WithCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2finally launching this week, Infinity Ward has issued a warning against changing a console’s region to play early. Naturally, there’s a lot of excitement among the community, which typically happens each year around the launch of a newCall of Dutygame. However, considering the reception to 2019’sModern Warfareand the fact that thebeta forModern Warfare 2broke records, this year’s release seems to have some extra enthusiasm to it.
This year, Activision gave eager fans a way toaccess theModern Warfare 2campaign early through pre-ordering, though for multiplayer fans, the wait continues until the actual launch date. However, one technique players have used to access content early is to change the console or PC location to earlier timezones for places like New Zealand or Australia. While this has worked for many games, including incredibly popular titles likeElden RingandFIFA 23, Infinity Ward has attempted to get out ahead of this rush by offering players a warning.
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In a Tweet from the official Infinity Ward account, the studio issued a launch public service announcement for fans attempting to digitally change their region setting on their console or PC. Essentially, Infinity Ward warns that doing so will result in connectivity issues and could even lock players out entirely until the officiallaunch time arrives forCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2in that specific region.
While the news may be disappointing, especially for those in the latest time zones, the request from Infinity Ward does make sense. It’s likely that the studio is hoping to have a more gradual and staggered approach to the launch ofCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, allowing the servers to better handle the load of players accessing the game. With all of the excitement surrounding the latest Call of Duty game, having too many people logging in at the same time could have a negative impact on the experience for everyone.
There’s no shortage of examples of online focused games having poor launches due to server and connectivity issues. In fact, the start of this month saw the launch ofOverwatch 2a highly anticipated title from Blizzard. The game was moving to a free to play lice service system, which naturally drew a lot more interest from players as it removed the paywall barrier of the first game. Unfortunately,Overwatch 2suffered through extensive connection and server issuesat launch to the point where Blizzard had to apologize and even issued free bonuses like a legendary Reaper skin.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2is currently available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
