If you're used to playing Call of Duty and knowing exactly where your opponents are in multiplayer, you're in for a very different experience with the upcoming Modern Warfare. It will ditch the minimap in all multiplayer modes for added realism, but this will fundamentally change how high-level Call of Duty multiplayer matches take place, creating a very different experience in the process.
A good idea of what this will play like is what you can find on Hardcore servers on older Call of Duty games. The game slows down and becomes less about lightning reactions as you spring around the map spraying bullets, but about using cover more effectively, checking team position by looking rather than seeing it all on the mini-map. You'll need to rely more on steady progression.
This will periodically change, though. Modern Warfare's killstreak rewards include a personal radar system that kicks in at three kills. That gives you a very brief window around yourself to see what's going on. A killstreak of four opens up an unmanned drone which can spot enemy teammates for the whole team for a short period of time, but without those periodic upgrades, Modern Warfare will be an entirely mini-map free experience.
Taking cues from other popular shooters of today, like PubG and Fortnite, Modern Warfare will introduce doors which open and close to multiplayer gameplay, providing cover that can be shot, but not seen through in every room and turning each building into a potential deathtrap for those who enter blindly.
Modern Warfare will hit PS4 with an open beta on September 12, with a wider beta hitting other platforms on September 19. The game will have its official release on October 25.
