Modern Warfare 4 early access: campaign reviews, price

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is not officially out until Friday, October 23, but its full single-player campaign is already playable. Campaign Early Access went live on Friday, October 16 for anyone who pre-ordered or pre-purchased a digital edition of the game, and the first wave of impressions from critics and players is far warmer than last year's Black Ops 7 got.

Here is what you get, what it costs, when DMZ and multiplayer unlock, why it is not on Game Pass, and what the early reviews actually say about the campaign.

How to play the Modern Warfare 4 campaign early

Activision says every player who digitally pre-orders or pre-purchases Modern Warfare 4 can play the entire campaign now. That covers both the Digital Standard Edition and the Vault Edition on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, PlayStation 5, Battle.net, Steam and Nintendo Switch 2. Physical (boxed) copies do not include early access.

Campaign Early Access runs until the full launch on October 23, and Nintendo's UK store listing, as reported by NextGenConsole, says a digital purchase made any time before launch still counts. Pure Xbox, going by the countdown on the official Call of Duty site, put the unlock at 10am PT on October 16 (5pm UTC, 10:30pm IST).

Modern Warfare 4 release dates: campaign, DMZ and launch

Activision is rolling the game out in three steps. The campaign opened on Friday, October 16 for digital pre-order buyers. DMZ, the extraction mode where you raid enemy territory for loot and objectives and try to get out alive, opens early for the same buyers on Tuesday, October 20 (Pacific time). Everything else, including multiplayer, unlocks for everyone on Friday, October 23.

Pure Xbox reports that Activision will launch the full game at midnight local time on October 23. Steam's store page currently lists the PC release as October 22, so PC players should check the countdown in their launcher. Activision notes that early access start times can change and may differ by time zone.

How much does Modern Warfare 4 cost?

In the US the Digital Standard Edition is $69.99 and the Vault Edition is $99.99, going by Steam's store listing, Pure Xbox and Nintendo's eShop (checked Oct 17, 2026). UK pricing is £69.99 and £99.99. Standard owners can upgrade to Vault later for $30, but physical copies cannot be upgraded.

Until launch, Activision is also offering a 10% loyalty discount on the Vault Edition if you own and have played a qualifying Call of Duty game (Modern Warfare 2019 or a later main entry, through Black Ops 7) on the same platform account. Eligible Game Pass players can get it on Xbox and Xbox on PC. The discount does not apply to Vault upgrades.

Every digital pre-order includes Campaign and DMZ Early Access, the Hunter Killer Operator skin, the Gilded Pearl weapon camo pack and the Inner Circuit M4 weapon blueprint, which gets a translucent green look on Xbox consoles for Xbox's 25th anniversary. The Vault Edition adds the Hostile Alliance and Special Forces operator packs, five signature weapon blueprints, one season of the BlackCell battle pass (with 1,100 COD Points and 20 tier skips) and a DMZ Deployment Bonus with an extra Active Duty slot and starter gear.

Is Modern Warfare 4 on Game Pass?

No. In an October 15 post, Activision confirmed that Modern Warfare 4 launches as a standalone release and will not be included with Game Pass at launch. It is due to join Game Pass in holiday 2027, about a year after release. Game Pass Ultimate members keep access to the older games in the catalogue: Black Ops 7, Black Ops 6 and Modern Warfare III.

That is a clear change from the last two years, when new Call of Duty games arrived on Game Pass on day one, and plenty of commenters on Xbox fan sites have pushed back on it. If you buy on the Xbox Store, Xbox Play Anywhere means the one purchase works on both console and PC.

What is the Modern Warfare 4 campaign about?

The story runs across 16 missions. You play mostly as Private Park Hyun Jun, a young South Korean soldier whose squad is fighting a full-scale North Korean invasion of the Korean Peninsula. A second storyline follows John Price, now a wanted outlaw, as he hunts the person pulling the strings behind the war. Activision lists trench warfare in Korea, close-quarters fights in New York, chases through Paris and SAS night raids in Mumbai among the settings.

Infinity Ward bills it as the conclusion of the rebooted Modern Warfare story that began in 2019. Finishing missions also unlocks rewards you can carry into multiplayer and DMZ at launch: eight base operators (Cho, Dallas, Luca, Oh-Ji, Kal, Dunn, West and Park) plus a calling card, loading screen, emblem and several double XP tokens.

Modern Warfare 4 campaign reviews: what critics say

There are no scored reviews yet, because outlets want time with multiplayer and DMZ on live servers first. But the review-in-progress pieces published since early access opened are broadly positive, as Kotaku summed up on October 17.

PC Gamer's Morgan Park called it the most fun he has had with a Call of Duty campaign in years, praising the young South Korean squad, big set pieces such as a beachfront counter attack, and a multi-hour mission called Stranded that drops the squad behind enemy lines in a small open area with side objectives and crafting. He estimated the campaign at about six hours and found the Price storyline rushed, saying actor Mads Mikkelsen is wasted in it.

GameSpot said the campaign ranks as the best since Modern Warfare 2019. IGN said it made its reviewer feel something for the series again and singled out the behind-enemy-lines mission, while stopping short of calling it one of the very best Call of Duty campaigns. GamesRadar was more reserved, and Destructoid said it is the best-looking game in the series on PC.

Players seem to agree so far. On Steam, user reviews for Modern Warfare 4 were rated Very Positive, with 873 of 1,012 reviews positive (about 86%), when we checked at 13:26 UTC on October 17. That number will move as more people play and multiplayer opens.

What about DMZ and multiplayer?

DMZ returns as an extraction mode set behind enemy lines, where every run into contested territory means choosing which objectives to chase, what to grab and when to leave. It opens early on October 20 for digital pre-order buyers. Multiplayer, including split-screen on Xbox Series X|S and PS5, waits for the October 23 launch.

You will need to stay online for more than the campaign. Activision says the game streams textures in every mode to keep the install smaller, so multiplayer (even private matches) and DMZ need a continuous internet connection. Online play on consoles needs PlayStation Plus, Game Pass Essential or Nintendo Switch Online, and Activision warns a mobile number linked to your Activision account may be required.

Download size and PC requirements

Make room before you buy. Pure Xbox puts the download at about 163GB on Xbox Series X|S and 115GB on PC, and the Nintendo eShop lists about 84.9GB for the Switch 2 version, according to NextGenConsole. Pre-loading is already open.

Activision's minimum PC specs are an AMD Ryzen 5 1400 or Intel Core i5-6600, 8GB of RAM and a Radeon RX 470, GeForce GTX 970/1060 or Intel Arc A580 with 3GB of video memory. The recommended specs are a Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i7-8700, 16GB of RAM and a Radeon RX 6600 XT, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or Intel Arc B580 with 8GB of video memory. Both need an SSD with 115GB free, and PC players must have TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot turned on.

Should you pre-order Modern Warfare 4 now?

If you were going to buy it anyway, pre-ordering digitally now gets you the whole campaign a week early, DMZ three days early and the pre-order cosmetics, and the early reviews suggest the campaign is worth playing rather than skipping. If you mainly play multiplayer, there is less reason to rush, since scored reviews will land after the servers go live.

If you were counting on Game Pass, the answer is to wait or pay: Modern Warfare 4 will not join the service until holiday 2027. We will update this story when scored reviews and launch-day details arrive.