Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer Review in Progress - Open Beta Impressions

ign.com:

Call of Duty is a known quantity in many ways at this point. The era, specific weapons, and flavor-of-the-year gimmicks might change, but as we round out two decades of annual iterations, it’s not hard to guess what the next one will bring. So it’s no surprise that after playing in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer open beta on PlayStation 5 for a good chunk of the weekend, the feeling I came away with was largely, “oh yeah, this is just more Call of Duty.” That doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun, and I still have a whole lot more left to see in the final version, but so far it feels modern in name alone.

The first thing I noticed when booting up Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer was how washed out everything looked. I thought maybe it was my monitor settings, but the actual game colors are just dull in a way that’s glaring compared to the vibrant styles of so many of its FPS rivals nowadays. Everything seemed to have an extremely soft and grey filter over it, which became a real problem mid-match. I was often unable to spot enemies as well as I normally can since they blend into the environment, at least on the four beta maps (Skidrow, Favela, Estate, and Rust).

Look, I get that these are supposed to be soldiers wearing camo in the middle of a battlefield, but I’m pretty sure my opponents and allies shouldn’t be roughly the same color as the graffitied wall behind them, too. If that contrast between environment and enemy isn’t balanced out, or if players aren’t highlighted or represented through HUD markings in a clearer way, then that’s a problem beyond style alone.

On top of that, with Call of Duty implementing so many different skins now that wildly vary in their colors and designs, Modern Warfare 3 could strangely