Worse than Battlefield 6? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Steam Beta Draws Mostly Negative Reviews

Summary

The first beta test for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is off to a rough start on Steam. According to aggregate user reviews, the game's positive rating across all languages is only 37%, and among 1,137 Simplified Chinese reviews, just 27% are positive, resulting in a “Mostly Negative” rating on the storefront. Player complaints center on technical performance and gameplay issues: many report stuttering, frame drops, and crashes even on high-end PCs. Some say the game still refuses to launch after updating BIOS and enabling TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and other required security settings. Activision Blizzard is counting on this release to win back players after Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 struggled in both sales and critical reception, but the beta's poor reception raises immediate red flags. The negative buzz matters because Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders are actively courting the same first-person shooter audience, and a rough technical state could push franchise loyalists to look elsewhere. It also adds pressure to the development team to fix optimization problems before launch. For gamers, this beta serves as a cautionary tale about preordering, highlighting the value of waiting for post-launch patches or a more polished final product. For the industry, it underscores how beta periods can make or break a major shooter's launch narrative.