MW4's DMZ Claims Better Weapon Feel Than Arc Raiders

"I think our weapon feel and our movement are a step above most of the games." That's Infinity Ward multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot, talking to Xbox Wire about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's revamped DMZ mode and how it stacks up against the extraction shooters that have exploded in popularity since the original DMZ beta shipped with 2022's Modern Warfare 2.

Cecot says the team has been "paying attention to the genre," playing rival games to figure out what works and what doesn't. He specifically called out the beta's lack of "meaningful player growth" as a weakness, which is interesting because persistent progression is exactly what made Arc Raiders click with its audience last year. The fix: a proper Forward Operating Base with a persistent stash, crafting stations, vendors, and a gunsmith. In other words, the full extraction shooter toolkit that games like Arc Raiders and Escape from Tarkov have been refining for years.

I appreciate the confidence, but claiming your gunplay beats Arc Raiders is a bold swing. Arc Raiders didn't build a massive playerbase on bad weapon feel. CoD's shooting has always been tight, sure, but extraction shooters demand a different kind of weight and feedback than a six-minute multiplayer match. The guns need to feel good when you're creeping through a building knowing one death costs you everything. That's a different design problem than Infinity Ward has traditionally solved.

The new DMZ takes place on Hajin, a map spanning parts of South Korea, North Korea, and Russia that's reportedly bigger than Al Mazrah. It features dynamic weather, AI enemies that react to player behaviour, a bounty board that puts your operator on a hit list based on your performance, and a Rescue Pack system that lets you spend in-game currency to keep your loadout after death. Infinity Ward confirmed Rescue Packs can only be bought with in-game cash, not real money.

Players can try it themselves when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches October 23 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch 2.