Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will add ranked modes next year

By Joseph Yaden November 2, 2022

Developer Treyarch Studios announced that Ranked Play will come to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II at an unspecified date in 2023.

The developer confirmed that Ranked Play will include multiple competitive modes and ranked skill divisions, along with the ability to see your skill rating. Modern Warfare II will also have a top 250 leaderboard, and will offer competitive rewards, which have yet to be revealed.

#CONFIRMED: Ranked Play arrives on #ModernWarfare2 in 2023, and we're working with our partners to deliver:

Competitive Modes ✅
Ranked Skill Divisions ✅
Visible Skill Ratings ✅
Top 250 Leaderboard ✅
Competitive Rewards ✅

More details to come!

— Treyarch Studios (@Treyarch) November 2, 2022

It’s unclear which modes will be part of Ranked Play, and when this highly requested feature will come in 2023, but the community at large seems pleased with the announcement.

Modern Warfare II players will also gain access to the CDL (Call of Duty League) Moshpit at the start of Season 1, which begins on November 16. Activision will provide more details about this closer to the launch of CDL. This competitive playlist will likely have restricted items and weapons, just like in the pro leagues.

With this news, Activision will sunset Ranked Play in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Vanguard in November. The company confirmed players will still be able to earn rewards until November 22 across both games.

It’s unclear how the addition of Ranked Play will differ exactly from the core game modes in Modern Warfare II, in terms of matchmaking. As it stands, Modern Warfare II uses a skill-based matchmaking system, wherein players are supposed to get paired with other users of equal skill levels.

This feature has been a hot topic for debate for years, so maybe this will finally be the game that loosens the matchmaking for standard modes, while cranking it up within the Ranked Playlist.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Tech News

Joseph Yaden is a freelance journalist who covers Nintendo, shooters, and horror games. He mostly covers game guides for…

Gaming

Call of Duty: Warzone devs share the design secrets of the best battle royale map

Overhead shot of Vondel map in Warzone.

The Vondel map in Call of Duty: Warzone is one of the best battlegrounds in the history of the battle royale genre. It's a small-scale, densely packed map with a wide variety of points of interest (POIs) that feel distinct. Modeled after European cities, Vondel is a feat of level design as it simultaneously feels fun and functional. It's a city that you can truly imagine as a real place, with a slew of different shops to enter, a canal, and even a water taxi service that moves throughout the map.

But behind the scenes, there are countless design choices that help the flow and pacing of the map. To get a better sense of just what makes this map work so well, I spoke with Beenox Senior Level Designer Fred Wilson and Lead Artist Guillaume Alain. The duo revealed how Vondel's composition seeps into the players' subconscious, with intuitive design choices that work better than any Warzone map that's come before.
Pacing is king

Gaming

The best weapons in Modern Warfare 2: every gun ranked

Soldiers running in Modern Warfare II.

Your performance in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has a lot to do with the weapon you come equipped with. Sure, a skilled player can excel with most weapons in the game, but having the best firearm for any given situation will lead you to more victories -- regardless of your playstyle. Modern Warfare 2 has around 50 primary weapons across seven categories, each with different stats, strengths, and weaknesses.

The meta in Call of Duty games shifts constantly as weapons are added and tweaked, so it's always a good idea to stay on top of the latest updates. In this guide, we'll rank each primary weapon in Modern Warfare 2 across all categories (with the exception of the Riot Shield). This ranking is in descending order, with the first spot being the best and the last spot being the worst. We'll also link to loadout guides for the weapons on this list so you know exactly which attachments to use.
Assault rifles

Gaming

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has seemingly leaked thanks to Monster

Five main characters from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.

It looks like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III will be the title of this year's Call of Duty game. Following several leaks, including an undeniable one connected to Monster Energy, a joking tweet from the official Call of Duty Twitter account appears to confirm that this is true.
Leaks suggesting that 2023's Call of Duty game is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III have existed for months, but ramped up recently. On July 17, the Call of Duty Twitter account put up tweets asking if Operators, weapons, and bundles from Modern Warfare II should carry over to this year's game and teasing that a big reveal would happen alongside the unveiling of Season 5. Later that day, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier stated that this is a Sledgehammer Games-led project that started as an expansion and morphed into a full game.
Then, Monday morning, images of Monster Energy promotional materials connected to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III emerged on Twitter, giving us confirmation of the name and our first look at the game's logo.

A leak like this is pretty difficult to deny, so Activision decided to play along with it. "Whew. Mondays," the official Call of Duty account tweeted. "Anyone have an energy drink they can spare?"
While not a traditional, explicit announcement, this tweet confirms the validity of the Monster Energy leak and affirms that this year's Call of Duty will be a direct follow-up to 2022's Modern Warfare II. Now, we'll just have to wait and see when Activision decides to officially reveal more about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III itself.
Because it's not officially announced yet, we don't know what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's release date or launch platforms are. Still, it's likely that it will launch across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox sometime this October or November after Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition closes.