Call Of Duty 2019's Big Changes: Modern Warfare Gets Cross-Play, Loses Season Pass

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, 2019's entry into the long-running franchise, is making some significant changes to the Call of Duty formula by reimagining of Infinity Ward's 2007 classic. The game does not include Zombies but will feature "continuity and consistency" across all its game modes, meaning character progression will carry over between them and guns will feel the same in multiplayer as in single-player. Beyond that, there are changes coming that should be good news for all fans who pick up the game when it releases on October 25--specifically, those who don't want to pay for new maps but do want to play with those on different platforms.

Infinity Ward and Activision shared the welcome news in a press release that dropped alongside its first Modern Warfare trailer, which you can see below. Cross-play will be available across PC, PS4, and Xbox One, letting players on any platform jump into a match with those on another system. That's still fairly uncommon, with Sony permitting few games to be playable across PS4 and Xbox One.

The other surprising bit of news is that Modern Warfare will not have the traditional "season pass," which in the past players were required to buy in order to receive new maps over the course of the year after a Call of Duty game's release. Instead, post-release maps and events for Modern Warfare will be free to all players, mimicking a shift we've seen many competing games make.

Both features should go a long way to helping keep the Call of Duty player base together, without limiting them to only playing with people on the same platform and who own the same maps that they do. In general, there should be a whole lot more people to play against. It may also make the Call of Duty esports scene a little more welcoming, as players will be able to compete on their preferred platforms.

One thing that is not changing is that it will have timed exclusive content on PS4. We don't know all the details at this point, but like last year's Black Ops 4, the window will be only seven days, which is much shorter than the 30-day window CoD's exclusivity used to be.

Infinity Ward showed off Modern Warfare to journalists in the week before announcing the game, giving a sense of the single-player campaign and the technology that's going into the game. Along with reimagining the story, Infinity Ward said it's working to make Modern Warfare "more relevant" to the current world, and drew inspiration for the game's story from real-world conflicts and documentaries about them, as well as recent Hollywood movies.