Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is supposedly a game about shooting people in the face. But like many other modern games, this is all about dressing up and navigating an endless sea of unlocks and monetizable cosmetics. While the shooting is good, the torrent of menus in between has some players raving and wishing Infinity Ward had just stuck with the 2019 layout modern warfare franchise reboot.
With the game officially out today for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, many gamers are launching it for the first time and going “what the heck” when they’re bombarded with menus, icons, and widgets that are both overwhelming and confusing. The general vibe is that of a new streaming service or mobile app, where you’re constantly being bullied by ads while different pieces of content scream for your attention on top of each other. It’s not dissimilar to how the overhaul comes to the Xbox home screen looks like a giant Game Pass billboard
One of the biggest culprits is the horizontal orientation of tiles for everything from gun barrels to camouflage textures. Instead of scrolling up and down like PC gamers and their console counterparts have done for years, the options now go from left to right. For example, instead of being able to browse specific camos categories, players have to browse through a single huge repository. God help you if you want Frattura, the very last on the list. “Why the hell did they hire someone from Hulu to design the entire UI?” wrote one gamer on the modern warfare underreddit.
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The main menu screen is also a source of frustration. Instead of separating the campaign, multiplayer, co-op missions and other modes, everything is mixed together. Some of the icons are very large, while other options, like changing Quick Play settings, are very small. And then there’s the back button, which you might think would take you back a step in the menu interface, but instead cancels entirely.
Issues range from unintuitive to inefficient, and many players yearn for the less flashy but easier-to-navigate interface 2019 modern warfare. “Horizontal tiles are bad enough for a streaming platform, but for a game like CoD they’re absolutely freaking nonsensical,” wrote ano ther gamer. “They could just use the old UI from MW19
Design overhauls are always controversial, but gamers have been Whine via the user interface for MW2 Back to the multiplayer beta a month ago. The tiles, icon sizes, and placement are the main culprits, with players accusing the game of mimicking a layout that’s more mobile-friendly. But the broader problem is just the general complexity of getting to the simple pleasures that people come to call of Duty for: customizing weapons and collecting killstreaks.
Infinity Ward has confirmed UI feedback during the first phase of the multiplayer beta. “We’ve seen feedback about difficulties editing perk packs, managing loadouts, and accessing the Armory.” wrote in September. “We’ve identified some UX issues as well as some bugs – these are things we can’t adjust in time for the second beta weekend, but they are of utmost importance ahead of launch.”
It’s not clear if future tweaks are on the way or still under discussion. In the meantime, the gameplay itself seems decent so far and will certainly be a welcome change for gamers who have been disappointed with last year’s multiplayer Call of Duty: Vanguard. Unless you love trampling on random strangers in quick play and hate skill-based matchmaking, in this case you are unlucky.
