Modern Warfare 2’s wide-open map design is great for FPS grandpas like me Leave a comment
As someone who loved the entirety of 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot, I’m sad to say that, against expectations, I found the MW2 campaign to be largely underwhelming. But its multiplayer – launch woes aside – is the most fun I’ve had playing Call of Duty in ages.
I could draft an entire article about how the gunplay has never felt better, or how Infinity Ward has once again taken big swings to push the core CoD formula forward in meaningful ways. After two extremely predictable premium releases in Black Ops: Cold War (2020) and Vanguard (2021), Modern Warfare 2 feels like returning home. Yes, the current UI is unbelievably rough and the new perk system will cause more balance issues than usual, but its MP core is rock-solid – especially in the selection of maps that don’t feel like three-lane slaughterhouses that actively kill brain cells.
That last statement might be the “nah, I’m done” point for many hardcore CoD players reading this piece, but bear with me. I’m well aware of the inclination of a good portion of these games’ community towards more traditional three-lane maps with clear lines of sight and easy-to-memorize corners; those are easier to “make work” for competitive play after all. But that’s not what most maps used to feel like in the most beloved CoD entries from the PS3/360 era.
