Modern Warfare 4 Beta: What You Can Actually Play

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta is not one thing — it’s three separate pieces of content spread across two weekends, and because the window is short, the order you touch them in actually matters. The headline addition is Entrenched, a playable campaign mission, which is a first for the series in any beta. Below is what’s actually playable, when each piece unlocks, and which one to prioritize if your time is limited.

Three things, and they don’t unlock on the same schedule. The campaign gets a single mission, multiplayer gets a rotating map and mode list, and Warzone gets a brand-new Resurgence map that only shows up in the second half of the test. Treat them as three separate appointments rather than one big blob of “the beta.”

No Call of Duty beta has ever included a piece of the single-player campaign before this one, which is why a variety of content, including the ‘Entrenched’ campaign mission, will be available during the beta, marking the first time the series has included a campaign mission in a beta test. That alone is worth treating as the main event, not a bonus feature bolted onto multiplayer marketing.

The mission itself is a linear scenario: a linear scenario focused on South Korean marines and an embedded American soldier during a fictional North Korean invasion. Other coverage adds that Entrenched follows a group of South Korean Marines accompanied by an American soldier embedded with the unit, involved in an uphill offensive pushing through fortified positions as the fighting intensifies. It’s developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, and Infinity Ward has said the goal of putting it in the beta is to gather community feedback on the game’s core mechanical flow and narrative pacing before the final product hits retail shelves.

Here’s the honest caveat: one mission tells you a lot about feel and very little about scope. You’ll get a real read on weapon handling, movement, and the tone Infinity Ward is going for in this story — reporting elsewhere notes the studio has been tuning movement, hipfire, and muzzle flash ahead of launch, and Entrenched is where you’ll feel those changes first. What you won’t get is any sense of campaign length, mission variety, or how this linear trench-warfare sequence compares to whatever else is in the full story — that’s simply not knowable from a single level, and treating it as representative of the whole campaign would be a mistake.

Kill Block is the multiplayer showpiece, and it’s built differently from a normal map. Instead of one fixed layout, it’s a three-part modular map that can generate more than 500 layouts, and the practical result is that no two rounds are the same on Kill Block. Infinity Ward is pitching it as a three-part modular map structure that offers a high degree of tactical variety, representing a shift toward more dynamic and replayable combat arenas.

What that means for you at the controller: you can’t memorize a single set of angles, sightlines, or rotation routes the way you would on a static map, because the pieces reassemble between rounds. It rewards reading a map on the fly over rote muscle memory, which is a genuinely different skill than most Call of Duty maps ask for. It’s available in its own dedicated modes too, including Kill Block formats including 10v10 and 3v3 Gunfight, alongside the standard 6v6 list (Team Deathmatch, Domination, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, Inflation, Search & Destroy) and a Mobility Course built to teach the game’s movement changes. For a deeper look at what else got confirmed around this reveal, the Call of Duty NEXT and MW4 beta breakdown covers the surrounding announcements.

The second weekend is where the beta stops being just a multiplayer test. Call of Duty: Warzone is officially included in the Modern Warfare 4 Beta, giving players access to Zodiac, a new Resurgence map. This is the first time Warzone has ever shown up inside a Call of Duty beta at all, and it’s exclusively a weekend-two feature — pre-order early access does not include it. Resurgence as a mode generally produces faster, scrappier matches than full battle royale since eliminated players can come back while a squad member survives, though the exact rules Zodiac uses haven’t been fully detailed. Activision has not yet published a full official breakdown of Zodiac’s layout, points of interest, player count, or every playlist that will use the map, so treat specifics as unconfirmed until you’re actually in the mode. Weekend two also folds in Ground War content and is the only window where Nintendo Switch 2 owners get to touch any of this, alongside the Combat Outpost and Hijack additions to the multiplayer rotation.

If you skip the pre-order, you’re not missing content — you’re missing four days. Pre-order customers get the earliest access and a campaign mission, while the open second weekend gives everyone a chance to try Warzone before the full release. Everything playable during the pre-order window carries forward into the open weekend, plus Zodiac, Ground War, and the extra modes get added on top. So the real question isn’t “is the beta worth it,” it’s “is a four-day head start on the same content worth a pre-order.” There are also free routes into early access without buying anything: eligible Discord Nitro subscribers and selected players who receive a Samsung promotional Beta code can also get Early Access without pre-ordering, and Call of Duty NEXT is expected to give away additional codes live. If none of those apply to you, waiting for the open weekend costs you nothing but time — you’ll still see Entrenched, Kill Block, and everything else, just later.

Here’s the honest number: getting a real look at everything on offer is roughly three evenings of play, not one. One evening covers Entrenched plus a handful of standard multiplayer modes to get a baseline read on movement and gunplay. A second evening is worth setting aside just for Kill Block, since its whole appeal is seeing how the modules reshuffle across multiple matches rather than one round. A third evening — only possible once the open weekend starts — is for Zodiac Resurgence and Ground War. If you only care about sampling rather than grinding, you can compress that into two longer sessions, but expect five or six if you actually want meaningful reps in every mode rather than a quick look. For the exact dates each weekend opens and who qualifies for early entry, that’s laid out separately in the Call of Duty NEXT and beta access guide.

Myth: Entrenched Shows You the Whole Campaign

It shows you one linear mission’s pacing, tone, and gunplay — nothing about mission variety, campaign length, or how other levels are structured. Judging the full story off a single trench-warfare sequence isn’t a fair read either way.

Myth: Kill Block Is Fully Random Every Round

It’s not procedural chaos — it’s a three-part modular map with a large but finite set of combinations. The layout changes between rounds, but it’s built from the same three structural pieces each time, which is different from a map generating endless unique geometry.

Myth: Pre-Ordering Gets You Extra Beta Content

Pre-ordering buys you four earlier days, not more stuff. Every mode, map, and mission from the early access window reappears in the open weekend, and the open weekend adds Warzone and Ground War content that pre-order buyers don’t get any sooner either.