In all of the news from Wednesday’s reveal of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, some information might have gotten lost along the way. As showcased at the end of the reveal trailer, Modern Warfare II will feature an open beta as every game since 2015 has before it. This has become commonplace for Call of Duty since Black Ops 3.
An open beta is designed to build hype for the upcoming Call of Duty title along with letting fans test the current build of the game. More often than not, players will discover bugs and certain aspects of the game that the developers can tweak or fix. The developers use the beta as a way to fine-tune the game before release. The betas have traditionally launched one or two months before the actual release of the upcoming title.
While no date for the Modern Warfare II beta has been set as of yet, there are confirmed ways of gaining access to it.
Accessing the Modern Warfare II beta
As in years past, the main way to access the beta is by pre-ordering the game. Any edition that players pre-order is eligible to receive a beta key, which players can then use to download the beta. There are two editions of Modern Warfare II, the Cross-Gen Bundle and Vault Edition. The former costs $70, while the latter costs $99. Once players pre-order either edition, they will automatically be allowed to download the beta whenever it releases. To pre-order an edition, players can either go to their respective platform’s store or go to a market retailer, such as GameStop.
If players don’t want to commit to Modern Warfare II that early, they can also wait for the free portion of the beta. The beta is usually a couple of weeks long, with the last weekend traditionally being a free period. This means that any player, regardless of pre-orders, can download the beta and play. However, a free weekend hasn’t been confirmed for the MW2 beta, so we’ll have to wait and see if Activision continues that trend.
