Call of Duty: Modern Warfare criticised for year-long exclusivity of Spec Ops Survival Mode

Call of Duty exclusives aren’t rare. Every year’s iteration has one. Typically, these exclusives come in the form of early map access for specific platforms, or 30-day exclusivity for new pieces of DLC content. This year, with Modern Warfare, Call of Duty’s platform exclusives have been taken to an all-new level. 

With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, PlayStation 4 owners will have exclusive access to the game’s Spec Ops Survival mode, which is due to release on Xbox One and PC on October 1st, 2020. 

This announcement came during Sony’s latest “State of Play” livestream, after which developer Infinity Wars received a lot of flack from fans of the series. In a tweet,  Infinity Ward’s narrative director Taylor Kurosaki stated that the decision to make that mode exclusive are “above all of our pay grades”.    

All of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s game other game modes, such as the game’s Single Player Campaign, Multiplayer and other Spec Ops modes will be available on day-1 on other platforms. Kurosaki commented that Spec Ops Survival is only a “sliver” of the game’s Spec Ops mode. In another tweet, Kurosaki stated that “I’d rather have everyone playing 99 per cent of the content at the same time than 100 per cent of the content some time later.” Basically, this is better than making the game a timed platform exclusive. 

Unlike previous Call of Duty releases, the game’s map packs will release simultaneously on all platforms, removing the month-long platform exclusivity of prior releases.