MW4 Campaign Early Access Is Back. Here's What It'll Cost You.
```html
Infinity Ward confirmed campaign early access for Modern Warfare 4. October 16th, a week before the full launch on the 23rd. That's the deal.
Two years ago, Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 both skipped this completely. So it's been a while. MW4 is the first Call of Duty to do campaign early access since Modern Warfare 3 in 2023, and that campaign got a 4/10 from IGN. So the bar they're trying to clear is... not high.
How to Get In
You need to pre-order. Specifically the Standard Digital Edition or the Vault Edition. Physical copies and whatever the cheapest tier is? No early access for you. This is a digital pre-order gate and nothing else.
Platforms covered: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Battle.net, Steam, and Nintendo Switch 2. Switch 2 pre-orders aren't open yet, coming later in 2026.
No Game Pass at Launch
Worth flagging. MW4 is not a day one Game Pass title. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made the call to pull new Call of Duty games out of Game Pass at launch. So if you were waiting to play through subscription, that's not happening this time.
This is a real change from the last couple years. Black Ops 6 launched on Game Pass day one. That was a big deal. Whatever they're going back to now costs money up front.
The Campaign Itself
You're playing as Private Park, a young South Korean soldier. The setup is a North Korean full-scale invasion. Captain Price shows up, because of course he does.
That's a different protagonist angle than most CoD campaigns. Whether Infinity Ward does anything interesting with it remains to be seen. The MW3 2023 campaign, the last one to get this early access treatment, was not well received. Hoping they learned something from that.
Worth Pre-Ordering For This?
A week early on the campaign isn't nothing. If you were going to buy it anyway, the digital version makes sense. If you weren't sold yet, the early access isn't a reason to commit. Wait for actual impressions once people are in on the 16th.
The Switch 2 version is interesting just because it exists. CoD on Switch 2 is a thing that's happening. No pre-orders open yet so nothing actionable there.
Release date: October 23rd, 2026. Campaign early access: October 16th for digital pre-orders.
Source: Ign
```