage, snappy handling for an assault rifle, and controllable recoil – which makes it a great base that can be improved a lot with the best possible attachments. With that in mind, here's the best gunsmith build for the BO7 M15 Mod 0 that you can work towards as you level up this assault rifle.

Best M15 Mod 0 attachments in Black Ops 7

As with most guns, adding attachments that focus on reducing recoil and increasing range without compromising handling to your M15 will help you win a wide array of gunfights:

• Optic: Personal preference (I like the Lethal Tools ELO)
• Muzzle: RL-5.56 Brake
• Barrel: 15" Mirage Light Barrel
• Underbarrel: Empty
• Stock: Intervention Stock
• Laser: 3mW Motion Strike Laser
• + if using Gunfighter Wildcard:
  • Magazine: Mayday Extended Mag
  • Rear Grip: Contour Grip
  • Fire Mod: Buffer Springs or MFS 5.56 NATO FMJ Prestige attachment if you have it

The muzzle brake, laser, and stock are arguably the three most important attachments here for an M15 build that succeeds in the Black Ops 7 meta. The ones I've chosen heavily reduce recoil and flinch and increase range for better performance and ease-of-use at longer ranges. The shorter 15" barrel and Contour Grip help with handling, so you should be able to draw and aim your gun faster while performing all sorts of movement tricks.

You can round things off with the Buffer Springs mod for further recoil reductions but since this build doesn't use a silencer, the MFS 5.56 NATO FMJ mod helps a lot by keeping you off the minimap when firing, increasing range, and making enemies hit flinch more. With that, you should have one of the best assault rifles in Black Ops 7.

Best M15 Mod 0 loadout in Black Ops 7

To go with your kitted out M15 Mod 0, you can use basically anything, and it's mainly going to be down to your personal preference. But there are some important considerations that will inform your perk choices for a well-rounded loadout:

• Perk 1: Lightweight
• Perk 2: Scavenger or Fast Hands
• Perk 3: Dexterity

Lightweight and Dexterity are quite important if you want to make the most of Black Ops 7's advanced movement tricks without compromising weapon performance too much. For Perk 2, it's down to whether you value a regular supply of ammo and equipment with Scavenger more than faster reloads from Fast Hands. Bear in mind your decision here will also affect which Perk Specialization you'll come out with too – choosing Scavenger will give you Enforcer which is good for aggressive players while Fast Hands will give you Tactician to score some extra points. There is an argument for Ghost or Ninja in place of Lightweight if you favor a sneakier playstyle, but don't do this if you've chosen Fast Hands as your second perk as you won't get a Perk Specialization.

As for the rest of your loadout, that's pretty much up to you. I recommend using whichever sidearm you're most comfortable with as your Secondary, with the Jager 45 being good backup if you need to finish off an enemy, while the Coda 9's full-auto power means you can use it like a pocket SMG in really tight spaces. The Assault Pack is a good Field Upgrade if you don't opt for Scavenger, but there's no clear winner here for this loadout, and the same goes for your Tactical and Lethal – I like EMPs or Pinpoints for my Tactical and the classic Frag for my Lethal.

If you want to know about the other guns in Black Ops 7, we've got a guide laying them all out here. But if you're more interested in the details of Black Ops 7 Skill-Based Matchmaking, we've explained that too.

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The Black Ops 7 Fracture door code isn't a complicated puzzle but does require you to look in exactly the right place. You get a bit of help from 50/50 since she tells you half of the code, but you can't just figure it out and need to find the full code in the room you're currently stuck in. Obviously without the code, you can't proceed to the final couple of encounters and complete the Fracture level, so if you're stuck, here's the BO7 door code and where you need to look.

Black Ops 7 Fracture door code

The Fracture level's door code is 3600, which you then need to enter on the keypad to proceed in Black Ops 7.

In case you're wondering how you find this out, 50/50 will give you the first two digits of the code, 3 and 6, as that's all she can remember. Check the keypad itself and you'll see that the code is also the usual four digits long. Conveniently, the building you're in has a screen behind the counter with all sorts of red numbers (always with the red number in Black Ops), many of which blink on and off or change. However, in the bottom-left corner of the screen, you'll notice that the numbers 3-6-0-0 do not change so, you can deduce that this is the correct four-digit door code.

With the code entered, you and your team will immediately unlock the Damage II upgrade, granting 4x damage to all your guns, equipment, and scorestreaks in Black Ops 7. You'll then be thrown straight into a closed garden with lots of Guild robots attacking, so be prepared for a big fight.

If you want to know what else is to come in the campaign, check out our Black Ops 7 mission list. Fracture is one of the later missions, so you've not got long to go until you reach the end, but here's how long it takes to beat Black Ops 7's campaign in case you're wondering.

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The best Black Ops 2 assault rifles can handle the variety of the game's maps while also still being able to keep pace with aggressive and mobile play. For that reason, the M15 Mod 0, one of the guns you'll have automatically unlocked when you get access to loadouts, comes out on top, but it's got competition from several other excellent assault rifles. Here's a rundown of the best ones in BO7 and how they stack up.

Black Ops 7 assault rifle tier list

The best assault rifle in BO7 is currently the M15 Mod 0, mainly due to the fact it’s unlocked by default and is incredibly easy to use – it's one of our Black Ops 7 meta gun picks too. Relatively low recoil and solid damage make it easy to control and accurate at a variety of ranges, and you can enhance its strengths even more with the right attachments – you can check out the best Black Ops 7 M15 Mod 0 build here!

As for the rest of the assault rifles, most of them are quite solid in Black Ops 7, so while the M15 is a great all-rounder, it's worth trying them all out in case you find one that better suits your playstyle. Here's how we rank them all:

• S-tier:
  • M15 Mod 0: Simple, reliable, and versatile.
  • AK-27: Solid rifle for longer-range engagements compared to the M15, and subpar handling, mobility, and recoil can be mitigated with attachments.
• A-tier:
  • Peacekeeper Mk1: Poor range and a fast fire rate make the Peacekeeper a great SMG-like assault rifle, good for aggressive play and smaller maps.
  • X9 Maverick: Very powerful burst-fire assault rifle that can kill with a single burst but a low fire rate means accuracy is critical, otherwise you'll be outgunned every time.
• B-tier:
  • MXR-17: Excellent range and damage make this weapon seem good, but a chugging fire rate and challenging recoil means the MXR can be quite unwieldy, excelling in a medium-range sweetspot.
  • DS20 Mirage: Relatively poor handling, mobility, and vertical recoil make this a fairly unremarkable assault rifle, and the integrated grenade launcher is a little gimmicky.

There's a lot of engagement variety across the Black Ops 7 maps, and the M15 should be able to handle basically any map and mode. But if you want to know about every gun in Black Ops 7, we've got that covered too.

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Given reviews scores and reactions to Black Op 7 generally, it's not a surprise that you're all are asking how many people are playing. It is, by our own opinion, one of the strangest entries in the series for a long time. From its not-so-mind-bending story to surprising boss fights and giant machetes, not to mention an always online co-op 'single player', its causing some strong opinions. But how is that translating into the overall player count? Let's take a look.

If you are one of the people playing, then the Black Ops 7 guns and where they sit in the Black Ops 7 meta might be useful to give you an edge.

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The Call of Duty hueneme negev error currently plaguing Black Ops 7 is an old problem that seems to go back years. It'll stop you getting into the game but despite it being an issue that seems to have been around for a long time and many COD games, there's no official fix. There are, however, several unofficial solutions you can use and I can vouch for having had it happen for two different Call of Duty games. Here's what I've learned and how to fix it.

Black Ops 7 Hueneme negev fixes

The Black Ops 7 hueneme negev error see can be fixed by a few methods, two of which have worked for me: using a hotspot connection and VPN. Work your way through this list of options and hopefully one of them should eventually clear the error:

1. Power down your router and leave it for at least 30 seconds before turning it back on and trying to connect again. This should clear out and reset. your connection, which might clear our the error.
2. Switch from a WiFi connection to ethernet or vice versa. Changing your connection can also clear any errors. Generally a wired connection is always best if possible.
3. Use your phone as a hotspot to connect. If you have the option, turn on your phones hotspot and connect your PC or console to the game with that. Once the game is running and you're connected, deactivate the hotspot and COD should reconnect to your default connection, without the error. This has been the main solution for me over several Call of Duty Instalments.
4. Use a VPN. Using a VPN can also bypass the hueneme negev error without physically changing your connection. We have a list of the best VPNs if you want to browse that, although I found Proton works just fine and is free for one device/connection at a time.

The lack of any official response to the Hueneme negev error in any of the Call of Duty games it has affected means it's hard to pin down exactly what's going on. However it seems to be something to do with IP addresses or DNS settings when the Activision servers detect more than one connection from the same location. Whatever the cause changing your connection in someway, like the options listed above, seems to bypass the error and, once logged in, you can usually go back to your usual way of getting online.

Once you're in a game check out the current Black Ops 7 meta to make sure you're competitive.

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For the most part, no, Black Ops 7 does not use Skill-Based Matchmaking to assemble players of roughly equal skill levels into lobbies. In fact, the way the multiplayer playlists are laid out effectively means you must opt into SBMM by choosing the right playlist in Black Ops 7, otherwise you'll be matched with players based on factors other than skill. Many previous Call of Duty titles use skill-based systems but it's always a highly contentious issue, so here's everything you need to know about how BO7 handles SBMM.

How Skill-Based Matchmaking works in Black Ops 7

Black Ops 7 has two distinct matchmaking lists for multiplayer, Open and Standard – where the former features no Skill-Based Matchmaking.

Open is "matchmaking where skill is minimally considered", so if you don’t want SBMM, stick to Quick Play or the Open playlists, which include Team Deathmatch, Core Moshpit, Skirmish 20v20, and more! Conveniently, these are marked with a red and blue Open Playlist icon, so you'll know for sure what the matchmaking situation is.

Bear in mind that you'll be coming up against players of any and all skill levels in these playlists, so you might get stomped by a team of pros in one match, but you might be doing the stomping in the next one. Open Playlists also feature persistent lobbies, which means that all players who don't quit the lobby are kept together for the next match. So, if you do find that you're getting stomped, it might be a good idea to back out and start matchmaking again to find a different lobby of players.

Standard playlists are where skill is an "important consideration", but, currently, there is only one: Standard Moshpit. In Standard Playlists, you'll be coming up against players of a roughly similar skill level to you, so expect matches to be competitive. To ensure you are playing against players of an appropriate skill level, lobbies are usually disbanded after every match too, which can increase the time between matches.

Regardless of the playlist you're hopping into, make sure you're set up with the best Black Ops 7 controller settings and know which guns are ideal for your loadouts thanks to the Black Ops 7 meta.

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The best Black Ops 7 controller settings account for the unusually high default sensitivity and some other input settings and assists to ensure the important stuff is under your control. But, with Call of Duty games these days having so many accessibility options, assists, and more, it can be a bit tricky to know what they all do and how you should be adjusting them. Bear in mind that the precise changes I've laid out below might not feel optimal for you, but they should give you a good base to figure out your own best BO7 controller settings, whether you're playing on PS5, PC, or Xbox controller.

Best controller settings for Black Ops 7

To alter your BO7 controller settings, press the menu button (three horizontal lines) on your PS5 or Xbox controller then navigate to the settings menu – you can do this while you're in any of the Black Ops 7 campaign missions, a multiplayer match, Zombies run, or just a lobby menu – to make the following changes:

• Open the Controller tab:
  • Input Device:
    • Aiming Input Device: Controller (If you're playing on a console, this should be the default and cannot be changed, but if you're playing on PC with a controller, you'll want to set this to manually to avoid any interference from your mouse and keyboard)
  • Inputs:
    • Edit Button Layout: Tactical (Swaps melee to Circle/B and crouch to Right Stick, which is much better for making the most of Black Ops 7's sliding and diving movement)
    • Horizontal Stick Sensitivity: Adjust until you find something comfortable (the default 1.20 was a little high for me so I use 1.05)
    • Vertical Stick Sensitivity: Same as above.
  • Controller:
    • Deadzone Inputs > L2/LT and R2/RT Button Deadzone: Reduce to 3 or less (this isn't going to make a huge difference, but it means you have don't to depress the triggers as much to start firing or ADSing, making your shooting feel a bit snappier)
• Switch to the Aiming tab:
  • Aiming:
    • Sensitivity Multiplier > ADS Sensitivity Multiplier: If adjusting your aim while ADS feels too slow or too fast but you're happy with your hipfire aim sensitivity, use this setting to make things more comfortable while ADS. Increasing the multiplier will speed up your ADS aiming speed and reducing the multiplier will slow it down.
• Switch to the Movement tab:
  • Intelligent Movement:
    • Corner Slice: Off (If you find the fact that your gun contextually tilts when you approach a corner annoying, turn this setting off – note that this is just a visual effect and doesn't alter your aim)
• Switch to the Combat tab:
  • Combat Behaviors:
    • Armor Plate Behavior: Apply One (When you briefly hold Triangle/Y to apply an armor plate, you will apply only one instead of automatically applying plates until you run out or are fully armored, giving you more control. If you continue holding Triangle/Y, you will keep applying plates and can stop at any point.)
    • Combat Advanced Settings > Sprint Cancels Reload: On (This is entirely optional but in previous Call of Duty games, the ability to cancel a reload with a quick sprint was very helpful, so you might want the same thing in BO7. You can also double-tap Triangle/Y to reload cancel.)

Best graphics settings for Black Ops 7

Having the best controller settings and sensitivity to suit you will help a lot but there are some important graphical settings you can adjust in the Graphics menu that might make a big difference in terms of visual clarity:

• Open the Quality tab:
  • World Motion Blur and Weapon Motion Blur: Off (for a clearer picture, I highly recommend turning these settings off. You may want to turn off Depth of Field as well)
• Switch to the View tab:
  • Field of View (FOV): The default 90 degrees is quite good, but if you're sitting close to your display, I recommend turning your FOV up – I use 105.

Finally, while not a controller or graphics setting, you might want to consider changing your Interface Element Colors (Interface settings menu > Readability > Color Customization), particularly if you're finding the minimap a bit difficult to read at a glance. The default colors in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 aren't particularly vibrant, so I swapped them for brighter colors – for example, I have 'Team' set to a bright cyan rather than a plain blue.

Now that you have the best settings, make sure you've got the best guns equipped that are topping the Black Ops 7 meta. But if you want a broader overview, we've got a full list of all the Black Ops 7 guns here too.

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