Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is just hours away from release now, and the excitement is palpable.
The usual crowds on Xbox and Playstation are gearing up, with a few exceptions who paid a massive premium to get the game early, and this time we also have a PC launch that has generated a lot of hype.
What time is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare released?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will be released at 2am BST / 3am CEST on October 25th, 2019. For North American fans, that's 6pm PT / 9pm ET on October 24th.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. It is not available on Nintendo Switch.
Gameplay hints
So, ahead of release, what do we know about the game so far?
Early looks at the action seem promising, with Call of Duty Modern Warfare not quite as ‘modern’ as Black Ops 3 was, but still a far cry from the boots-on-the-ground drudgery everyone claimed to want pre-WW2, and then instantly hated when it came out.
The gunplay is somewhat reminiscent of games like Battlefield, compared to older CoD titles, with recoil actually a factor that players have to account for.
The esports angle
You can expect to see the likes of Shroud, Dr Disrespect and maybe Ninja playing on release day, but the hardcore fans will gravitate towards the gods of the game rather than the kings of Twitch. Among the biggest names in Call of Duty are Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, Damon ‘Karma’ Barlow and Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter, former team-mates on OpTic who have since gone their separate ways. In the lead-up to release, it’s fair to say the parting was far from amicable, and Crims has gone out of his way to let the world know.
For those not aware, OpTic Gaming is perhaps the greatest name in Call of Duty esports, pre-franchise. The long history Activision chose to sell down the river in exchange for a quick franchise payday saw OpTic as arguably the dominant team down the years, with the four-man team of Scump, Karma, Crimsix and Matthew ‘Formal’ Piper the ‘dynasty’ roster.
That side fell apart a while back, but Scump, Karma and Crims ended up on the same roster in the fallout, eventually moving to play with the world’s least imaginative man Thomas ‘TJHaly’ Haly and Brandon "Dashy" Otell, a young charger who really came into his own in Black Ops 4. From the outside, the potential of the team seemed near limitless, but it turns out that things in camp were far from rosy, as a guest editorial published by Dexerto, and penned by Crims, revealed this week.
As it turns out, there was tension, anger, unprofessionalism and outright hatred in the team for the last year of the OpTic story, which has left Crims with an axe to grind and a grudge to hold. Nobody remembers like the Crimbot, as CoD fans know, and his reunion with James ‘Clayster’ Eubanks has put him right alongside one of the greatest winners esports has seen, ready to make money and pop heads in the new esports scene.
Watch the latest Call of Duty live streams
No such thing as bad publicity
Whichever side of the fence you come down on in terms of Crimsix vs Scump, there is no doubt this has acted as incredible advertising for the new league, and created storylines that the franchise system is sorely lacking. The league can use the OpTic name for a team all they want, but that organisation is dead for most fans, with former owner H3CZ now over at NRG, who sold their top-three CSGO side to pay for a CoD franchise spot.
That might make the average reader question the veracity of the beef, but Crimsix has never been one to mince his words, and reactions from others around the situation suggest there is something there, even if it’s been dramatized a touch.
The first meeting between the Dallas Empire, where Crims and Clay will play, and whichever team Scump, Dashy and the like end up on should be spicy indeed, and that’s Call of Duty spicy, which actually means something.
With the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare release, this weekend will be a great time for you to check out the action if you’re still on the fence about investing in the new CoD, as we stated above, and if you tune into the Crimsix stream you now have the added bonus of potential spicy beef added to your steaming bowl of first person shooter.
Ahead of the new season, we seem to be in store for some extremely competitive, emotionally charged play between gods of the game, some of whom have a serious axe to grind.
Pictures: Activision
