Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022) is a restart of the beloved rebooted trilogy and a direct sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare. The campaign puts Captain Price, Soap, Ghost, and Alejandro Vasquez at the forefront in a fight against a drug cartel and General Ghorbrani's terrorist network, emphasizing action in enclosed interiors as well as sprawling open missions, including a nighttime airdrop with thermal vision and an underwater port infiltration. Multiplayer introduced an improved weapon customization system called Gunsmith, and the game also serves as a springboard for the battle royale Warzone 2.0, with which it shares weapons, operators, and seasonal progression.

On Xbox One, the game launched together with the Xbox Series X|S version as part of cross-gen support, but runs on older hardware with noticeably lower requirements. The resolution is dynamic and lower than on next-gen consoles, the game lacks the ray-traced effects available only on Series X|S and PS5, and the frame rate is capped at 60 frames per second even in more hectic firefights. Loading times on Xbox One - especially on models without fast storage - were noticeably longer than on the new generation, environmental textures and level of detail were simplified due to the console's limited memory, and the older Xbox One model (without the X suffix) additionally ran at an even lower resolution than the more powerful Xbox One X, which at least partly benefited from its higher performance.

Thanks to the Smart Delivery system, owners of the Xbox One edition were entitled to a free upgrade to the Xbox Series X|S version once they got the new console, and multiplayer progress as well as saved campaign positions carried over automatically between generations. In terms of content - the campaign, cooperative Spec Ops missions, multiplayer, and the connection to Warzone 2.0 - the Xbox One version remained identical to the other platforms; the difference was purely technical, in performance and visual quality, not in the amount of available weapons, maps, or game modes.

Why play it: Thanks to Smart Delivery, the Xbox One version is a safe choice even for players planning to move to Series X|S soon - progress and saved positions transfer automatically without any loss of content.