Modern Warfare’s Battle Pass went live this week, and it’s the usual fare for the most part. If you’ve bought a Battle Pass before, you know what you’re getting into. A whole bunch of cosmetics for folks who like that sort of thing. But Modern Warfare differs in that they add a pair of guns to it.
Now, they are free for everyone – but the guns do need to be unlocked by reaching their respective tiers (Holger-26 at tier 15 and the Ram-7 at tier 31). It takes me about an hour to unlock a tier, faster if I focus on challenges to stack XP. Still, that’s damn near a day’s worth of gameplay to get the Ram-7 if you’re starting at tier 1. Infinity Ward did release a bundle at 2400 COD points that gets you the Battle Pass and 20 tiers.
Besides the absurd leveling times, my biggest problem centers around the guns. Sure, it’s not the even worse loot box system the franchise used in the past – but it’s still ridiculous. Just give everyone the guns at the same time. Stop putting potentially game-changing features behind paywalls or a crazy grind.
There’s more than enough ways Infinity Ward and Activision are making money without forcing folks to pay more to get to a new gun quicker. But I doubt it changes. The people in charge of monetization know what works. My buddy dropped the extra money to get both guns faster. And I’m sure thousands more followed suit.
It’s just a shame these systems are in place to penalize those of us who might want to play different games this holiday season. Or who only plays Call of Duty casually. Or who don’t have time to play games a lot period.
The hardcore will always be there, and ready to spend money on a Battle Pass to give them something to play towards. Hell, it’s the reason I would buy them on Fortnite. But at least Fortnite didn’t put new guns, or a different building block into it.
Infinity Ward and Activision earned a lot of goodwill by ditching the old way of doing DLC. And the tier-based unlocks for new guns is much better than randomized loot boxes. But the folks behind Modern Warfare can do better than that. And should.
So, what should they do? I’m firmly in the camp of releasing the guns like the maps. Free for everyone and without any grinding. But if the devs and Activision won’t budge on that, I would be good with a faster leveling Battle Pass. I know Season 1 is live for two months, but who the hell is a fan of watching the Battle Pass XP bar crawl a couple of tiers in a couple of hours worth of playing?
Just like every other frustration in Modern Warfare, I’ll shake my head and play another round with my friends. For now.