This Time It Really Is A Demo
For years, Call of Duty betas have been essentially demos. Really, a Call of Duty beta has never really been a true beta in the sense that it’s an early-in-development build of the game that the developers are putting into the hands of players so they can get feedback and stress test its systems. Then, with a traditional beta, the developers go back to working on the game for quite some time and are able to address the issues that players had with the beta. CoD doesn’t really work like this. Betas are usually about how the release game will play, outside of some tweaks here and there. Mostly, it’s a PR thing. However, the Modern Warfare 2 beta is going to be less beta and more demo than ever before. According to Activision, the MW2 beta is going to have “a robust multiplayer experience going beyond the Core 6v6 experience with a variety of meticulously designed maps of various sizes, and an equally impressive set of Modes, Progression experiences, and other aspects.” This is extremely unusual for a CoD beta. The last couple of betas have been extremely limited, and really, none of them could reasonably be called ‘robust multiplayer experiences’ which suggests that the MW2 beta is going to be a lot bigger and more ambitious than previous betas. This would make sense, considering the beta ends only a month before the game releases. MW2, itself, is releasing fairly early for a CoD game, too, coming at the end of October instead of in November. By all accounts, this is going to be a demo, not a real beta, which also means that…
There Won’t Be Big Changes From Beta
If there are going to be a ton of modes and maps and things to do in the beta, that’s because these elements of the game are, essentially, done and ready to go. Betas usually have a few maps and a few modes, because the rest of the content isn’t done yet, and it’s not ready to be played. If a ton of different maps and modes are playable in your beta, that means you’re far along in development, and most of what you see has already been locked in for launch. If there are major issues with a particular map or a particular mechanic, don’t expect these to radically change. At this point, major game systems won’t be particularly changeable. Sure, if there’s something the entire community really hates, it might get addressed by Season 1, or something, but anything that requires a ton of work won’t be addressable a month out from launch, which is why we can assume that if the beta is going to have so much content that the game is basically done. This could be a good thing, int he context of Activision being confident about the game and it also getting a full development cycle that wasn’t forced to be shortened so the game could get pushed out the door, but if players get their hands on the beta and find a ton of issues, that will be a major red flag.
If The Beta’s Good, The Game’s Good
This hasn’t always been the case, but it will likely be for MW2. For example, while the beta for Modern Warfare was reasonably well-liked, the community couldn’t know about the quality of the game’s map, as a whole, or how the game’s systems would work together to incentivize campy, slow gameplay on average throughout the modes and maps. In Cold War, it was pretty tough to be able to predict how the game would be from the beta, because while people generally liked the beta, the main problem with the game at launch was that it lacked content. Oftentimes, a good beta doesn’t make for a great game, but with MW2 this will likely be the case. Map design in MW2 is supposed to have majorly evolved from Modern Warfare, so if the maps in the beta are decent, probably the maps in the game will be, too. MW2 is also projected to launch with tons of content and lot of maps, too, so if the content in the beta is good, we can expect there’ll be a good amount of it in the full release.
