MW4 release dates, early access and editions

Modern Warfare 4 launched on October 22, 2026, the Steam date used by this wiki. Campaign and DMZ early access are past milestones.

The release state was checked on October 23, 2026: Steam’s public API reports coming_soon: false, and Activision’s purchase button reads Get Modern Warfare 4.

Why do the launch dates differ?

There are two separate reasons the dates differ, and they should not be merged into one.

The first is a time-zone presentation. Steam’s public appdetails API gives October 22, 2026 and marks the game released; Activision’s launch article uses October 23 for the same launch in a different time-zone presentation. This wiki retains Steam’s October 22 date without inferring a universal unlock hour.

The second is the Nintendo Switch 2 version, which has its own October 23 date that Activision announced separately. That is a real difference in when a player on Switch 2 could start, not a different way of writing the same moment. See the Nintendo Switch 2 section below.

The release schedule

The early-access dates describe separate access stages. Neither the launch-date label nor early access establishes that every seasonal reward is available at full release.

Early access, and what it actually means

Call of Duty has used early access three different ways across recent releases, and they are not interchangeable:

• The full campaign, minus nothing — the mode most used, gated to build attention early.
• A subset of missions — the strongest missions released first, the rest later.
• Prologue only — a single opening mission that establishes tone and nothing else.

Which one Modern Warfare 4 used matters for how you read a campaign guide. The prologue-only interpretation and the full-playthrough interpretation imply completely different expectations for launch day.

Editions

Modern Warfare 4 ships in two editions. The Standard edition is the base game; the Vault Edition adds operator packs, Signature Weapons, a season of BlackCell and a DMZ bonus. Pre-purchase bonuses apply to either.

Standard

The base game at $69.99. Confirmed for PC (Windows), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Vault Edition

The premium edition, and the one with the most concrete item list published so far. It includes:

• Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4 — the base game
• Hostile Alliance Operator Pack — four Operator skins: Price, Valeria, Ghost and Blix
• Special Forces Operator Pack — four Operator skins representing the United Kingdom, Germany, France and South Korea, each with a voice pack in that language
• Signature Weapon Collection — five Signature Weapons
• BlackCell (1 Season) — Battle Pass, 20 Tier Skips, 1,100 CP and more
• DMZ Deployment Bonus — additional bonus content in DMZ

Pre-purchase bonuses

The pre-purchase offer advertised for digital editions granted items usable immediately in Black Ops 7 and Warzone, plus these in Modern Warfare 4 at launch:

The Gilded Pearl pack unlocks the Moonlit Pearl weapon camo and grants access to the Gilded Ruin camo. Note that the pre-purchase bonuses carry a disclaimer on the store page — treat the cross-title availability as publisher-stated rather than guaranteed if a later season changes it.

Season 1

Season 1 is the first post-launch content batch, dated November 6, 2026, and is free. Activision states it goes live at 0000 (midnight) ET on November 6, which is 2100 PT on November 5.

Hajin is described as the primary map for DMZ as well as a Battle Royale map in Warzone 2.0. Zodiac is built primarily for Resurgence, and was developed by Beenox and Infinity Ward. Each has its own map page: Hajin and Zodiac.

The Season 1 announcement also schedules a dedicated Warzone post for November 2, covering the Warzone half of the update. That post had not been published when this page was last checked (November 2, 2026), so no part of the Warzone half of the update is recorded here yet. The Multiplayer, DMZ and global game updates are the ones described in the Season 1 announcement itself.

Can you play it on Game Pass?

No — not at launch. Activision published a dedicated COD INTEL post stating that Modern Warfare 4 launches as a standalone release: “To play the game at launch, players must purchase it separately; it will not be included with Game Pass until Holiday 2027.”

That is the most specific statement the publisher has made about subscription availability, and it puts MW4 in the same position as the recent Call of Duty releases. Game Pass Ultimate subscribers keep access to the legacy titles — Black Ops 7, Black Ops 6 and Modern Warfare III — but not to MW4 itself on day one.

Two details from the same post are worth recording for Xbox players:

• Pre-orders are available through the Xbox Store on console, the Xbox app on PC and the Microsoft Store.
• The Inner Circuit M4 Blueprint carries an OG Green translucent treatment on Xbox console, celebrating 25 years of Xbox. That is a console-specific variant of a cosmetic that also appears in the standard pre-purchase bonus list.

The store page also lists Nintendo Switch 2 as a supported platform, with pre-orders confirmed as of August 26, 2026.

Nintendo Switch 2 launches a day later

The Switch 2 version has its own release date: Friday, October 23, 2026. Activision’s Switch 2 announcement states plainly that “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches on Nintendo Switch 2 on Friday, October 23,” while Steam lists the Windows release as October 22. The Nintendo date is a separate fact from the time-zone difference between Steam’s timestamp and Activision’s regional announcement, and it is worth separating the two: a player on Switch 2 waited one extra day.

The same announcement records the Switch 2 beta timeline. All Switch 2 players could pre-load the Open Beta from August 26, and the Open Beta Weekend opened on August 28 with no pre-order and no beta code required. Multiplayer, the Campaign mission “Entrenched” and Call of Duty: Warzone Resurgence were the beta’s playable content — the beta was Multiplayer-led rather than a full-game preview.

Platform support

The store listing confirms cross-platform multiplayer, Steam Achievements, full controller support, in-app purchases, and an adjustable text size option.

Activision publishes no per-platform PC system requirements, frame-rate targets or performance figures for any platform, and this page does not estimate them. Third-party performance testing exists for the Switch 2 version, but it is measurement by an outside outlet rather than a publisher statement, and it is not recorded here. The publisher’s own PC requirements — minimum, recommended, ray tracing tier, drivers and the TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot requirement — are on the PC requirements page.

What this page will not tell you

The full game has launched, but gaps in published measurements remain. Wrong numbers that look authoritative are worse than an honest gap, because readers cannot tell which are which.

Every figure and name on this page is quoted from the Activision store listing or the official announcement. Where something is genuinely unknown, this page says so rather than estimating.

Sources

• Activision launch roster — launch roster and Warzone integration.
• Activision Season 1 announcement — Season 1 maps, modes, weapons and Battle Pass.
• Activision COD INTEL: MW4 launch and Xbox Game Pass — standalone purchase and Game Pass availability.
• Activision Nintendo Switch 2 announcement — Switch 2 release date of October 23, 2026, the August 26 pre-order date and the Open Beta timeline.
• Steam appdetails — released state and date.

Browse this wiki

Weapons · Maps · Operators · DMZ · Game modes · Campaign