Modern Warfare 3 Devs Tout ‘Historically Low Crash Rates,’ Discuss Updates to SMGs and Other Feature

Modern Warfare III’s launch had “historically low crash rates” for a Call of Duty game, Sledgehammer developers say. They also hinted at changes that might be coming to Modern Warfare III in the future, and dropped some information on the upcoming Season 1 during an hour-long interview with content creator Repullze.

Sledgehammer’s Adam Iscove, Senior Development Director, and Greg Reisdorf, Multiplayer Creative Director on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, claimed the controversial sequel was “historically stable at launch,” but that they’re aware of ongoing server issues like packet bursts and will continue to work on and optimize them.

Perhaps more important for the Call of Duty community, however, was Iscove and Reisdorf’s willingness to talk openly about the state of Modern Warfare III, the feedback Sledgehammer is receiving from the community, and changes that will be coming to the game in the future.

One of the most substantial topics they touched on was how movement has changed from Modern Warfare III’s beta. In the beta, stamina started to regenerate while you were sliding. Now, stamina regeneration pauses while you’re sliding and only restarts once the slide has completed. Iscove and Reisdorf said that a stamina bar would be added to the HUD in the near future to help players manage it more accurately. They also said they’re looking to bring back bunny hopping “in some form” in Modern Warfare III, which is something the community has been asking for.

Iscove and Reisdorf also talked about several other features they’d like to bring to the game. The core issue, however, is time. Sledgehammer is trying to mitigate this somewhat with the experimental playlist, which allows the studio to “flip switches” and test and implement ideas quickly if they’re well-received by the community. It also helps the studio get an idea of what appeals to the different parts of Modern Warfare III’s playerbase.

Iscove and Reisdorf also mentioned that several aspects of Modern Warfare III are undergoing changes in the near future based on community feedback. Those include:

• Changes to the Firing Range intended to fix a glitch where dummies have 100 health instead of 150
• Tweaking or removing some of the aim assist options for better balance
• Changes in the way weapons, particularly SMGs, which the community feels are underpowered, are tuned
• Allowing players to bind dive and slide to different buttons.

In addition, they also addressed things like Weapon Prestiges and bonus camos, both of which Sledgehammer wanted to bring back but couldn’t due to time constraints, though they didn’t rule out bringing either back in the future.

All told, it was a remarkably detailed and open podcast, and both Iscove and Reisdorf expressed interest in doing something like it again so they can connect to the Modern Warfare III community more directly.

This level of transparency is probably for the best because Modern Warfare III is off to something of a rocky start. We described the campaign as “boring” in our review and didn’t think there were “enough content or novel ideas in play to justify a whole new Call of Duty” in the multiplayer. Zombies mode suffers similar issues. In our review, we said it was “undercut by way too much time spent grinding for gear needed to survive the intense enemies in the center of the map, busywork story objectives, and crashes that can kill any desire to play.”

Suffice it to say, fans haven’t been particularly happy with Modern Warfare III at launch. Activision has already had to pull maps due to fan complaints about spawns, and it takes nearly 76 hours to grind out Modern Warfare III’s most coveted camo. Even the patches trying to fix Modern Warfare III’s issues have had problems, with some fixes delayed to the next patch.

Sledgehammer clearly has their work cut out for them. If nothing else, though, this podcast proves Sledgehammer is taking accountability, listening, and open to implementing feedback. And based on the amount of Ws posted in Repullze’s chat once everything was over, the community is very, very happy about that.

Stay with IGN for more updates on Modern Warfare III as we head into the holidays. For more on Modern Warfare III, check out our guides for the Best Modern Warfare III Loadouts and Class Setups, our guide to Modern Warfare III’s Zombies Mode, and more.

Will Borger is a freelance writer at IGN.