The second and final beta weekend for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has concluded without a notable increase in concurrent player numbers on Steam. This outcome persisted despite the inclusion of a sampler from Warzone's upcoming Resurgence map, two Ground War maps, and a substantial patch designed to address player feedback from the initial beta period.
The beta's peak concurrent player count of 115,145, achieved during the first weekend, was not surpassed. While Friday saw a brief spike to just over 113,000 players, likely influenced by interest in Warzone, the overall numbers on Steam remained largely unchanged throughout the second weekend. It is important to note that these figures do not account for player activity on PlayStation 5, Xbox, or the Switch 2, where player engagement could have differed.
Infinity Ward implemented significant gameplay changes for the second beta weekend in response to criticisms regarding movement and Time to Kill (TTK). Tactical Sprint was made a perk, removed from the default settings, and slide mechanics were nerfed by reducing their distance and speed. The delay between sliding and jumping was also increased. These adjustments aimed to address concerns about the game's pace feeling too fast and uncontrollable.
In addition to movement alterations, Infinity Ward reduced the damage output of all weapons in the beta to slow down the TTK. Spawns were also tweaked to reduce player spawn chaos, moving away from random placements to more predictable locations at the map's edges. Furthermore, Killstreaks were made more challenging to obtain by increasing the required kill count by one across the board, intended to prevent their excessive use.
These changes made the second beta weekend play considerably differently from the first. However, the data from Steam suggests that these adjustments, while offering a potentially different experience, did not translate into a significant resurgence of player interest.