Activision has officially announced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and it's being released slightly earlier than some might expect. MW4 is set for launch on Friday, October 23 across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2.

That's 27 days before GTA 6 releases on November 19. For comparison, 2025's Black Ops 7 launched on November 14.

An October release date for a new Call of Duty game is not unprecedented, of course, as 2024's Black Ops 6 launched on October 25.

Given the enormous hype and unprecedented demand for GTA 6, game companies are generally avoiding launching new titles near the game. GTA 6 is currently the only major new release set to launch on November 19.

Another notable development for MW4 is that it will not be available on Xbox Game Pass. As Microsoft announced previously, new Call of Duty games are no longer included with Game Pass, and instead won't come to the subscription program for about a year. This is part of a new "windowing" strategy whereby Microsoft excludes certain key games from Game Pass at launch.

MW4 will, however, be available on Nintendo Switch 2. That's notable because the Call of Duty series hasn't shown up on a Nintendo platform since 2013.

MW4's development is being led by Infinity Ward, the studio that created the sub-brand. The game's campaign puts players in the boots of the rookie soldier Private Park, with the story centering on the Korean peninsula. MW4 brings back multiplayer, of course, as well as the DMZ mode.

Activision has skipped Nintendo platforms for Call of Duty for more than a decade, as the last CoD release on a Nintendo platform was a port of Call of Duty: Ghosts for Wii U in 2013. That is changing this year, though, as Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will come to Switch 2 at launch on October 23. It'll debut that day alongside the game's other versions for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The game is not coming to last-gen consoles.

The new Call of Duty game showing up on Switch 2 is not a surprise, but instead the realization of a promise that Microsoft made years ago.

In 2023, amid the FTC vs. Microsoft court case, Microsoft said it had signed a “binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players.” The statement said Microsoft would launch Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms “the same day as Xbox, with full features and content parity.”

2024's Black Ops 6 and 2025's Black Ops 7 did not come to Switch 2, prompting many to wonder if Microsoft and Activision were actually going to follow through on the promise. In June 2025, Activision released a statement saying it was committed to bringing Call of Duty to Switch 2. A report from December 2025 said Call of Duty's release on Switch 2 was imminent.

The Switch 2 version of Modern Warfare 4 is developed by Infinity Ward in partnership with Digital Legends. It is a native version for Switch 2. It remains to be seen if the Switch 2 edition of Modern Warfare 4 has any differences compared to the game's other editions.

While Modern Warfare 4 is coming to Switch 2, Activision has not said if the popular Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale game is coming to Switch 2. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

Modern Warfare 4's story is centered on the Korean Peninsula, with players taking on the role of Private Park, a young Korean grunt soldier who is entering combat for the first time. The campaign is described as a "zero-to-hero" story.

A familiar Modern Warfare character, Captain Price, returns in the campaign, which will take players beyond Korea to places like New York, Paris, and Mumbai.

Beyond the campaign, Modern Warfare 4 brings back multiplayer, of course, with 12 brand-new 6v6 maps coming at launch. The DMZ mode returns as well.

Call of Duty has a long, strange history on Nintendo platforms.

If you've played the Call of Duty games in recent years--arguably any of them past the first handful--then you know the games tend to star heroes with near-superhuman reflexes, athletic abilities, and rapid decision-making. For Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Infinity Ward is taking a step back, partially, from these larger-than-life heroes and putting you back in the boots of a regular "grunt" soldier. 

The decision to move back to regular soldiers--which should be familiar to Call of Duty 2 players, for example--came about as Infinity Ward developed the setup for Modern Warfare 4's story. Set during a renewed war between North and South Korea, it's a conflict with global ramifications, and the mandatory military service ingrained in South Korean society played a big role. You'll spend part of the game as the Korean soldier Private Park, who is facing combat for the first time.

"South Korea has a particularity that every single person there has to serve in the military when they're young, and so for us, that's an interesting perspective," Infinity Ward co-studio head Jack O'Hara told GameSpot during a pre-reveal game presentation. It's something we haven't seen in a long time, with the seemingly immortal Captain Price dominating much of the Modern Warfare games and Treyarch's Black Ops games starring the similarly impressive Mason family. 

"It's fascinating for us to go back to that perspective of young guys, 18 to 25," O'Hara added. "They have no idea what's going on, they're receiving an incomplete picture from their orders, and they're just trying to survive to the next moment." 

That doesn't mean you won't see any of your favorite Modern Warfare characters, however--just that there will be more of a balance between their otherworldly feats and the regular soldiers' experiences. Captain Price and the rest of Task Force 141 will still be in the game, and the plotlines between the two will connect. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 could be a major turning point for Infinity Ward following the poor reception to Modern Warfare 3, and an opportunity for the story to get back on track. With the story seemingly breaking new ground we didn't touch in the old-school Modern Warfare games, it remains to be seen if this can inject some new life into the series at a key moment. 

Come launch day on October 23, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will be available on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Switch 2, and PC.

More than a decade after it originally released, The Witcher 3 is getting new content, Songs of the Past. Developer CD Projekt Red wants fans to know that this is an "expansion" and not "DLC." The terms may be synonymous to some, but the Polish developer does not see them as being the same.

"For us at CDPR, DLCs are small pieces of content we release for free--like the additional outfits for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Expansions, on the other hand, are major pieces of content providing lots of hours of gameplay, including new story, characters, etc," CD Projekt Red's Marcin Łukaszewski said.

Another developer from CD Projekt Red, Paweł Sasko, pointed to comments from Cyberpunk 2077 actor Idris Elba to make his point about DLC vs. expansions.

"Just to be clear, it's not DLC. It's an expansion," Elba said about the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. "You know why? Because we do expansions. Big. Massive. Monster. We don't do DLCs. And when we do, we give them away [for free]."

The Witcher 3 had more than 15 free pieces of DLC. At the time, CD Projekt Red said it didn't want to charge for things like costumes and armor “because people just paid full price for our game. We owe them.”

Songs of the Past is The Witcher 3's third expansion, following Hearts of Stone (2015) and Blood and Wine (2016). The new expansion arrives in 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and it's being made in partnership with Fool's Theory. That same studio is working on a remake of the original Witcher as well.

Songs of the Past has players returning to the role of Geralt of Rivia in a "brand-new adventure." That's all we know about the expansion, but CD Projekt Red said more details about the expansion will be released in "late Summer 2026."