Don’t expect to fly around like super soldiers in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer. That was so last year. And in 2025, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 wasn’t as popular with gamers as Activision had hoped.
But this year, Infinity Ward is sticking with “grounded” and “fluid” movement, based on my visit to a press briefing at Infinity Ward’s headquarters in Los Angeles. The game has a number of innovations like the Kill Block mode that reconfigures the map between rounds as well as the DMZ extraction mode that isn’t being talked about much yet. But at its core is 6v6 multiplayer combat.
The game tears up some staples and features a return to some basic fairness issues with its core shooting mechanics. When you shoot at an enemy at close range or from a distance, you can expect that bullet to fly true to the target, rather than randomly “bloom” into different directions. It’s more precise. I know because others had no problem taking me down during a handful of multiplayer sessions that I played.
I was able to play the Silkworm map set in the center of Seoul in South Korea, the main setting for the game as North Korea invades South Korea. I also played Kill Block, which tests your skill over your ability to memorize maps. The game felt familiar, and I was able to hold my own in 6v6 combat. But in Kill Block, I didn’t fare as well.
The details on multiplayer mode for MW4
The devs said Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer delivers grounded, precise combat where fluid movement, player choice, and greater control define every engagement.
The multiplayer designers, led by Geoff Smith and Joe Cecot, the studio multiplayer creative directors, said they wanted multiplayer to be slick and sophisticated while still gritty and grounded with current military technology. They absorbed the lessons of new tech from modern drones, but they also wanted to have a cinematic flare in firefights.
“We’ve loaded the levels with all these items that are interacting with gunfire and explosions,” Smith said. “Things fly off the shelves when you shoot them. Potted plants explode and fire hydrants will pop and explode and spray water everywhere.”
There’s a new explosive shockwave system that will send concussive force against you. Instead of killing you, it might just knock you down and really shake you up.
“All these things work together to give us these great movie moments that happen just organically in every match,” Smith said. “We as a studio really strive for authenticity with everything we make, except where it might add frustration into the gameplay. We want you to feel like a badass when you play our game, not fumbling around with your weapon or stripping when you go through a windowsill. We want you to move through our world smoothly and feel like a well-trained operator.”
So the team dug into a lot of the older animations and movement sets and tried to find little hitches and transitions and help the game feel very smooth, he said.
“When we merge this together, it gives us this perfect balance of highly detailed dynamic environments in this fluid and fun gameplay,” Smith said.
Cecot said the challenge was to build a responsive first-person shooter that’s still grounded in realism.
“How do we make a game where the tactical player and the fast-run-and-gun player each feel like they found the perfect game for them? It’s this question that has guided us. It’s every time we’ve made a new piece of equipment, a new weapon feature, a new movement mechanic, it’s going to answer this question,” Cecot said.
Jacky Reynolds, multiplayer design lead, and Jack Hoppus, technical designer, showed off a fluid movement system where you can run through an environment like a boot camp training map and slide from a run into a ladder where you can position yourself to go down it quickly. The systems for sliding, mantling, climbing, and others have been completely rebuilt from the ground up, they said.
As an example, you can mantle over an obstacle and interrupt the movement, or you can hang from a ledge, pull out a pistol, and move up and down from cover as you fire at someone else. From these movements, you can assemble gameplay maneuvers that can enable you to get the drop on others and find a balance between realism and fun, the two Jacks said.
Another example is the nuances around your field of view when you are looking at a target. If you aim down the sites with a gun, you can lose situational awareness of what’s around you even as you see a target. In the past, a wider field of view caused a target to feel further way than they really were. Now, with enhanced field of view, you can see things around you while still seeing a clear target. It’s a small thing, but something that makes the shooting easier.
Ballistic Authority
For Modern Warfare 4, a new weapon-first technology stack unifies precision aiming, physical handling, realistic audio propagation, enhanced visibility, and smarter combat perception into the most authentic Modern Warfare gunplay yet.
Activision says that Modern Warfare 4 delivers the most immersive and technically advanced Call of Duty ever built.
For instance, the bullet spray from a gun used to have a random misfire periodically, so when you’re firing at a target, some bullets just go astray. But in this game, the bullets that you fire on target will hit that target. And you’ll be able to see that target better as you aim down the sites. Instead of getting blurry, you can aim down the sites and see a sharper target that isn’t obscured by your crosshairs.
Bullet trajectory, weapon motion, Operator stance, camera, audio, FOV, and target visibility all line up in one highly tuned combat fidelity system. The promise is simple: no bloom (where your bullets spiral out of control), no guesswork, and no doubt. Every shot tells the truth.
Weapon bloom has been removed from hipfire, making shots feel more connected to where the weapon is pointed while delivering consistent, predictable, and fair gunplay.
Movement is grounded and built for fluid transitions and greater control, giving players new ways to push forward, change angles, and adapt under pressure.
On day one, players will deploy across 12 all-new core 6v6 maps set in visually and tactically distinct locations around the world, built to support a range of playstyles from tight close-quarters combat to more open engagements.
Beyond the core 6v6 offering, Multiplayer also features dedicated Gunfight maps, multiple Big War maps built for vehicle and infantry combat. One of the maps I played was Silkworm, set in an urban downtown full of colorful entertainment, shattering glass, and narrow passageways. It was a game where coordinated enemies could block access to different combat lanes.
Kill Block
I had a chance to play a number of rounds of Kill Block, a dynamic battleground with more than 500 configurations that reshape routes, sightlines, and cover to keep players adapting round after round.
In Kill Block, you can play 10v10, 2v2, or 1v1 Gunfight duels between two teams. The terrain changes every round and so you don’t have a chance of memorizing the map. Instead, you have to rely on skill alone to win. The maps are about the size of Shoothouse.
There’s a part of the game that benefits from AI, where the artificial intelligence can recommend the best loadout for you based on the level you’re at and the weapons and attachments that you carry. This Gunny system brings a Gunnery Sergeant’s eye weapon customization, helping players quickly assemble effective builds based on their preferred playstyle and unlocked attachments.
The game has expanded, streamlined customization that puts more control in players’ hands, with a unified loadout system, robust Gunsmith, and more weapons, equipment, and killstreaks at launch.
Apex Attachments unlock at max weapon progression, evolving each weapon with new behaviors that open up additional tactical playstyles.
Modern Warfare 4 introduces greater player choice through two Prestige paths: Classic Prestige and Regular Prestige. Classic Prestige delivers the traditional reset experience, relocking Create-a-Class progression in exchange for increased XP earn rates and access to exclusive Prestige rewards.
As for Apex attachments, these are the final unlock in your weapon progression journey. These things totally change the way that your gun plays. You can get your shotgun to load explosive rounds that can drastically extend the range of lethality. The riot shield is coming back as a field upgrade, but it’s breakable.
DMZ
Activision isn’t saying much about the DMZ experience yet, which is presumably an answer to games like ARC Raiders, Marathon or Escape From Tarkov. But you have to figure that it’s going to be intense, given its setting in Korea.
Returning from its beta in 2022, DMZ is the definitive Call of Duty extraction experience, a living combat sandbox where every deployment is a new story. Deploy solo or with a squad into a volatile conflict zone as an off-the-books asset tasked with recovering advanced military technology left in the wake of war. The conditions in the exclusion zone are always shifting, with changing weather, dynamic military objectives, and hostile forces moving throughout the zone.
Loot, fight, negotiate, betray, and extract with whatever you can carry. The harder you push, the harder the world pushes back. Every run is a risk, every encounter is a choice, and no two deployments play out the same way. Stay tuned for more on DMZ and Warzone.
Disclosure: Activision paid my way to the event.