Preview: The Modern Warfare 3 beta feels best without nostalgia

destructoid.com:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 releases as a full-price title on November 10, 2023, continuing the long-running annualized schedule, for better or worse. Sledgehammer Games released the MW3 multiplayer beta for players to preview ahead of the game’s full launch, complete with several game modes and maps to explore.

At its core, the Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer beta feels like this strange mashup of the old and new. On the one hand, so many aspects about this latest title center on the original maps from 2009’s Modern Warfare 2 and the look 2022’s MW2. But on the opposite end, it features its own mix of new features like new movement and weapons. These aspects results in a mixed but somewhat promising new release.

The bulk of the Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer beta is the original maps from MW2. Locations like Estate, Rust, Highrise, and so on are 14-year-old maps returning for this new game. For the most part, these locations feature a slick new set of paint but otherwise have the same layout back in the day.

This results in situations where some maps, such as Highrise and Skidrow, feel pretty good but a bit faster than some players might remember due to the new movement mechanics. These two maps, in particular, felt fun to play for every game mode in the title, including Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Domination, and Hardpoint.

However, outside of those two, the multiplayer suite became a bit messier. Estate feels a bit too awkward in its larger size and weird elevation levels, while Rust and Favela are far too small to work for most game modes outside of Team Deathmatch. In the full release with classic maps like Terminal and Scrapyard, multiplayer should feel better, but this was an odd selection to show in the