Call of Duty: Modern Warfare seems to keep missing the mark. Senior communications manager Ashton Williams teased patch 1.09 or “the big update” on November 10. The community rallied in excitement for upcoming changes and overhauls, but as the patch notes show, that’s not quite what 1.09 is.
New ways to play in patch 1.09
One critique of Modern Warfare was a lack of game modes at launch. Patch 1.09 aims to fix this issue, but not necessarily in the expected way. Realism Moshpit was added with 1.09, which has a love/hate relationship within the community.
However, Gun Game was also added, a mode that is a fun break away from intense warfare. Custom games with friends provides a great laugh and hopping in a Gun Game match online bears no surprises. You know what you’re getting, quite literally.
New Special Operations missions have been added to Modern Warfare in patch 1.09 too: Harbinger, Brimstone, and Door Kick.
Patching out Modern Warfare bugs
Patch 1.09 introduced a number of fixes for bugs and glitches, so let’s discuss the most important ones.
Thermal scopes are now able to see through smoke grenades. This is huge for competitive play, but it also benefits casual matchmaking. Smokes are very strong in Modern Warfare because they have no counter. Trophies will break them, but usually trophies are used defensively and so are smokes. Snipers can now hold choke points and counter smoke crosses and pushes.
The mounting glitch in Search and Destroy is also fixed. This was a glitch where a player could aim in and get the mount prompt, which is normal, but once a bomb was being planted or defused, the mount prompt would disappear. This resulted in a lot of disqualifications on online tournaments and an overall displeasure with the game mode.
The camera glitch in Cyber Attack and Search and Destroy appears to be fixed as well. No more skycam callouts and unfair advantages in these one-life modes.
What is missing?
Only one weapon was touched from a performance standpoint in Modern Warfare 1.09. The FN SCAR 17 got a buff to its ADS speed and a reduction to barrel and bipod penalties. This is good for the SCAR, but it’s disappointing that the M4A1 continues to be the best weapon in the game by a long shot. The MP5 has gotten better, but it is still nowhere close to the M4. Meta and better weapons will always exist, but it feels like the M4 in Modern Warfare is the only viable choice given its power. There are five custom classes in multiplayer, and almost every player I have talked to or played with has an M4 class and the weapon is higher-level than all their others.
Controversy around Dead Silence also continues. Many players are calling for Dead Silence to be a perk. Others are even asking to have the option to disable footsteps in custom matches. An internal note was accidentally left in the Battle.net patch notes on release. “[Dead Silence] is a hot topic in the community, and this is not the change they were hoping to see,” read the patch notes. “Our core players want to see footstep volume dramatically reduced.” It remains to be seen what Infinity Ward will do.
Finally, the new mini-map in Modern Warfare has disappointed long-time fans of the Call of Duty genre. Enemies on the mini-map no longer illuminate red when they shoot. This feature was replaced by a compass at the top of the screen. The issue with the compass is that it doesn’t give very precise target locations. Despite having more navigation tools, it is very hard to tell where enemies are aside from their general direction. Core players want to see the regular mini-map make a return but are unsure if that will happen. Looks like we need to start learning true north.
Stay tuned for developments in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
