Update February 7, 2017: Though Activision previously said Modern Warfare Remastered’s microstransaction supply drop crates would only contain cosmetics, a range of new weapons have now been added.
There are three new guns in total, none of which existed in the original release, leading many to worry about the game’s balance being affected. One of the weapons is a full-auto shotgun.
Related: the best FPS games ever.
As Charlie Intel report, the weapons are:
- KAMCHATKA-12 – This is a fully-automatic, 12-gauge shotgun of Russian origin, and features an 8-round detachable box magazine.
- XM-LAR – This fully automatic assault rifle comes from the European theater, and utilizes 7.62x51mm NATO cartridges in a 30-round detachable box.
- .44 MAGNUM – This is the classic .44 Magnum six-round revolver, featuring a stylized military grip and signature long barrel.
There are also four weapon kits:
- Huntsman – This Sniper Class Weapon Kit gives your sniper rifles the field-ready look of a working class weapon. For example, your sniper rifle can look camouflaged like a ghillie suit or covered in duct tape.
- Lawman – Bring a bit of the Old West to Modern Warfare with this Shotgun Class Weapon Kit. You’ll feel like a gunslinger when your shotguns have the look and feel of high-class weapons from Western Americana, complete with filigreed details and wood stocks.
- Battle-scarred – If you like to get up close and personal, then the SMG is probably one of your workhorse weapons. The Battle-Scarred Weapon Kit will make your weapons look like they have been through many a firefight, scars and all.
- Czar – The Czar Weapon Kit provides the look of pure gold to your LMGs, putting the bling in your loadout and onto the field of battle. These golden guns are over the top, flashy, and deadly as ever.
Two melee weapon kits:
- Gladiator – Stride into battle with the might of a gladiator when you equip this contemporary recreation of the historical Gladius sword, used as the weapon of choice by Roman foot soldiers.
- Hatchetman – Strap on some deadly curves when you add the Military Axe to your loadout. This updated take on the classic hatchet looks fearsome in the field and is ready to do your dirty work.
And four customisation sets:
- Weapon camo sets – Four new weapon camo sets each bring new camos to the field, with 39 new weapon camos total.
- Calling card sets – Customise your calling card with 31 new options for you to wear with pride.
- Emblem sets – With 39 new emblems to pair with your calling card, variety is now your middle name.
- Reticule sets – Set your sights with new looks with 39 different new reticles to choose from.
Developers Raven Software said they were excited to add the new items to the game, as it wasn’t possible during the original release. They also say they looked at game balancing prior to adding them, making sure each had strenghts and weaknesses via extensive playtesting before adding them to the game.
“As a studio, balance remains our #1 priority,” say Raven. “And just like many of the new items we’ve brought in, you can obtain them by completing a collection of items you acquire with your Parts, or through supply drops.”
Update December 14, 2016:Microtransactions and cosmetic customisation items, identified in a datamine, are now live in Modern Warfare Remastered.
COD fans hoping that the remaster of 2007’s acclaimed Modern Warfare will stay true to the design of the original may be disappointed to hear that supply drops, purchasable through microtransactions, are now active in the game with the December update.
This follows a datamine last month which revealed the existence of new weapons, such as a shovel and an automatic shotgun, as well as filenames hinting at a return of Black Ops 3’s black market.
There’s no word on the new weapons, but the black market has indeed returned as the Multiplayer Depot. It’s your hub for cosmetic stuff, where you can exchange COD points (purchaseable with real money) or Depot Credits (earned through gameplay) for supply drops.
Each supply drop contains a random cache of cosmetic customisation items, including new reticles, emblems, weapon camos, calling cards, combat uniforms and characters. They also contain Parts – the equivalent of Infinite Warfare’s Salvage – a currency which you can trade for customisation items from a menu rather than relying on a supply drop’s RNG. Handy if you’re after something specific.
Besides the Depot and supply drops, there’s plenty more in the December update. Female soldiers and two fan-favourite game modes, Gun Game and Hardpoint – none of which were present in the original – make their appearance.
The update also adds six updated maps from Modern Warfare and Winter Crash – a Christmas-themed version of the classic map ‘Crash’ – which gets its very own holiday playlist.
The original Modern Warfare offered no cosmetic customisation options at all, yet offering them via microtransactions has been extremely lucrative for Activision in recent CODs.
Original story November 15, 2016:Release a game on PC and one thing is for sure: everyone will know absolutely everything you scrapped during development if you didn’t go through the model files and texture packs with a hoover. Modern Warfare Remastered is the latest to fall victim to file-explorers and data-miners, with eager fans discovering many weapons from previous COD games buried deep, along with some brand new stuff.
Most of note is the shovel weapon, showing there was at least experimentation with melee combat of some sort during development.
This originally appeared in Black Ops 3, though the community is split on exactly how great an inclusion it was. According to Reddit user Semyel, who along with fellow miner Tails has been discovering most of this, there are also entries for a number of other melee weapons, tagged as temporary.
They also found the Kamchatka automatic shotgun, which hasn’t appeared in COD before and seems rather brutal:
The grey colouring is down to a lack of texturing, but beyond that it seems rather fully implemented. Interestingly, Activision have issued copyright strikes on YouTube videos containing the above footage.
More worrying for community folks hoping Modern Warfare Remastered stays true to the original throughout its lifespan is the suggestion that these may be later-added DLC additions, or come through some sort of loot drop. Indeed, filenames also discovered by Tails suggest exactly that along with a return of Black Ops 3’s black market dealers, and microtransactions have proved as unpopular as you’d expect with COD players, if extremely profitable for Activision.
In his Reddit post, Semyel speculates that this is likely scrapped content rather than upcoming, as the negative reaction from the playerbase to BO3’s paid-for elements may have halted development on these elements several months ago. That sounds likely to me, each COD team always trying to build on and react to what last year’s iteration did well.