Xbox promises more early access after the Modern Warfare 4 review blackout

Xbox has committed to making it easier, from now on, for press and content creators to access pre-launch versions of games on Xbox Series. The promise, as reported by Vandal, comes from Scot Van Vliet, Xbox's chief technology officer, and follows a rather awkward situation: the Xbox Series version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, an Activision game and therefore Microsoft's own, has barely received any reviews.

This matters because we are not talking about a minor release from a third-party company, but the biggest shooter of the year on the console of its own owner. If the platform where Call of Duty is supposed to shine is precisely the one left without coverage, something is broken in the chain connecting Xbox with the people who inform the community. For those of us who play competitively and for those who create content, that broken link means less reliable information before spending our money.

What you need to know

• The official Call of Duty account posted on X, on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 27, an image showing the Metacritic scores for Modern Warfare 4 on Switch 2, PS5 and PC.
• The Xbox Series version was missing from the image, and many users pointed it out right away.
• It was not an oversight: Metacritic did not have enough reviews of that version to calculate an average. According to Vandal, only two outlets worldwide had reviewed it.
• Scot Van Vliet, Xbox's chief technology officer, has promised that in the future it will be easier for press and creators to access games before their launch on Xbox Series.

What happened with the Modern Warfare 4 scores

The story begins with an ordinary promotional campaign: Activision wanted to show off the scores the game was racking up and posted the summary from the weighted review aggregator. The problem is that the image only showed three platforms, and the one missing was precisely the one from its own house. The reaction on social media was swift and, to be honest, quite logical.

The explanation is more technical than conspiratorial. Metacritic needs a minimum number of reviews to generate an average score, and the Xbox Series version did not reach that threshold. With only two outlets having reviewed the game on that console, the aggregator simply does not display a score. These are the scores that did appear, according to Vandal's report:

What Xbox promises and what we still don't know

What Van Vliet has said is a statement of intent: to make pre-launch access on Xbox Series easier. The source does not detail concrete measures, timelines or how that access will be arranged, so it is best not to take anything else for granted. What is clear is that Xbox acknowledges there is a problem and that the problem is theirs, not the media's.

Our reading is that the bottleneck lies in the logistics of press codes and early console builds. When a game of this caliber launches on PC, PS5 and Switch 2 with dozens of reviews and on Xbox Series with two, the difference cannot be explained by a lack of interest from the media. It is a distribution failure that affects anyone wanting to cover the game on that platform at the moment that matters most: launch week.

Our take

At Underworld Lordz we will say it plainly: this is a mistake Xbox could not afford. Microsoft paid a fortune for Activision, and the crown jewel is Call of Duty. For its own console to be the only one without an average score on Metacritic on the day of the official promotion is not just a PR blunder, it is a sign that the internal processes between Xbox, Activision and the press are not aligned. For a company that has spent years trying to convince the community that Xbox is the natural home for its catalog, the message that came through is exactly the opposite.

For competitive players the damage is real, even if it goes unnoticed. Reviews of each console version are what tell us how the game performs, whether there are stability issues or whether any platform starts at a disadvantage. Without coverage on Xbox Series, anyone playing there is buying blind, and in a shooter where every frame counts that is no small detail. And for content creators it is even worse: early access is what makes it possible to have videos, guides and streams ready for launch day. If Xbox leaves creators out of its own game, it is handing audience over to PlayStation and PC.

That said, we appreciate that Van Vliet stepped up to face the issue instead of letting it fade away on social media. A public promise is a commitment that can be held to account. What we will not do is applaud ahead of time: we want to see Xbox's next major launch with a code distribution that treats its console as the priority it should be, and with Spanish-speaking creators included in the equation, not just the big English-language outlets.

What do you think?

If you play Call of Duty on Xbox Series, you probably found out about all this after buying the game, and that is exactly what should not happen. Do you think Xbox's promise will really change anything, or is it just damage control until the storm blows over? Tell us in the team chat or on our Discord.