Activision shows deep dive on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III multiplayer as beta revs up

Activision showed off multiplayer gameplay for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, the new premium combat game coming on November 10.

The company revealed the latest details on Modern Warfare III multiplayer, Zombies, Warzone 2 and Warzone Mobile. The action is predictably fast and furious in the multiplayer demos so far.

The company showed the gameplay at the Call of Duty Next event with streamers. And starting on October 6, a beta will begin for early access PlayStation players who have preordered the game and will continue on October 7. Then the open beta will run on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on October 8 to October 10.

After that, the PC and Xbox early access players can play on October 12 and October 13, while all can play from October 14 to October 16. Modern Warfare III multiplayer will feature 16 updated maps from the Modern Warfare 2 (2009) library.

The game has every modern weapon you’d expect, from drones to underwater weapons.

Developed by Treyarch in collaboration with Sledgehammer Games, Modern Warfare Zombies will take players to the largest Zombies map ever, set in an open-world experience where squads will be challenged to take on the undead in Operation Deadbolt.

There are three new maps coming for Season One and there will be 12 new 6v6 maps for the whole year coming post launch.

In addition to its Ricochet anti-cheat tech, Activision will team with Modulate to deliver global real-time voice chat moderation, at-scale, starting with this fall’s upcoming Call of Duty blockbuster.

The maps unveiled today with multiplayer play included High Rise, Favella, Skid Row, Rust and Estate. The maps have been modernized for new movement like mantling, and canceling a slide in the middle of a slide. Other maps will be coming on day one of the launch. There are three new Ground War maps of 32-versus-32 play that are brand new.

Another mode coming is War mode, with a new map where you have linear objectives and an attacker-defender designation for teams.

A global cultural event

Call of Duty is, of course, a massive event for the game industry and Activision Blizzard. It’s perhaps the main reason that Microsoft is in the midst of buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Now in it’s 20th year, Call of Duty is still a juggernaut. As of last year, Activision’s first-person shooter combat franchise had hit $30 billion in lifetime revenue and 425 million premium copies sold to date.

The game debuted in 2003 as a rival to Medal of Honor, and it has outlasted that franchise. It reinvented itself with the launch of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and did so again in 2019 with Call of Duty: Mobile and in 2020 with Call of Duty: Warzone.

Call of Duty: Mobile reached over 650 million people, and Warzone topped 125 million downloads in its first year. And now there are more than 3,000 developers working on the Call of Duty franchise. Rob Kostich, president of Activision, told me in an interview that plans for Call of Duty are in place through 2027.

TCL also noted that it has the official TV of Call of Duty and it also has the official sound bar of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone 2.