Modern Warfare 4's campaign is smashing records on Steam (and putting Black Ops 7 to shame)

As of October 20, 2026, four days after early access to its campaign opened, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 sits at 93% positive reviews out of 4,704 Steam reviews across all languages, earning the "Very Positive" tag, per a count from Mezha. To find a rating that high on the franchise, you have to go back to Black Ops (2010, roughly 91%), making this the series' best Steam reception in 16 years.

A score climbing day by day

The number has moved a lot since early access opened on October 16: 81% on about 900 reviews at the very start, then between 87% and 90% on roughly 2,000 reviews according to outlets checking in over the following days (Insider Gaming, PCGamesN, KhelNow), and now 93% on more than double that review count. The trend is clear: the score isn't collapsing as volume grows, it's still climbing.

Meanwhile, Black Ops 7 is still stuck with a rough launch

The comparison with Black Ops 7, released in November 2025, isn't close. That game is stuck around 38% positive on Steam months after launch, and its Metacritic user score dropped to 1.6/10, a series low according to Insider Gaming. The most recurring criticisms target the use of AI-generated assets for some cosmetic items, along with a campaign widely seen as disjointed. On launch day, Black Ops 7 drew only 86,652 concurrent Steam players per SteamDB, far below Black Ops 6's 300,000-plus a year earlier.

Same trend on player counts, with an important caveat

During its early-access beta weekend, Modern Warfare 4 already drew up to 115,145 concurrent Steam players per SteamDB, more than Black Ops 7's full-launch-day peak. That comparison should still be taken carefully: one is a pre-order-only beta peak, the other a full-release peak, two different contexts.

A sales figure to treat with a lot of caution

An estimate relayed in mid-August by Tech4Gamers, attributed to analytics firm Alinea Analytics, put Modern Warfare 4's Steam pre-orders at nearly 400,000, roughly double Black Ops 7's launch sales. That figure isn't confirmed by either Activision or Valve, comes from a third-party analysis with no public methodology, and the article relaying it contains an internal inconsistency of its own (it elsewhere mentions "half a million" copies). Treat it as a numbered rumor, not reliable data.

What these scores don't cover yet

Important reminder: everything above only covers the single-player campaign, tested by a digital-pre-order audience that was often already sold on the game before even launching it. Multiplayer, DMZ, and the general public joining on October 23 are the real test, the exact one that sank Black Ops 7 after a critical reception that was notably kinder than its player reception.

Sources

• Mezha: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has received over 4,700 reviews on Steam, 93% of them are positive
• Insider Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops 7 Metacritic User Rating
• Gamereactor: coverage of Black Ops 7's Steam launch numbers

The bottom line

Modern Warfare 4's campaign holds an outstanding Steam rating for the series (93% across more than 4,700 reviews), the best since 2010, while Black Ops 7 remains stuck at 38% months after launch. But the comparison rests on a narrow pre-order audience on Modern Warfare 4's side: the real verdict, multiplayer and general public included, arrives October 23.