Call of Duty NEXT Laid Out Modern Warfare 4 Multiplayer, and the Biggest Beta in the Series Is Live Now

The wait for Modern Warfare 4 gameplay is over in the most literal way possible. Activision aired Call of Duty NEXT on Friday morning, walked through the multiplayer in detail for the first time, and then launched what it calls the biggest beta in Call of Duty history two hours later. If you preordered, the game is on your console right now, and the early access weekend runs until Tuesday, August 25 at 10 AM PT on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Video: Call of Duty on YouTube

What NEXT actually revealed

The headline is that Modern Warfare 4 goes back to grounded, boots on the ground combat, but with more ways to move through a map than the series has ever had. Infinity Ward showed pipe climbing, ledge hanging, and aiming your weapon while suspended, all of it built into six new 6v6 maps: Rooftops, Silkworm, Transit 213, Cachette, Lotus and Lithium. The settings range from snow covered New York rooftops to a dense South Korean shopping district, with stops in France and Mexico.

The mode list mixes the classics, Team Deathmatch, Domination, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed and Search and Destroy, with some genuinely new ideas. Inflation has your team building a cash total while staying alive, with bounties on eliminations. Hijack is a fight over a Data Spike you can carry, throw, and even pass to teammates. Kill Block runs Gunfight at 3v3 and 10v10 on a map that reconfigures itself into more than 500 possible layouts, and Ground War returns as Combat Outpost, a 24v24 mode on two large maps, Imjin Farmland and Wolves Stadium. On the gunplay side there are 22 weapons to try, along with the new Apex Attachments, specialized modifications that change how a weapon fundamentally performs. Fans of the franchise's mobile side can check our Call of Duty Mobile codes page for freebies while the console servers fill up.

A campaign mission in a beta, and Warzone next weekend

The most unusual inclusion is Entrenched, a full campaign mission playable inside the beta, a large scale assault to stop a nuclear power station from falling into enemy hands. Betas in this series have always been multiplayer only affairs, so shipping story content this early is a real statement of confidence. Weekend two, the open beta from August 28 at 10 AM PT to September 1, drops the preorder requirement, adds Nintendo Switch 2 as previously announced, and brings Warzone along too, with Resurgence landing on Zodiac, a brand new map set in a drone manufacturing headquarters.

Ranking up earns eight cosmetics that carry into the full game on October 23, from a Legendary emblem at level 4 to the Dread Tiger skin at level 20 and the Beta Forged blueprint for the Han 86 at level 30. Our advice has not changed since the dates were announced: everything worth judging here is free next weekend on every platform. But we will admit the content list is far meatier than the usual two maps and a mode, and putting a campaign mission in a beta is the kind of swing we would like to see more often.