Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
A year ago, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 threw the PC gaming space for a loop when Activision and Treyarch announced that it would forego a Steam release in favor of Battle.net, which had primarily been home to games from publishing partner Blizzard Entertainment. It raised a few questions as to whether this would become the new normal for the Call of Duty franchise. Those questions picked up steam (no, not Steam) with the announcement that the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will go the same route and release its PC version on Blizzard's Battle.net client.
This will be only the third first-person shooter to grace the Battle.net client, following last year's Black Ops 4 and Bungie's Destiny 2. Treyarch noted at the time that it was receiving assistance from developer Beenox for the PC version and while Activision has not specified that they are working on that iteration of the game, Beenox is indeed insisting Infinity Ward in some capacity. Meanwhile, Infinity Ward is putting many of its resources on the PC version, as well. This includes the game's all-new proprietary engine, which will utilize photogrammetry and DirectX Raytracing to build the PC version into the most visually-appearling Call of Duty game so far.
With news that Activision and Infinity Ward will utilize cross-play support for PC and console owners, this will make Modern Warfare the first game on the Battle.net client to support playing with console users. While Blizzard's Overwatch is on both PC and console, the game does not support cross-play just yet.
Modern Warfare opting for Battle.net is also newsworthy in the wake of the burgeoning client wars between Steam and Epic Games. While an increasing number of games have opted to go Epic exclusive, including some from major publishers, Activision is steering clear of that entire can of worms by instead opting for its own solution.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is set to release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 25. For more, be sure to check out our early preview of the game's single-player campaign.