Infinity Ward’s first Modern Warfare 4 beta patch notes have arrived, and the developer is making some small tweaks ahead of day two of testing for the new Call of Duty game. “Thank you to everyone for your energy,” the team writes. “We had a blast playing with you, and we’re ready to run it back all weekend.” On the cards for this initial update are a couple of weapon nerfs, a reduction in footstep sounds, improved visibility on Transit 213, map voting, and the new Inflation game mode.
“We heard you loud and clear on the footstep volume, so we’ve adjusted things downward for today,” the Modern Warfare 4 team writes. You’ll now hear both enemy footsteps and gear sounds at a reduced distance, with decreased overall volume for both. “Our objective for movement audio is to indicate when enemies are approaching without revealing their exact positions at a distance,” Infinity Ward explains. “We’ll continue looking at feedback on this topic throughout the beta.”
The developer also agrees that the FPS game’s current time-to-kill “isn’t quite right yet.” It’s therefore “tuned down the lethality of some of our guns.” It lists two changes it’s “already feeling good about.” The first is a nerf to the ISO Nightshade SMG, with more damage falloff at further ranges, and a slightly reduced headshot multiplier.
The Oris 8.6 marksman rifle, meanwhile, has a shorter initial range before damage starts to fall off. Its headshot multiplier has also been lowered, and the Razor attachment will take longer between throws. The other nerf is to Frangible Rounds, which loses 26.8% of its slow duration and 21.4% of the slow magnitude. On Transit 213, meanwhile, Infinity Ward has brightened some of the darker shadowed areas to improve visibility, and adjusted the overall color balance.
New map Cachette is a core 6v6 arena set in an abandoned wine warehouse and mechanic’s garage on the outskirts of a French rail terminal. Judging by the provided overhead view, it looks to be another relatively small one, so I doubt it will assuage concerns from players looking for some larger locales. Its introduction brings the total roster to the four needed to implement map voting, however, so at least you’ll have some say in the matter.
The new mode is Inflation. If you didn’t catch this during COD Next, you need to eliminate enemies to collect cash, and defeat HVT Operators to steal the funds they’re carrying. The richest players in the match are marked as HVTs for everyone to hunt, but if you can manage to survive long enough you’ll start racking up increased cash multipliers.
Those are the big changes, although you’re now able to reroll daily challenges, and IW has a handful of other bug fixes. These should resolve any inability to start or complete the mobility course, incorrect wet-surface footstep audio, errors when trying to use the Gunsmith, and some magnified optics appearing opaque while aiming down sight.
This Modern Warfare 4 beta update is due to roll out on Saturday August 22 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST / 7pm CEST. The developer notes that it’s still “actively working on a fix” for an issue preventing join-in-progress on Kill Block, and is also investigating reports that cooking lethal equipment can cause framerate drops.