Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is official, coming this fall

Activision’s premier first-person shooter is back for more in 2026. And Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 looks like it’ll shake up the series.

Modern Warfare, Korean style

One look at the first trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is all it should take to deliver the message that a lot’s going to be different for this upcoming sequel. Said game was just revealed this morning by publisher Activision, which will hail from series vet developers Infinity Ward and Beenox. And it not only adds new characters, but locales as well.

First, yes, Captain Price is back in action. So is Ghost, though it looks like a lot’s changed since the ending of the rebooted line’s Modern Warfare 3. If you were expecting the warfighters to be simpatico, you might have to think again.

But while returning heroes and storylines are great to see, so’s the new theater of war. Don’t get us wrong, we dug pretty much all of what the first three titles in the series offered in terms of campaign. All the same though, it needed a shake up.

To that end, and from the trailer anyway, it seems that the sands of the middle-east are mostly in the past. Replacing that as a main front is a group of locations that includes the Koreas. That means a whole new series of characters to keep up with, and a South Korea that’s dealing with a communist invasion.

War… war, uh, changes?

There are a lot of narrative questions in that first look. There are a few answer as well though, starting with Private Park. According to Activision, he’s “a young South Korean soldier thrust into a full-scale North Korean invasion”, so we imagine he’ll be a major player in the campaign.

Then there’s the aforementioned Captain Price, or maybe we should just call him “Price”. Now an outlaw, Price runs outside of any system. He’s still on the side of the angels though, more or less, as he hunts a global-threat of a weapon. And is the masked Ghost is hunting him? We’ll have to wait and see to find that out.

As for locations, yes, they’re a bit different. Fans will head to the likes of New York City, Paris, Mumbai, and Korea on their journey. It sounds like the gameplay will vary greatly depending on where you’ll be playing too. Close-quarters combat, car chases, night raids, and even trench warfare are mentioned in the press release.

Stay tuned for a lot more, as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will indeed land for consoles and the PC this fall. Fans can look for it to appear for the XBOX Series X|S, PS5, Switch 2, and PC on October 23rd, 2026. Want to check out more about this first reveal? Click here for the official blog, or here to check out pre-orders and the various editions.

Scant details, but much more to come

As you can see above, the bulk of the details for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 are still under wraps. Nevertheless though, there were a few more hints revealed today. And yes, those include some multiplayer tidbits. We have to admit, we’re particularly interested to see what Activision does with that.

Remember that the last few Call of Duty titles have gotten a somewhat chilly reception. Well, as goes the multiplayer anyway, as the series had deviated quite a bit from the mode’s original formula. From the blurb in the press release though, it does appear that we’re going to be getting something a lot more fitting this time.

Multiplayer delivers grounded, precise combat, built around fluid movement that provides greater control than ever before. Multiplayer introduces Ballistic Authority, a new weapons-first innovation that brings the most authentic Modern Warfare gunplay yet. Modern Warfare 4 will launch with 12 Core maps, spanning visually distinct locations around the world, plus Kill Block, a new and dynamic battleground that reconfigures its layout between rounds across more than 500 configurations.

Activision press release

Along with the bit about the multiplayer, Activision also mentioned the DMZ. If you’re unfamiliar, that’s an “extraction experience”. In it, solo players and squads alike are dropped into “a shifting combat zone”. So the thought is that every time through will play out differently. Stay tuned here as well, because the publisher says that much more info is coming for the mode on July 7th.

Before we wrap this up too, we did want to mention the PC edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Activision made special note of that in the release, saying that the game will have a “renewed focus on PC players”. What’s that mean? Well, that the developers are partnering “to give more control over performance, visual fidelity, responsiveness, and customization on PC”. Kind of neat to hear, being that the PC was the platform that the series got its start on.