Infinity Ward not changing Dead Silence or mini-map in MW2 beta

Infinity Ward released its first official community update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer. With weekend one of the beta complete, the developers gathered all of their thoughts and compiled them into one blog post.

A majority of this blog post was responding to player feedback from weekend one. The devs touched on slide canceling, footstep audio, Perk Packages, UI issues, and much more. However, what a majority of players will notice from the update is that Infinity Ward will not be changing its stance on Dead Silence or the mini-map at this time.

Infinity Ward community update enrages the fan base

Thank you to everyone who played and gave feedback for #ModernWarfare2 Beta Weekend 1! Here are some updates ahead of Weekend 2: https://t.co/JYhvmJkI0U

— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) September 20, 2022

As soon as the developers posted the beta community update on Twitter, the COD community was set ablaze. Content creators, pro players, news outlets, and casual players all responded to the update with extreme disdain. Most of this outrage came from the fact that Infinity Ward is not going to address two key complaints from the community.

The first complaint is over the mini-map. In the MW2 beta, the mini-map does not display red dots when enemies fire without a UAV in the air. Infinity Ward did this same exact thing with MW2019, but many fans thought the devs would change it for MW2 given how much players didn’t like that feature. Those fans wound up wrong for thinking that.

The developers stated in the update: “The design reason for this [no red dots] is that we do not want to punish players for firing their weapons. We also want players to actively search out the origin of a gunshot versus just traveling directly to where the dot is on the mini-map.”

Essentially, Infinity Ward wants players to listen for gunshots instead of looking at the mini-map. The devs also don’t want players to be punished for shooting their guns. Fans countered this point by saying that if players wanted to conceal themselves on the map, they can simply use a suppressor on their gun. The studio is still willing to listen to feedback on this matter, however.

Lastly, Infinity Ward stated that it will not make Dead Silence a perk, and leave it as a Field Upgrade. The reasoning behind this is quite baffling, but here’s what the devs said:

“We believe it is important to game health that rushers are not able to move at high speeds without consequence. Dead Silence as a Field Upgrade creates a balance between freedom of movement and predictability of combat.”

Social media was not thrilled to hear that rushers are being punished in Modern Warfare 2. Many fans responded to Infinity Ward saying that campers can do whatever they want without consequence, especially with the Ghost perk working even when players aren’t moving. However, rushers are now subject to consequences simply for moving quickly on the map.

We’ll see what weekend two of the Modern Warfare 2 beta brings. Players are surely hoping the mini-map can return to normal at the very least. You can leave your feedback for the developers through various social media channels.