Modern Warfare 4 Opens Its Campaign Early: Unlock Times and Pricing

It's official and it's here: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 lets you play its campaign from October 16, a week before its official launch, set for October 23. According to Vandal, the game is coming to PC, Xbox Series, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, and it unlocks at midnight in each player's local time, both for early access and on launch day.

Why does it matter? Because Activision is fully embracing the trend of staggered launches, where paying up front buys you a head start. For the competitive community and for content creators, that extra week is no small detail: it's the difference between joining the conversation and arriving late to it.

What You Need to Know

• Campaign early access: available from October 16 for anyone who has pre-ordered the game.
• Official launch: October 23 on PC, Xbox Series, PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2.
• Unlock time: 12:00 AM local time on both dates, no matter which country you're in.
• Requirement: pre-ordering any edition is enough, whether it's the Standard Edition or the Vault Edition.
• Pricing: €79.99 for the Standard Edition and €109.99 for the Vault Edition.

Editions, Pricing and What Each One Includes

According to Vandal, you don't need to buy the most expensive version to get in early: pre-ordering the Standard Edition already gives you access to the story from October 16. The price difference comes down to cosmetic and progression content.

That's a €30 gap between the two. If you play DMZ or want the one-season BlackCell pass, you'll find reasons to upgrade; if you only want the campaign and the base game, there's no need to overspend to enjoy early access.

Unlock Times by Country: Midnight for Everyone

The chosen system is a local-time unlock, so there's no complicated math involved: in every region, the game opens at 12:00 AM on the corresponding day. Confirmed territories include Spain (mainland and the Balearic Islands, on CEST), the Canary Islands (WEST), Equatorial Guinea (WAT), Argentina (ART), Uruguay (UYT), the US East Coast (EDT) and Chile (CLT).

In practical terms, the Spanish-speaking community won't all start at the same time. Europe opens before the Americas, which means that by the time the clock strikes midnight across the Americas, players in Spain will already have hours of playtime under their belts, with the first videos and reactions already making the rounds.

Our Take

At Underworld Lordz, we have mixed feelings about this early access. On one hand, letting a Standard Edition pre-order unlock it is a more reasonable call than locking the head start behind the premium version, as other releases have done. On the other, the underlying message is still the same: if you don't pay early, you play later. Normalizing a real launch day that arrives a week early for pre-order customers turns the official release date into something almost symbolic.

For content creators, it's clear-cut: if you want to rank guides, campaign walkthroughs or first impressions, you need to be in on the 16th. Waiting until the 23rd means giving away the window of peak interest. And the local-time unlock favors those in European time zones, something our creators in the Americas should keep in mind when planning streams and posts.

For competitive players, it's worth keeping things in perspective: according to the source, what's coming early is the campaign. It's a good moment to get familiar with the weapons, the movement and the overall feel of the game, but the real competitive barometer will arrive with the full launch. Don't get swept up in the first-week hype before seeing how everything develops.

What Do You Think?

Staggered launches are here to stay, and Modern Warfare 4 is just one more example. Some see it as a reward for the trust of those who pre-order; others, as a way to pressure players into paying up front. Have you been playing the campaign since the 16th, or would you rather wait until October 23 to decide? Let us know in the team chat or on our Discord.