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Why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Is Losing Players


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is losing players, more and more with each passing day, so much so that (based on the latest leaks) Activision is axing the plan for Modern Warfare II to be a two-year CoD and instead will launch another full-fat Call of Duty later on in 2023 as usual.

But, of course, this all begs the question: What went wrong with Modern Warfare II, what happened? Not to worry, because in this article, we'll tell you why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is losing players.

Related: A New Premium Call of Duty Game Is Coming in 2023

Game Balance and Design Problems

Game Balance and Design Problems
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Credit: Activision

First up, some of the biggest problems with the game come down to its core design and balance.

Take weapon attachments, for example. Almost every attachment reduces your ADS speed, and considering the time-to-kill in Modern Warfare II is so fast, well, losing ADS speed is usually a big time, so oftentimes, equipping too many attachments on your gun just isn't even worth it, which massively cuts down on the fun of being able to kit out your own weapons.

Then, there are familiar problems like suppressed weapons not taking you off the minimap, no traditional Ninja-style perk, or Ghost not requiring you to move around to not pop up on the minimap when a UAV is active. The return of Dead Silence as a field upgrade, and only way to make yourself actually silent, is another big pain point.

Lastly, not to be forgotten, are the totally needless innovations in the game that nobody asked for and nobody wanted, like timed perks. Who wants to not have all of their selected perks when the game starts and only get the full suite of them a couple of minutes before the game ends? Nobody!

Related: Treyarch vs Infinity Ward: Who Makes a Better Call of Duty?

Spawns

Game Balance and Design Problems 2
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Credit: Activision

Another one of the key issues with Modern Warfare II, like Modern Warfare (2019) comes down to spawns.

Traditionally, Call of Duty has had spawn zones on either side of a map with secondary spawn locations closer to the center of the map. And depending on the mode and where enemies are located, you'll spawn in a particular zone. It's not too hard to understand where enemies are coming from with this system, and if you're a decent player, you can manipulate spawns to your advantage.

With Modern Warfare II, you get squad spawns. Essentially, the game just spawns you next to your teammates. With this system, you never really can keep a good sense ofquickly where enemies are coming from, and you're constantly going to spawn into situations where you quicky get shot from a direction you weren't expecting. In short, it massively messes with the flow of gameplay in almost every map and mode in the game.

Updates and Fresh Content

Game Balance and Design Problems 3
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Credit: Activision

Another key issue with Modern Warfare II comes down to its live service component.

Firstly, the game launched with a decent amount of content in terms of maps, guns, modes, etcetera, but nothing insane or record-breaking, while the post-launch content the game's gotten has been lackluster. A remastered map here, a new map there, a new gun. Nothing particularly impressive. But that's only the beginning of a disappointing story.

Related: What's Going On With Rebirth and Fortune's Keep in Warzone?

When the news broke that Activision was planning on launching an all-new Call of Duty in 2023, the idea was that the big content expansion that was planned for Modern Warfare II was being converted into a full-fledged game of its own, meaning that there was a whole year less of content coming to the game as well as no big ambitious expansion.

Plus, if Activision's studios are hard at work on a new game that needs to be built on an even tighter schedule than usual, that likely means less bandwidth for these studios to work on live service content for Modern Warfare II.

Warzone 2

Game Balance and Design Problems 4
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Credit: Activision

Another key part of the puzzle comes down to Warzone 2, which is itself a part of the larger Modern Warfare II package.

Warzone 2, in general, is not particularly well-liked by fans, and it's nowhere near as successful as the first game. The problem comes down to a lot of Warzone's core gameplay loop of getting loadouts quickly and into the action fast, as best represented by the Resurgence mode on Rebirth Island and Fortune's keep, while Warzone 2 is a much slower, more tactical experience that has a lot less to do with loadouts.

Related: Should You Buy: PC, PS5/Xbox, or Steam Deck?

In a rather unsurprising of events, most fans of the original Warzone aren't huge fans of the changes in Warzone 2, and considering that Rebirth and Fortune's Keep were removed from the original game, and all that was left was Caldera, it's not even like you can really get the original Warzone experience anymore, even if you wanted it. Altogether, Warzone is just a much less active game in the era of Warzone 2 than it was before.

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