During the Call of Duty: Next event, Activision released a heap of information about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II multiplayer. The company revealed a third-person mode, a new Gunsmith, AI enemies, underwater combat, and a lot more.
One of the highlights of the reveal is the new Gunsmith, which functions similarly to previous iterations, with a new twist: now, certain attachments such as Ammunition, Muzzles, Underbarrels, and Optics are unlocked universally, removing the need to grind as much. Weapons will still require you to unlock specific attachments like you normally would, still offering a meaningful sense of progression.
Modern Warfare II will also incorporate a large Team Deathmatch mode called Invasion, which will function like Ground War and will feature AI enemies, alongside 20v20 battles. Based on the reveal, it seems Invasion is the only mode that will include AI enemies, so as to keep things as balanced as possible.
Infinity Ward has also incorporated a third-person mode into the game’s multiplayer, which will feature its own dedicated playlists. The developer said it has worked on this for a long time and it’ll be interesting to see how it’s implemented in the full version.
Underwater combat is new to this year’s installment too. Some maps feature bodies of water that players can swim — and even shoot through — serving as an interesting change of pace for multiplayer battles. Bullets travel more slowly through the water, so players will want to utilize it to hopefully escape enemy gunfire.
Also expect a lot more Field Upgrades, the return of Spec Ops, and plenty of new (and returning) weapons to choose from.
The Modern Warfare II multiplayer beta goes live for PlayStation players on September 16, and the full game launches on October 28.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.