Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s beta will run for two weekends starting next week, and it’s got the most content the franchise has ever offered in such a test.
The multiplayer beta that gamers have come to expect offers five maps to try out along with a sampling of weapons and progression, but this year, the campaign and even Warzone are joining the party, Activision announced today.
It begins in the early access beta from Aug. 21 to 25, which includes a playable campaign mission called Entrenched, along with multiplayer on six-vs-six maps (Rooftops, Silkworm, Transit 213, Cachette, Lotus, and Kill Block) across nine different modes.
Then during the open beta the following weekend (Aug. 28 to Sept. 1), Warzone’s new Resurgence map Zodiac will be playable, offering a taste at the respawn-enabled battle royale experience coming later this year in the free-to-play game, along with more multiplayer offerings than weekend one.
This is easily the most that a CoD beta has ever offered across a variety of modes, but many are a bit disappointed that everything on offer does not include the new DMZ extraction mode, which is a huge selling point of MW4 this year. A lot of players were hoping to try it out before launch, but alas, that is not in the cards for now.
Even still, without DMZ, this is a pretty large taste of what to expect from the full game when it drops on Oct. 23. Keeping DMZ a secret is likely a very purposeful decision since the map will likely be full of secrets and missions for players to discover on their own.
Everything begins on Aug. 21 with this year’s Call of Duty Next showcase revealing more from the game as “1,000-plus global creators and community players” (myself included) will be playing and streaming the game ahead of the beta launch.
