Summary
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will have a large amount of content, including a vast arsenal of weapons from its predecessor and new ones.
- The overwhelming number of weapons could create a balancing issue in the game, potentially leading to certain guns being overpowered and dominating the meta.
- The constant updates and fine-tuning of weapons in Call of Duty games make balancing even more challenging, and the influx of weapons in MW3 may exacerbate this problem.
The upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is already drawing attention due to the sheer amount of content that its online mode is set to possess. Interestingly, the release is closely tied to its predecessor, with a lot of content and multiplayer progression carrying over between the two games.
This led to a huge amount of weapons being present in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, with the entire arsenal of Modern Warfare 2 existing alongside a big batch of new firearms. While this is great in bolstering the variety of MW3's multiplayer, it could easily lead to a huge balancing problem for the title. With this already being a persistent issue for Call of Duty, such a staggering amount of weapons could make the issue that much worse for the inbound release.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Weapon Balancing
As Call of Duty's annual releases grow in scale, the amount of weapons in a given title is always increasing to create a greater sense of variety for players. 2022's Modern Warfare 2 wowed players with its 51 weapons at launch, with this number only increasing with post-launch content updates. This is set to take a huge step forward in Modern Warfare 3, with all of MW2's weapons carrying over alongside 38 new guns for the title. Alongside MW2's weapons, this is all the other content that will carry forward into MW3:
- Unlocked operators and unlocked operator skins
- Weapon blueprints
- Weapon cosmetics, calling cards, emblems, loading screens, and vehicle skins
This brings Modern Warfare 3's minimum launch weapon count up to 89, beating Call of Duty: WW2's previous record of 77 guns. As is the case with most modern competitive shooters, a lot of Call of Duty weapons receive extensive balancing changes throughout a game's life cycle, preventing overpowered guns from dominating the meta and ensuring that lesser-used weapons get a time in the spotlight.
Balancing has only been made more difficult in recent years thanks to Call of Duty's new weapon tuning system, which allows players to take a microscopic approach to tweak how any weapon works in-game. This leads to a huge amount of fine mechanics that need to be perfectly balanced across each weapon, which is quite a difficult task for modern CoD releases.
In this way, it is clear to see why Modern Warfare 3's huge influx of weapons might impact the title and its balancing. With close to 90 unique weapons being present in MW3 from launch, Sledgehammer Games somehow needs to keep track of a huge balancing pool, making it more likely for certain weapons to slip through the cracks. The amount of Modern Warfare 3's weapons will only increase following seasonal updates, potentially creating a snowball effect of balancing issues where the game cannot keep up with its own level of content.
It would not be surprising if MW3 has several weapons that are considered overpowered at any given time, potentially having disastrous consequences for the title's multiplayer metas. Ironically, MW3's large weapon count could end up completely killing the variety of weapon usage in the game, the very thing that it was supposed to bolster in the first place. This big downside could be mitigated by intense analysis and frequent changes on Sledgehammer Games' part, but it is still an element of the game that could be extremely problematic if left to fester even for a brief while.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 58 /100 Critics Rec: 14%
- Released
- November 10, 2023
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Sledgehammer Games
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
- Engine
- iw 9.0
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
WHERE TO PLAY
- Franchise
- Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
- Genre(s)
- First-Person Shooter
