The Single Biggest Difference Between ‘Modern Warfare II’ And ‘Modern Warfare III’ After Playing The Beta

I’ve played many, many hours of the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III beta both weekends, and while my overall sense is that this game is a lot of fun and one that I’ll definitely put hundreds of hours into in the coming year, I definitely have a lot of complaints as well.

I listed the things I love about the game—and the things I hate—in my last post on the matter. In this post, I want to talk about the bigger picture, and how these two games differ on a deeper, more fundamental level. Depending on what you love about Call Of Duty, and what style of gameplay you prefer, you might enjoy one more than the other. Modern Warfare II has changed drastically since launch, of course, and I expect we’ll see major changes to Modern Warfare III in the coming months as well.

But deep down, MWII remains much the same game with the same design philosophy it was at launch, and I suspect the same will remain true for its successor.

So what is this big difference and how will does it manifest in both games? Well I’m glad you asked. Let’s dive right in!

The Biggest Difference Between MWII & MWIII

There were a number of controversial and divisive design decisions that Infinity Ward implemented in Modern Warfare II right out the gates. Of these, only one was really axed completely almost immediately following beta feedback.

That was the removal of diamonds and nameplates over player heads that help you identify friend vs foe. It’s funny looking back on this post of mine detailing changes from the MWII beta to launch. Not only did they add back in the diamonds, they lowered the volume of teammate footsteps—something I hope Sledgehammer does with MWIII. Ironically, both player visibility and footsteps have much the same problem in both games’ betas. It would be neat if this could be addressed before the beta next time since it’s such a recurring problem!

In any case, what remained controversial in MWII were primarily two things (or at least two things that I think are relevant to this discussion—menus are super controversial in both games, but both share the same DNA and so aren’t worth discussing in a comparison post).

• First, Dead Silence was a Field Upgrade in MWII just like in MW 2019. This meant that players couldn’t just equip a perk and do away with their footstep sounds altogether, which is a hugely powerful perk and one that, in my opinion, really messes up game balance without an appropriate counter (more on that in a second). Having Dead Silence as a Field Upgrade requires you to use it judiciously, for instance when you need to sneak past enemies to go defuse the bomb. When you have to make a hard choice about how to approach a situation, that’s what we call “tactics.”
• Second, the mini-map did not display red dots whenever anyone was shooting, and the Ghost perk allowed you to remain hidden from UAVs even when standing totally still. This created a game that was slower-paced, allowing for use of what is known as “camping”. Camping is when you don’t run-and-gun, but rather hold a point and wait for enemies to approach. With Ghost, you could hide without ever showing up on the mini-map. With the mini-map not revealing red dots whenever you shoot, you have even more concealment. This led to less running-and-gunning and a somewhat slower-paced, more tactical shooter. Players also had to listen for shots and determine where players were based on sound, intuition, etc. Tools like the Drill Charge helped push campers out of their hidey-holes.

In Modern Warfare III, Dead Silence is once again a perk (in the form of Covert Sneakers) and the mini-map has reverted to its classic form, showing red dots whenever a non-silenced weapon is fired. This means that anybody who wants to run-and-gun can do so completely silently for the entire match and camping is once again a more challenging (though not impossible) strategy. Even with ghost, if you stop moving even briefly you’ll show up on the mini-map (oddly, if you don’t equip Ghost and just stand still and don’t fire your gun, you won’t show up on the map).

This makes MWIII a much more arcadey version of Call Of Duty. It’s faster, both in terms of movement and in terms of strategy and tactics. There is a much lower penalty to just running guns blazing at all times and a much higher penalty for taking things more slowly.

Obviously, this will appeal to gamers who prefer faster, more frenetic gameplay and will turn off players who prefer more strategic gameplay. I enjoy both styles of gameplay, personally, but I am definitely more of a tactical shooter fan, and I love that MWII took a franchise that’s often very arcadey and leaned more heavily into the tactical elements. I will miss that a lot with MWIII (along with the much better sound design and graphics). Still, I’m okay with changing it up, I just worry that Activision will learn the wrong lesson and we’ll never get another game like MWII again, which would be a shame. I think it built on a lot of 2019’s strengths while making cool and innovative changes. And we have Black Ops for fast-paced arcade shooting. Not every game—least of all MW games—need to be more Blops!

What do you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.