Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s Gunfight alpha was a great anticipation builder

Activision and Infinity Ward just finished up a weekend with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s Gunfight mode in alpha. It was open to all players, even those who hadn’t pre-ordered the game yet. I spent quite a bit of time in both Gunfight and Gunfight OSP modes and here are my thoughts.

This post will mainly focus on the actual gameplay of Gunfight mode if you want to learn more, read up in our announcement post here.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Gunfight mode alpha

When I first logged onto Gunfight mode, the graphics weren’t the best, and gameplay was a tad janky…but it had only just been released and there were quite a few patches that needed to take place. After a few updates happened over the course of a couple of hours, things smoothed out quite well.

The gameplay was quite good for an alpha, honestly. The movement was smooth (though took a little getting used to) and the gunplay was fantastic. I loved the variation in weapons and how they worked, and can’t wait to get into Create a Class when the full game comes out in October.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Gunfight maps

The maps were actually…quite awesome. At first, I wasn’t a huge fan of the über small versions of some maps but really grew to enjoy it. The close-quarters combat style of the game really played well with the smaller footprint of maps instead of something much larger, though I’d love to see how that’d work out.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Gunfight guns and weapons

The gun selection was actually quite vast. Though you couldn’t necessarily choose what your loadout was, in OSP mode (more on that in a moment), you had the choice of which weapon you picked up.

The way each gun works was fantastic. The visuals were stunning and each gun of different calibers reacted as it should when being fired. Some weapons (like the .50 pistol) had massive recoil when firing and took down opponents in just a few shots, while others (M19) offered less recoil and required more hits to kill.

I also loved that some weapons offered single fire, burst fire, or fully automatic modes that you could switch between during gameplay. This allowed me to hone in on an opponent with single fire for increased accuracy, or just go all-out with a “spray and pray” method, hoping a stray bullet would land a headshot.

Grenades and specialty items were quite interesting and took a moment to get used to. While I’m used to being able to throw a grenade or stun the moment a match starts, especially on a smaller map, that just wasn’t so in the alpha. There were about five seconds from the start of a match until you could use your equipment, but once I learned that, it made me play much differently than I normally would have.

The one really interesting thing here is that you can shoot your rocket or grenade launcher the moment a match starts. I’m not sure if this will get updated and patched, or if it was intentional. But, it made things quite interesting when on a smaller, enclosed map.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Gunfight game modes

There were two game modes playable during the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Gunfight alpha; standard Gunfight and Gunfight OSP.

Standard Gunfight

This is the mode that we wrote about last week during the announcement of this alpha. Each team of two starts out with identical weapons and loadouts. The announcer would count down, and you’d begin, attempting to be the first to attack your opponent.
There was no method of auto-healing during the alpha, and you were only able to top off health if you happened to get a stim shot in your loadout. This actually made me play much more tactical than had I auto healed, as once I was shot, I was much more cautious walking around the map.

Gunfight OSP

This mode was probably my favorite. The best way to describe it is a battle royale 2v2, without having to drop in. You’d start the match with zero weapons outside of your first, and would pick up guns, tactical equipment, and other perks (like stim shots) as you’d go. You’d have to hurry, as if the other team grabbed a better weapon first, they could easily get the drop on you.

It wasn’t hard to get a gun, though sometimes getting the gun you’d want would take some practice. Unlike battle royale games, however, the guns never changed position. Throughout several rounds, the same guns were always in the same positions. Though I do enjoy this, as I can build a strategy of where to go as soon as the timer finishes, I would enjoy it if the game shared up placement a bit, even just varying what guns are placed in the same areas.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare overall impressions

Overall, I was very impressed with the gameplay of this alpha. There was one point where the servers crashed, but Infinity Ward was aware of it within minutes, already taking to Twitter to let its users know that they were working on a resolution.

The gameplay was very smooth, the guns seemed amazing, and I am very excited for the game to launch come October (or the beta in September).

Are you excited for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare? Did you play the alpha this past weekend? Let us know in the comments below or on social media. Be sure to tag @pcamp96 and @9to5toys in all tweets about the game, as we’d love to see what you have to say!

Images via Call of Duty and Infinity Ward

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