CoD: Modern Warfare 2019 – M/P Beta

I had a awesome time this weekend, I got all hot and sweaty. I immersed myself back into the Multi-Player world of Call of Duty. Something I haven’t done in many years, as the bombastic, sci-fi direction CoD has taken in the last 10 years has not grabbed me. Well, CoD: Modern Warfare 2019 is going to change all that.

The prospect of a contemporary, realistic shooter peaked my interest when I saw the Campaign trailer earlier this year. It seriously looks like my cup of tea. So when a code for the M/P Beta hit my emails I couldn’t help but go for a look.

The Warfare

After some initial readjustment from my Destiny M/P habits, I got back into a CoD mindset and I gotta say, I had a great time. The modes and maps on offer rotated over the weekend and I dipped my toe into each. Frankly, the tried and true ‘Vs Deathmatch’ is still  sweaty, twitchy and brutal on my old, slow hands and it just wasn’t fun. Lets just say that spawning and dying inside of 3 seconds was a common occurrence.

The Feels

But the other team objective modes were fantastic. With variable respawn cooldowns, the requirement to focus on one area of the map at a time. With more XP for being objective focused, the games pace slowed, just a tad, and I got a slight Rainbow 6: Siege vibe. A friend also made comparisons to last generation Medal of Honor M/P from 2010, and I absolutely agree. There are certainly similarities in both the pace and feel.

The Modes

In the objective modes I could work the maps depth, look for angles. I even worked as a team with randoms…in CoD! Crazy right!? That said, a match is easily be lost when one person on the team is ‘kills focused’ and not  on task. Which was frustrating, but its a Beta and hopefully some tuning takes place there.

The Maps

The maps are beautiful, detailed and well designed. The weapons and perks are standard fair CoD, with all contemporary military archetypes present. The interesting feature though is their ‘weight’ and handling. The arcadie lazer beams from the Call of Dutys of recent years have gone. These weapons feel less controllable, more real in a way.  Far from realistic like an ARMA or Operation Flashpoint, but a wee bit more grounded than the wall running CoDs of previous years. This less-controllable recoil is offset by a very fast TTK (Time To Kill) and it felt fair, frankly I was impressed.

CoD: Modern Warfare 2019

Based on this Beta, it appears to me that this isn’t a huge reimagining of what CoD M/P is. If anything its more a return to its roots. Focusing on what made the original Modern Warfare so good. Now, the cheap deaths, speed-scoping snipers and ‘CoD Gods’ are still present, all getting amazing Kill Streaks and dropping Nukes onto the map. Thats just par for the course I’m afraid. Expect some clever skill based match-making in the full game to keep it fair, and more importantly fun.

I didn’t expect to like this M/P Beta as much as I did. The Campaign is what really interests me for Call of Duty this year. After playing, I very much want to come back and spend some more time with the new CoD: Modern Warfare 2019 and Multi-Player.