5 tips to dominate in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is finally upon us! While many of us are incredibly familiar with the ins and outs of the famed shooter, there are a lot of new and important facets to Modern Warfare. It’s still early days but we’ve learned a bunch of tips that have helped us dominate the opposition and wanted to share five of them with you.

Whether it’s how you equip yourself or how you handle yourself on the battlefield, we’ve got you covered.

1. Know Your Weapon

What do you think of when you think Call of Duty? Guns, of course! It’s important to understand that Modern Warfare is going to make you think much harder about what you’re using than other games in the series. Why? Gunsmith. We’ll get more into Gunsmith specifically shortly but this is specifically how Gunsmith affects the actual gameplay.

A lot of people have complained about how fast you can move in Modern Warfare and that may be in part due to your gun. Depending on how you build your weapon, you can really weigh your character down and impact your sprint, general walking speed, and how quickly you can aim down sights. It’s incredibly important to pay attention to the pros and cons tab when adding attachments as it can determine how you need to play.

It’s also important to be aware of the functionalities of your gun. If you have an automatic weapon, it’s likely equipped with a single-fire rate as well (left on D-pad on controllers). If you’re in a long-range battle, you’ll likely want to toggle to single-fire to focus your shots and not having to worry about your gun moving all over the place. Just remember you will need to toggle it back to fully-auto when you’re done.

2. Building Your Best Friend

Your gun is your very best friend in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Lucky for you, you can make it incredibly personal and unique due to very specific and varied customization. Gunsmith allows you to build a gun in a way you never have before in Call of Duty.

Previously, you slapped on a red dot sight, maybe a grip or different muzzle, and you called it good. This allows you to customize every little detail from barrel to muzzle to stock to under rail, and everything in between. It goes so deep that you can create guns that technically aren’t in the game. Want an M16 carbine? It’s not available in the game but you can build one using the M4A1 as a base. You can swap out the barrel for an M16 barrel, add a three-round burst fire, and then build that bad boy out to have whatever other attachments you want on it.

It’s incredibly deep. You can even change what kinds of rounds it fires. If you want an M16 that fires 9MM rounds, you can do that. All of these variations come with new pros and cons but you can really build something that suits your very personal needs. With 70 weapon levels, you will be unlocking a multitude of new toys to play with and be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of new combinations.

Again, be very careful about how you build or transform your weapons. If you’re adding a number of attachments that affect your ADS or movement, you’re going to feel bulkier and not be as quick as you may like. Sometimes going without an optic attachment will be your best bet for quick ADS timing.

Modern Warfare does tell you exactly how these attachments will affect your weapon and its stats so pay attention. This is something you must be thoughtful about if you want to really be on your A-game.

It’s also worth noting you can do “Missions” within the barracks menu to unlock weapon blueprints. These give you very specific weapon variants and can even allow you to use guns you haven’t unlocked. You won’t earn weapon XP or be able to customize them until you unlock the full weapon but it’s an interesting shortcut.

3. Develop A Sixth Sense

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s level design has been the subject of much debate. Like it or not, maps are large and don’t have a traditional structure. There are many lines of sights and a lot of variables, it’s important to have a “sixth sense”.

This means having an incredible sense of awareness via checking corners when entering buildings or more enclosed spaces, utilizing resources like the compass, and much more. It’s key to pay attention to both the mini-map and the compass as both play different roles.

The mini-map will obviously display enemies marked by your UAV but even when it’s not up, seeing where your team is will be vital. The empty and open areas on the mini-map can showcase flanks or if your team hasn’t honed in on the enemy, help you pinpoint where they’re at.

The compass will highlight red dots when enemies are shooting, even when they’re using silencers. The bigger the red dots are, the closer they are. It can also help with callouts to your team if you need to quickly communicate a position via directions.

I also highly recommend increasing your sensitivity in the settings so you can quickly sweep rooms. Sometimes you can get away with running through a room and just doing a quick glance but some areas may require a slower and more cautious approach, it all depends on where you’re at on the map. Behind enemy lines? Be more cautious.

Finally, your ears are going to be one of your greatest tools. Footsteps are much more pronounced in Modern Warfare (at the time of release, at least) and while that can be used to your advantage, it can be used against you as well. If you can hear them, they can hear you. Know when to sprint and when to take it slower or even crouch walk to keep it quiet.

One of the field upgrades is Dead Silence if you want to temporarily silence how loudly your boots clomp on the ground but there are still other factors at play. Your character will verbally call out enemy positions and activity. If you’re reviving someone in Cyber Attack, your character will very stupidly announce that so make sure you’re definitely alone. If you’re trying to sneak up on someone, your character may obnoxiously shout “CONTACT!”

Of course, this is something to also listen for as your teammates will call out positions and you can also be tipped off to enemies via their own callouts.

4. Learn, Adapt, and Refine

With so many variables in play, you’re going to need to be adaptable. Modes like Ground War introduce vehicles like tanks and helicopters beyond killstreaks so you need to be prepared. Other situations may call for different approaches like sniping, silenced weapons, or other ways to counter the enemy.

Modern Warfare allows you to edit your classes completely within matches via pausing the game and customizing your loadouts. If you need to equip a rocket launcher or C4 for those pesky vehicles, you can do so. These are total game changers and can help you turn things around very fast.

5. Mounting and Tactical Sprint

Finally, let’s touch on two new features to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mounting and the tactical sprint.

Mounting allows you to lean around corners but this doesn’t always protect you like you may believe. Mounting should be used for compensating or controlling the recoil of your weapon. You can use it to surprise people who may expect you to walk out from behind a corner but don’t think your body is fully concealed behind cover.

If mounting from a left or right angle, performing a bit of a lean, your body will be majorly exposed. Legs, torso, and head included. On your screen, you feel well-protected but in reality, not so much. You may end up learning this the hard way if you get killed in this position and watch the killcam.

If you’re using this to head glitch by mounting on a surface like a crate or a windowsill, you will find it far more advantageous for cover as your head will be the most exposed part. Again, you should largely use this for recoil and shooting at long range but you can try to use it as cover if you wish.

The last thing we’ll talk about is the tactical sprint. You obviously sprint a lot in Call of Duty, probably more than Usain Bolt. With Modern Warfare, you can double-tap the sprint button for a brief yet much faster sprint. While you move faster, you become much more vulnerable as you hold your gun up and it delays your ability to pull your gun up to fire it.

You should only ever use the tactical sprint when moving through large open areas so you can quickly close the gap and not get caught in the open. Any other time will expose you to the fatal end of an enemy’s gun.

Also, a bonus tip! Don’t be a camper, you look like an asshole.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is out now on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Stay tuned for our full review later this week. Until then, you can click here to read our preview of the multiplayer beta.