It’s the year 2007. I’m in middle school and experiencing games like Halo and Call of Duty for the first time at friends’ houses. I’m more into Nintendo games, turn-based RPG’s, platformers, and adventure games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on my friend Ryan’s Playstation 3 is my first time playing a military shooter. The gameplay was in a perspective I had little familiarity with, exploration wasn’t a focus as much as learning the layout of the map and being on the lookout for enemies. Your weapon feels powerful and handling it has a much larger degree of skill than the games I was used to. We played for hours messing around or taking the matches seriously, sometimes screen peaking, and just having a joy taking each other out and gaining the advantage.
It’s an experience with friends I personally haven’t had in years.
Nowadays, I mostly play games on PS4/Switch and my tastes in game genres haven’t really changed. Most of my friends big into multiplayer shooters play on PC and Xbox, while I mostly stick to single-player games.
Call of Duty, like most massive franchises, has difficulty pleasing its fans. For the past few years, it’s jumped between classic boots-on-the-ground gunfights to a more futuristic approach with all sorts of unique gadgets and parkour. What will never change is it’s fast and exhilarating multiplayer and how fun it is to play with friends. Now thanks to crossplay, something that Sony has struggled with for most games, someone like me can play Call of Duty with friends that are apart of the series’ target audience. Regards of what platform they’re on; PS4, Xbox One or even the PC.
The PS4 open beta for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ends today. Early access will be open to Xbox One and PC on September 19th at 10 AM PT, while PS4 players will get to play the beta on the same day. All three players will get access on September 20th at 6 PM PT. You can read the developer update here.
