I Played the Modern Warfare 4 Beta on Switch 2 — Here's How It Went

I Played the Modern Warfare 4 Beta on Switch 2 — Here's How It Went

The Modern Warfare 4 Open Beta wrapped up this past weekend, and for the first time ever, Call of Duty ran a beta on the Nintendo Switch 2. I spent the weekend playing in handheld mode, and honestly? I had a really good time. It’s been a while since a CoD beta actually grabbed me like this.

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first: the graphics. They're rough. We're talking noticeably blurrier and lower-res than CoD Mobile — like 2-3x worse. Textures look muddy, and there's a battery saver mode enabled by default on an efficient setting that probably isn't doing the visuals any favors. If you're coming in expecting PS5-quality visuals on a handheld, recalibrate those expectations immediately.

But here's the thing — the framerate was actually solid. And in a fast-paced shooter like CoD, that matters way more than pretty textures. The game felt smooth, responsive, and genuinely fun to play. The gunplay had that classic CoD snap to it, and the maps I played were pretty cool so far. Infinity Ward clearly prioritized performance over eye candy on the Switch 2, and that was the right call.

Weekend Two brought a ton of new content to the beta — Warzone Resurgence on the new Zodiac map, Ground War with two large-scale maps, a new 6v6 map called Lithium, and even a playable campaign mission called "Entrenched." That's a first for a CoD beta. There was also a new mode called Kill Block where the map layout actually changes every couple of rounds — I didn't get around to trying it, only heard about it after the fact. Kicking myself for missing that one.

Infinity Ward also pushed a massive patch between the two beta weekends. They bumped up the time-to-kill across every weapon so gunfights feel less like whoever-shoots-first-wins, fixed the chaotic spawn system from Weekend One, removed tactical sprint as the default movement option, and raised killstreak costs by one kill to cut down on the spam. Credit where it's due — they were pushing daily updates and even dropped an unplanned hotfix during Weekend One to address spawns. That's the kind of responsiveness you want to see a dev during a beta.

And I gotta say — hearing kids swearing in the lobbies brought me right back to the old days. Took me straight to 2007. That's the CoD experience right there. No corporate sanitization, just raw lobby chaos. You love to see it.

Overall, the MW4 beta left me genuinely excited for a Call of Duty release for the first time in a while. The gameplay loop feels tight, the maps are solid, and having a legit CoD experience in handheld mode on the Switch 2 is something I didn't know I needed. Yeah, it looks like a potato compared to the other platforms, but it plays like Call of Duty — and that's what matters. The full game drops October 23rd. I'll be there.