Activision has announced that the Modern Warfare 2 beta was the largest playtest in Call of Duty history, and the devs at Infinity Ward have detailed some of the planned improvements to the final game based on player feedback.
While Activision did not provide specific numbers, the Modern Warfare 2 beta had more players, more hours played, and more matches played than any other beta in the series' history. The stat combines players, playtime, and matches across PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, and PC, according to the company's announcement.
The one set of numbers we can confirm is the beta's concurrent Steam player count. The open beta peaked with 168,330 players in-game at once, as SteamDB shows. That's right around the peak you'd expect for a beta from a major series - the Battlefield 2042 reached 156k players a year ago - though this stat notably does not include any PC players who got into the Modern Warfare 2 beta through Activision's own Battle.net.
Developer Infinity Ward notes that there are some changes coming for issues players noted over the course of the beta. They're aiming to have improvements to the balance of footstep audio and enemy visibility in time for launch, as well as tweaks for disbanding lobbies. They're also looking into refinements for shoulder-swapping in the third-person mode, and AI improvements for Invasion mode.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 officially launches on October 28, though the campaign will come over a week early to digital pre-order customers on October 20.
There's been a lot of Modern Warfare 2 play around the offices, and we're both shocked at how good third-person mode is and how much we enjoy being forced to slow down.
