Activision has announced that Modern Warfare 4 will make its single-player campaign available to play up to one week prior to the full game’s launch date. This makes the Korean Peninsula-set campaign accessible as early as 16th October for some players – that’s a full week before the official release on 23rd October.
The offer is available to any player who pre-orders a copy of any version of Modern Warfare 4 on any of the platforms it’s going to be available on – including Nintendo Switch 2 (even though that version has yet to get a release date).
This is only possible if you pre-order the game digitally, however, and not through a retailer.
One of the most interesting things the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot introduced has been making the single-player campaign available one week ahead of the game’s official launch. The practice continued with Modern Warfare 2 (2022) and Modern Warfare 3 (2023), but, strangely, did not return with any of the other titles in between.
The early access offering has been initially seen as a very compelling pre-order perk, and it has ended up being praised by almost everyone as it solves a couple of problems. One, it gives the campaign room to breathe and dominate the conversation around the game for a week. But two, the other (arguably more important) reason, is that it makes it possible for a larger number of Call of Duty players to play, and potentially finish, the campaign. Call of Duty campaigns have historically had low completion rates; a cursory look at achievement stats and unlocks tells you that millions of players never touch the campaign, opting to head straight into multiplayer, instead.
The events of the Modern Warfare 4 campaign take place following those of Modern Warfare 3. The theatre is different, however. The game follows a South Korean soldier thrust into the fray when North Korea initiates an invasion of its southern neighbour.
The campaign also sees the return of some of the remaining members of Task Force 141, namely Captain Price and Ghost, whose allegiances and priorities may have shifted in the time since we last saw them.
Modern Warfare 4 arrives 23rd October on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. A Switch 2 version is scheduled for release at some point this year.
