Summary
The upcomingCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3is already drawing attention due to the sheer amount of content that its online mode is set to possess. Interestingly, the release is closely tied to its predecessor, with a lot of content and multiplayer progression carrying over between the two games.
This led to a huge amount of weapons being present inCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, with the entire arsenal ofModern Warfare 2existing alongside a big batch of new firearms. While this is great in bolstering the variety ofMW3’s multiplayer, it could easily lead to a huge balancing problem for the title. With this already being a persistent issue forCall of Duty, such a staggering amount of weapons could make the issue that much worse for the inbound release.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s Weapon Balancing
AsCall of Duty’s annual releases grow in scale, the amount of weapons in a given title is always increasing to create a greater sense of variety for players. 2022’sModern Warfare 2wowed players with its 51 weapons at launch, with this number only increasing with post-launch content updates. This is set to take a huge step forward inModern Warfare 3, with all ofMW2’s weapons carrying over alongside 38 new guns for the title. AlongsideMW2’s weapons, this is all the othercontent that will carry forward intoMW3:
This bringsModern Warfare 3’s minimum launch weapon count up to 89, beatingCall of Duty: WW2’s previous record of 77 guns. As is the case with most modern competitive shooters, a lot ofCall of Dutyweapons receive extensive balancing changesthroughout a game’s life cycle, preventing overpowered guns from dominating the meta and ensuring that lesser-used weapons get a time in the spotlight.
Balancing has only been made more difficult in recent years thanks toCall of Duty’s new weapon tuning system, which allows players to take a microscopic approach to tweak how any weapon works in-game. This leads to a huge amount of fine mechanics that need to be perfectly balanced across each weapon, which is quite a difficult task for modernCoDreleases.
In this way, it is clear to see whyModern Warfare 3’s huge influx of weapons might impact the title and its balancing. With close to 90 unique weapons being present inMW3from launch, Sledgehammer Games somehow needs to keep track of a huge balancing pool, making it more likely for certain weapons to slip through the cracks. The amount ofModern Warfare 3’s weapons will only increase following seasonal updates, potentially creating a snowball effect of balancing issues where the game cannot keep up with its own level of content.
It would not be surprising ifMW3has several weapons that are considered overpowered at any given time, potentially having disastrous consequences for the title’s multiplayer metas. Ironically,MW3’s large weapon countcould end up completely killing the variety of weapon usage in the game, the very thing that it was supposed to bolster in the first place. This big downside could be mitigated by intense analysis and frequent changes on Sledgehammer Games' part, but it is still an element of the game that could be extremely problematic if left to fester even for a brief while.
