Why Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Mini-Map Has Fans Divided

Despite bearing the burden of sharing its namesake with one of the most revered and influential first-person shooters of all time, early reactions to the upcoming "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" — a sequel to the 2019 "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" reboot — seem to be mostly positive. The trailer showcasing the new franchise entry, as well as the upcoming "Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0," received tons of attention online, garnering over 7 million views and 81,000 likes with most of the comments expressing excitement as opposed to dread. 

With its release a little over a month away, "Modern Warfare 2" has created a bit of a rift within its core audience. In mid-September, Activision released a beta version of "Modern Warfare 2," giving a select amount of players an early look at the legacy FPS shooter's next installment. Compiling data from user feedback, Activision has used this beta period to determine what is working and what the company needs to fix. Unfortunately, a controversial decision regarding the in-game mini-map has left "Call of Duty" fans completely divided.

Traditionally, the mini-map in "Call of Duty" has been used to communicate the movement of enemies to players in a multiplayer setting. For instance, if an opposing player fires their weapon, their position will show up on the mini-map. Should players wish to attack freely without the risk of being spotted by enemies on the mini-map, they can opt to put a silencer on their primary weapon with the trade-off coming in the form of damage dealt. However, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" doesn't follow this tradition. Instead, players don't show up on the mini-map at all unless their team is in possession of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

This change was acknowledged in Infinity Ward's "Modern Warfare 2" beta weekend one community update. "Currently in the MW2 Beta, we only show enemy player dots when a UAV is active," the update stated. "The design reason for this is that we do not want to punish players for firing their weapons. We also want players to actively search out the origin of a gunshot versus just traveling directly to where the dot is on the mini-map."

The general consensus regarding Activision's decision to change the mini-map seems to be negative. In a post on the "Modern Warfare 2" subreddit titled "IW doesn't want to Punish people firing [their] Guns, here's your Answer IW," an individual shared an image of a silencer. On Twitter, one person said that this change will inherently encourage camping in games, in stark contrast to what Infinity Ward thinks will happen. According to Twitter user Modern Warfare 2 Informer, 35% of the feedback from the "Modern Warfare 2" beta complained of the new mini-map system, yet Infinity Ward refused to listen to the core audience.

Not everyone is opposed to the new system. "Yeah so you can use audio to track them down and take them out?" wrote Twitter user @bart_tatara. "I really don't see the issue here." Another commenter argued that no party is more informed on "Call of Duty" than Infinity Ward and that the company's decision should be respected. In the community update, Infinity Ward said that it would continue to collect responses from players before making a decision on the mini-map's function in the final product.