It’s that time of year again everybody! Just like how Christmas comes once a year, so does Call of Duty, and with another season of festive cheer, comes another season of killstreaks, team death matches and rage quitting (not from yours truly). The campaign of Modern Warfare 2 was one of the best in recent memory for me, but will the multiplayer hail the same great success?
Read on and find out.
The Pinnacle of online death making!
Call of Duty’s multiplayer incarnations have been far and many since the first Call of Duty all the way back in 2003. It has reigned supreme among the mightiest of PC titans such as Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament and much like Halo 2, paved the way for an uprising in online play for home consoles.
Each Call of Duty brings back multiplayer, with some form of neat twists and new features, ranging from the shining grace of awesomeness to a rather “meh, it's okay”. The Black Ops series was also a favourite of mine, focusing on outlandish game modes and having the legendary “Zombies” mode at the forefront for cooperative fun. The Modern Warfare series has always been a close second, as the gunplay, map designs and fewer, yet ground-breaking additions always elevated the multiplayer to new heights.
This time around, the core gameplay modes include the classic team deathmatch, and free for all, where players can work together or fully against each other to gain the glory. Usually fun and reliable fallback modes that never get old. With a return of the Zone Capturing mode, Domination. Where teams work together to take control of various hot spots in a large environment.
Other additional modes include Hardpoint, a mode like Rainbow Six Siege’s formula, but teams must defend multiple points on a map one after the other, making it a frantic yet strategic game of defence and offence while moving. Headquarters is much less frantic than Hardpoint, as a team needs to defend their base of operations, while another attack. This time, however, there are no respawns, making for one of the most intense modes in Call of Duty history.
Other modes featured are Control, where players take turns attacking and defending two objectives. Prisoner Rescue, where one team protects a prisoner and the other attempts to kill them. Knock Out is a simple yet engaging mode where two teams are fighting each other to grab a literal bag of cash, with no respawns. Then we have Search & Destroy, where teams take turns defending and destroying an objective in a large environment.
And rounding things off are the Ground War modes, where up to 64 players battle it out, in teams or a free-for-all, within massive maps littered with vehicles, destructible environments and other tools to cause utter mayhem and chaos.
A solid gathering of core gameplay modes, making this one of the most varied Call of Duty multiplayer to date.
Lock and Load, Seek and Destroy
With the refinement of Modern Warfare’s combat mechanics and stellar gunplay, all of these modes have weight to them, great responsiveness and an immense amount of tension you could cut with a knife. The gunplay, like the single player, is handled incredibly well, with a great assortment of weapons for any task and hefting a mighty punch when fired. I can’t really fault the nature of the gunplay, as it's as excellent as ever, making Call of Duty one of the most accessible, easy-to-learn online multiplayer games to date, yet takes a great amount of skill and guts to master it like a pro.
Or if like me, just an immense amount of luck and some light camping.
The game modes are nothing to write home about, but that doesn’t mean they’re not exceptionally fun at the best of times. Most modes feel familiar, and while I get the ideology behind the Modern Warfare series is not to go all zany like in the Black Ops games, it could have had some more interesting modes on show.
I felt the better modes of the bunch were the likes of Ground War Invasion, which is manic free for all among 64 players and bots, Hardpoint and Headquarters, with Knock Out just following behind. These made the most of the stellar gunplay and combat mechanics, and while Hardpoint and Headquarters may feel somewhat similar, their execution makes them entirely different beasts, but a good offering depending if you fancy something a little more manic or slightly less so.
The other modes are all fine, they’re enjoyable, they have a great deal of tension and focus, and with the right team, you can indeed have plenty of fun. But Prisoner Rescue is just a reskin or VIP rescue from COD: Black Ops – Cold War and doesn’t really add anything new to the template.
To be honest, I’m a Gears of War guy, someone whose first multiplayer experience was that of the original Modern Warfare and Gears of War back in 2007. I preferred the intensity and tension-driven stress of having limited lives or just the one, which games around this era really pushed. I like the return of this style of play and my favourite modes made the most out of this, bringing tactical gameplay and quick thinking to the fold.
Plus, the new additions of tactical gear and destructive elements in the environment, make modes like Hardpoint and Headquarters truly some of the most immersive, chaotic and stress-inducing I’ve ever played.
While the core modes are not ground-breaking in terms of a multiplayer foundation, they do offer a lot of varied dynamics, tactical gameplay and variety in combat and action to deliver the most engaging and focused of the multiplayer modes in Call of Duty recently.
But there is a great addition with a cooperative mode and the joyous return of Spec-Ops modes.
Bring a friend for a firefight 
The Spec-Ops co-operative modes first came about back in the original MW2 and have been dotted around in various other COD multiplayer, even with the formula branching out into other games such as Halo. It’s a mode where you and a couple of buddies can tackle three assignments, filled with intense action, requiring the tightest of teamwork and the right amount of a happy trigger finger to survive.
The three assignments are all fun, with the favourite being the first one, which requires a focus on stealth and sleuthing under the cover of darkness to survive a barrage of enemy forces. The second is much more action orientated, but includes plenty of explosive combat and hijacking vehicles, to spice things up. The last is more defence and wave-based objective, which is not the most inventive but still quite fun for the most part.
While what we got is truly excellent and a great cooperative experience, I do wish the base game had more than 3 assignments, or at least a couple of smaller ventures to flesh things out a bit. Still, this is a great addition to the multiplayer and hopefully will get more maps in the future.
Playground of destructionBut what makes Call of Duty multiplayer a stellar experience unlike any other (and truly worthwhile compared to last year's release), is its map designs and weapon customisation.
For those who’ve played multiplayer in each Call of Duty title for the last few years will be familiar with the weapon modding system and the immense flexibility in redefining a weapon as you see fit. The weapon system has been revamped and finetuned for this outing, and greater emphasis on weapon tuning, which is a gigantic leap forward in customisation for Call of Duty. The tuning system itself did have some pretty big bugs but seems back and stable for those looking to get the most from their firearms and classes.
It can be a little overwhelming and for those who just want to get into the fight and gun it with their friends, there is sure to be some annoyance. But the payoff and integrated systems allow for some of the most advanced and satisfying shooting in any recent Call of Duty game. Along with slotting together 5 attachments for any weapon, thus allowing you to max out your chosen playstyle, you can change other various elements of each weapon to increase any perks you desire, but usually at a high cost. So you can increase the speed you aim down the sights, or accuracy during hip firing, but have to endure a certain detriment like slower movement speed when aiming.
It’s a great system involving risk and rewards, a great level of customisation and giving you the chance to enhance your preferred skill set and tactics, making this incarnation of multiplayer the most flexible.
But to be fair, a Call of Duty game is made or broken by its map selection and honestly, this year has a really solid roster of maps. Not once did I have a moment where I or the other players despised a map which was selected, and even the maps which aren’t as impressive are still very well laid out and offer a lot of advantages and engaging combat opportunities.
The massive Ground War events are some of the best, if not the main highlight for multiplayer this year, with the environments for these modes being massive scale and densely littered with plenty of covers, destructive elements and vehicles making a mess. With the likes of Sarrif Bay and Santa Seña Border Crossing offering the most in variety for tactical advantages, choke points and close-quarter rampages with tanks and other highly explosive materials they become the definition of a “Playground of Destruction”.
The changing face of war
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer also brings in a stable of the franchise since that of the original MW2 back in 2009, with 3rd person mode. This is a great way to experience the same COD action, but from a different perspective, and while it's not really for me, I do admire the inclusion of those who want to change their game up.
This is a solid inclusion to the multiplayer, but at the time of this review, it’s clear there are some features missing. But many of these will hopefully be soon added back in via the new upcoming seasons. This is a shame, as some of the features were staples of the series, such as the Barracks which is a great and simple way to check on your stats and such but is not here currently. Again, many stables of the multiplayer are being added in over the coming months, but it would have been nice to have them all here at one time and not separate them if there are no redesigns or changes.
But the new seasons look promising and if they add these features back in, that would be a plus. But again, it would have been nice to include them anyway from the get-go. There are also some minor issues with the UI I found, where it could have been better handled to sort out and find certain skins and attachments among the gigantic selection on offer. Not a dig on the variety or what there is here to choose from, as that’s really awesome. But with bigger selections, you need UI and menus which help people find what they need easily and not just scroll through aimlessly.
Overall?I highly recommended the MW2 campaign in my glowing review the other week and after spending quite a good chunk of time with the multiplayer, I can only give it the same high-level recommendation as well. I have always been flaky with multiplayer and especially in the last few years. But MW2’s multiplayer has really shined through, offering engaging gunplay, gripping multiplayer action and a varied selection of solid modes and maps to sink your teeth into. Making this one of the best multiplayer experiences in COD history to date.
++ Great assortment of modes and inclusion of Spec-Ops
++ Solid and highly enjoyable gunplay and action
+ Excellent level of customisation
+ The action and destruction in Ground War are phenomenal
- An entirely new mode or two would have been great
- Some minor problems with certain UIs and menus
- Some missing features will be added in (should have been here, to begin with)
An Xbox Series X/S code of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
