Modern Warfare 2 is Still Fun… You Just Need a Break

June is almost here and that means we are entering the next stage of the annual Call of Duty cycle where players start hating on the current title. Modern Warfare 2 entered that stage earlier than expected and much of the online community has been relentlessly negative about MW2, despite the game still being as fun as ever. It’s time to take a break and think about why the game has so much negativity.

Modern Warfare 2 Certainly Has Issues

Before getting into why I consider COD Modern Warfare 2 fun, I want to discuss what I know the game needs help with. It’s clear that movement is a problem. I don’t want slide cancelling and neither does much of the community. I like having a controller that works for more than a few weeks due to constant mashing on the right stick. That’s not what movement means though.

MW2 essentially removed all fluid movement, so aspects like strafing and ADS speed have been hit hard. Generally, there should be no penalty to ADS speed when sliding or jumping, and it has been a major hit to the game.

I can also acknowledge that the maps in MW2 aren’t what we wanted and most of them are decent at best. Others are absolutely atrocious. But the general map pool serves Search and Destroy or modes like Team Deathmatch well. And that brings me to why the game is better than you think.

Modern Warfare 2 Is Still Fun and Always Has Been

Take a step back for a moment and look at the qualities of MW2. The gunplay is top tier and so is the sound design. Simply using weapons and building loadouts is the best that it has been in the past four years by a wide margin. Every DLC weapon has been great to use and the pool keeps getting better.

Even the camo grind for Orion Mastery is one of the best we have ever seen. The process for Orion is entirely streamlined and easy to follow as long as you put in the time. And by some miracle, the Ranked Play grind was also streamlined. Both Ranked and the camo grind have been some of the best in any Call of Duty game.

So, why did everyone start to bash the game after a few months? It’s the Call of Duty cycle. However, bashing it relentlessly on social media gets engagement. In reality, if you just get on for a few matches and play some S&D or grind some camos, Modern Warfare 2 is still a ton of fun.

Why Has There Been So Much MW2 Hate?

The real problem comes with the Call of Duty cycle and the community at large. This happens every year because of fatigue. I would go as far as to say that this happens to every multiplayer game in general, but there is a key difference. Players get sick of the game, play something else, then come back and realized why they liked the game in the first place.

With COD, that return doesn’t happen until November with a new title. Then once everyone starts to get fatigued with the new one, they come crawling back to the old title. I have already seen COD creators praising Vanguard in the past month or two.

Related: How to Unlock the Skull Eater Mastery Camo in MW2 & Warzone 2

Let’s get real for a minute. Vanguard had some fun qualities, but the maps and the weapons were far worse than anything in Modern Warfare 2. Not only was it dropped much faster than MW2, but it clearly was disliked from the start. Yet somehow, we always end back in the same spot as COD players. It’s inevitable like Thanos.

All I can say is to look at the bigger picture and try to remember that these are games. Stop taking every single match so seriously and remember that it’s ok to play Search and Destroy for fun without a TAQ-56. Take a break and come back so you can realize that COD is still fun and always has been.