I felt the pull of that 94% too. A Call of Duty with a score in the nineties on Steam, after years of numbers that looked like a bad report card, is the kind of headline that makes you sit up. Then I asked the question I try to ask about every review score: who wrote these?
The answer is a smaller and happier group than the headline suggests. TweakTown reports that the campaign opened on Oct. 16 to players who had digitally pre-ordered, a week before the full launch on Oct. 23 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, as TechSpot lists the platforms. People who pre-order a Call of Duty and then get the story mode early are, as you might guess, a friendly crowd.
The full game has now been out for three days, and the number has settled lower. GameRant reports that about 80% of English-language reviews recommend it. That is still labeled Very Positive, and it still sits well above where the last few entries landed, but it isn’t 94%. Neither figure is wrong. They answer different questions.
I covered the price, the Game Pass skip and the rough beta before launch, so I won’t walk through those again. This piece works like an autopsy on the score itself: I lined up every Steam number I could verify, ran each one through three filters, and graded how much I’d trust it. The grades are my opinion and I label them that way. One more honest note: I haven’t played the game for this story. I’m reading public numbers and published reviews, not reviewing the shooting.
If you’re here for the campaign, the evidence is on your side. If you’re here for multiplayer, use the post-launch 80%, and check the beta’s old complaints about matchmaking and maps against fresh reviews. I wouldn’t use the 94% to decide anything.
The Key Points
- During campaign-only early access, open to digital pre-order buyers from Oct. 16, Modern Warfare 4 peaked near 94% positive on about 4,000 Steam reviews, per TechSpot. After the Oct. 23 launch, GameRant reports about 80% of English-language reviews are positive, still Very Positive.
- At launch it peaked at roughly 227,000 concurrent players on Steam’s shared Call of Duty app, about double Black Ops 7’s launch and below Black Ops 6’s roughly 306,000 to 315,000, depending on the tracker.
- My take: the 94% measured a happy pre-order crowd playing the story, so the 80% is the number to trust. That is my opinion, and I couldn’t find a full-game critic aggregate to cross-check it against.
Why does Modern Warfare 4 have four different Steam scores?
Because Steam has been measuring different things at different moments. Here are the headline figures first, then the ladder they came from.
Step 1: the multiplayer beta (from Aug. 21)
37–55%Mixed on Steam. Tech4Gamers counted about 37% positive across all languages, while TweakTown put the negative share near 45%, which is roughly 55% positive. The outlets don’t all say which filter they used, but every one of them lands in Mixed territory. Players cited aggressive aim assist, frame-pacing problems, small maps and a punishing time-to-kill. The beta peaked at 115,145 Steam players and fell to about 28,730 within a day, per TweakTown. The hatched part of the bar is the range between the two reports.
Step 2: campaign early access (pre-order buyers, from Oct. 16)
94%Insider Gaming caught it on day one at about 81% with roughly 900 reviews. It climbed as thousands more came in, and TechSpot counted 94% positive across 4,068 reviews.
Step 3: the full launch (from Oct. 23)
~80%GameRant reports Very Positive, with 80% of English-language reviews recommending the game. Multiplayer arrived with the full launch, so the pool of reviewers now includes people who came for something other than the story.
Read down the ladder and the shape is clear: a rough beta, a campaign honeymoon, and a landing zone in between. Part of the climb out of the beta is real, because TweakTown reports Infinity Ward patched time-to-kill and weapon balance during the test. But my read, and it is only a read, is that most of the swing comes from who is reviewing, not from what changed in the code.
Part 02 · The filtersWho wrote the 94%? My three-filter test
These are the three questions I run on any score before I let it change my mind about a game. Under each one I put what the sources say, then what I make of it.
Who wrote the review?
What the sources sayTweakTown reports the campaign went to digital pre-order customers a week early. TechPowerUp noted these reviewers are probably the most enthusiastic part of the audience.
My readSelf-selected fans who had already paid. A friendly jury isn’t a fake jury, but it also isn’t the whole room.
What did they play?
What the sources sayGuruGamer noted that the reviews reflected the campaign experience, with multiplayer arriving at the full launch. Early critic impressions gathered by Pure Xbox were warm about the campaign, and several outlets said they weren’t scoring the whole game yet.
My readFor a lot of players the campaign is the appetizer and multiplayer is the meal. That is my observation of how the series gets played, not a measured statistic.
How many reviews, and with how much playtime?
What the sources sayTechSpot counted more than 4,000 reviews, a big sample. KitGuru pointed out that early reviews carried a 0-hours-played tag because the game wasn’t officially out, and Mezha noted early players complained about the Call of Duty HQ launcher.
My readBig sample, narrow slice. Four thousand people can all be sincere and still be the same kind of person.
So is the 94% wrong? No. By every account I read, the campaign genuinely landed with the people who played it. But it’s a great answer to “did the pre-order crowd like the story?” and a shaky answer to “is this a good Call of Duty?” Those are different questions, and the headline blurred them.
Part 03 · The crowdHow many people showed up on Steam? Launch peaks side by side
Review scores tell you how people felt. Player counts tell you how many bothered to show up. Here are the peaks I could source, scaled against the biggest.
Bars are scaled to the Black Ops 6 figure GameRant reports from SteamDB. Sources differ by a few thousand: Tech4Gamers reports 227,622 for Modern Warfare 4 and over 315,000 for Black Ops 6. The campaign early-access peak comes from FandomWire’s SteamDB report.
Four cautions before anyone declares victory. First, GameRant notes the launch figure comes from the shared Call of Duty app that Modern Warfare 4 and Black Ops 6 both use, so it isn’t a clean count of one game. Second, this is Steam only, and the game also sold on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch 2, which these numbers can’t see. Third, a peak isn’t staying power: the beta lost more than half its peak players in a day. Fourth, Game Pass doesn’t explain much either way. Tech4Gamers points out that Modern Warfare 4 skipped Game Pass, but Black Ops 6 launched on it and still posted the bigger Steam number.
Even with all that, going from roughly 100,000 to roughly 227,000 in a year, for a series a lot of people had called tired, is good news for Activision. I’d rather judge weeks than days, though.
Part 04 · The comparisonHow does 80% compare with the last five Call of Duty games?
Here are the lifetime Steam scores SteamDB listed for recent entries, as reported by TechPowerUp, next to Modern Warfare 4’s current figure.
The hatched bar uses a different method, a raw share of English-language reviews from GameRant, so it isn’t a like-for-like comparison with SteamDB’s weighted scores.
Two warnings apply. The older games have years of accumulated reviews, while Modern Warfare 4 has days. And, as TechPowerUp explains, SteamDB’s formula pulls games with fewer reviews toward 50%, which is why outlets disagree on which old game Modern Warfare 4 now beats: TechSpot says Black Ops from 2010, while Insider Gaming and TechPowerUp say Black Ops III from 2015.
Here’s my rough check, and it’s only back-of-the-envelope. Even if you shaved ten points off Modern Warfare 4 to be conservative, 70% would still sit far above the three most recent entries. So the direction looks real. “Best Call of Duty ever on Steam” is a claim nobody can make yet.
Part 05 · The gradesHow much should you trust each number? My trust meter
This is the most subjective part of the piece. Five pips means I’d lean on it for a buying decision, one pip means I’d treat it as a sketch. These are my grades, not data.
The beta score (37–55%)
A real signal about an earlier build. Infinity Ward has since patched time-to-kill and weapon balance, so it describes a game that has changed.
My trustUseful history, not a verdictThe 94% from campaign early access
Excellent evidence that the story mode works. Weak evidence about the shooter as a whole.
My trustStrong for the campaign, weak for the whole gameThe ~80% after launch
Includes multiplayer players and beta skeptics, comes from a far larger pool, and is still Very Positive. The weakness is that it’s days old.
My trustThe best number we haveThe ~227,000 launch peak
Shared app, Steam only, and a peak rather than a trend.
My trustGood news, with fine printEarly critic impressions
Warm and consistent about the campaign, but in the roundup I found, several outlets hadn’t scored the full game. I couldn’t find a full-game aggregate score, so I’m not quoting one.
My trustPromising, incomplete
How to read any Steam rating in 30 seconds
This is the part I’d keep even if you forget everything else. It works for any game, not just this one.
- Count the reviews firstA few hundred reviews is a sketch. A few thousand is a portrait. Treat the label accordingly.
- Ask who is reviewingPre-order buyers, early-access players and beta testers are not the same crowd as everyone who shows up on launch day.
- Compare the recent score with the overall scoreSteam’s store page shows both. A game sliding from its overall number toward a lower recent one is telling you something.
- Use Steam’s own filtersYou can narrow reviews by language, date range and playtime. The same game can look quite different depending on which you choose, which is partly why the beta numbers above don’t match each other.
- Read a handful of negative reviewsTen minutes of the angriest reviews tells you if the complaints are about your dealbreakers, such as matchmaking, performance or a launcher.
My verdict on Modern Warfare 4’s Steam score
I’m more hopeful than I expected to be, and I want to explain why without getting carried away.
A year ago the story about Call of Duty on Steam was a slide. Black Ops 7 sat near 39% and its launch peak was around 100,000. Now there’s a game with a launch peak more than double that, reviewers praising the campaign, and a studio that patched its beta in public. If you’ve followed this series long enough, that’s a nicer thing to write than another obituary.
But I won’t use the 94% as a trophy, because it measures a honeymoon. The 80% includes the grumpy people, the multiplayer-only people and the folks who left the beta with a grudge, and it still comes out Very Positive. To me that’s more impressive, not less.
The grumpy part isn’t gone, either. Dexerto reported that Infinity Ward’s co-studio head defended the stricter skill-based matchmaking after the beta backlash, and the beta’s complaints about map size and time-to-kill are exactly what fresh reviews should be tested against. Here’s what would change my mind, in plain terms:
- Signal 1
Steam’s Recent Reviews staying in positive territory after the launch rush fades, instead of drifting back toward the beta’s Mixed.
- Signal 2
Player counts holding up in the weeks after launch, given that the beta lost more than half its peak in a day.
- Signal 3
New reviews talking about matchmaking and maps in a different way than the beta reviews did.
Until then: trust the 80, enjoy the campaign if that’s why you came, and be a little suspicious of any single percentage, including my own grades.
