Xbox And PC Call Of Duty Players Left Without A Key Game Feature

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players on Xbox or PC weren't able to disable crossplay.

By Jason Collins | Published

Xbox and PC gamers who gained early access to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 uncovered that they couldn’t disable crossplay with other platforms. Those playing on Sony’s most recent, albeit slightly more expensive console, can still disable crossplay gaming with PC and Xbox platforms. It’s highly unlikely that one of the key gaming features is left out intentionally. However, strange winds are blowing across the state of gaming these days, and even the freshest titles now miss some of the crucial gameplay elements.

According to IGN, PC gaming platform lacks the option to disable crossplay gaming altogether, so they’re stuck playing with their Xbox colleagues and Sony’s “gaming elite.” Xbox gamers, on the other hand, have a way to disable the crossplay option, though they have to rely on the console’s local setting.

This does limit gaming to the native platform, but it also applies to all games on the console, and not just Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. What’s most interesting about the lack of a crossplay toggle is the fact that the option was present across all platforms during beta testing.

Nobody actually knows why the option has disappeared, and if it isn’t intentional, the controversial Activision Blizzard, who apparently has another Warcraft mobile game in development, is likely to fix the issue with a small patch or update. ABK is actually known for issuing weekly fixes for their games, and we can expect the issue to be fixed with the next weekly maintenance for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Whether or not that’s actually the case remains to be seen in the coming days.

All issues aside, the lack of the aforementioned crossplay toggle in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 does pose a problem for gamers who prefer to play with and against others on their native platform. Ever since the dawn of gaming, and the prominence of PC in the gaming sphere, gamers have debated which camp has more advantages.

PC players, with their mouse/keyboard combo and more than 50 active joints, are known to move and aim faster, but console players have the benefit of a controller and aim assist functionality.

Cross-play isn’t exactly a like-for-like comparison, though gaming companies and manufacturers are constantly trying to bridge various gaps when it comes to controlling options. Statistically, controllers are better for games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but the gaming community feels like the mouse/keyboard takes the win. World’s Edge’s recent porting of the Age of Empires franchise for Xbox is actually designed to work on the controller. A new crossplay option was recently suggested in which the matchmaking system also matches gamers based on their control input.

Theoretically, this could level the playing field, and Infinity Ward, the developer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, made previous attempts with such implementations. According to them, the proposed system worked, but it was riddled with faults, mostly due to conflicts with the matchmaking system and the general availability of gamers. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released on October 28 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.