Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 isn’t fully out yet — but its campaign early access just pulled 108,500 concurrent players on Steam in its first 24 hours, beating Black Ops 7’s entire full-game Steam peak of roughly 100,500. And the reviews are just as loud: around 87% positive, the best Steam rating for a Call of Duty since 2010’s Black Ops.
The numbers
The 108,500 figure comes from CharlieINTEL via SteamDB data, tracking the shared Call of Duty app on Steam during the MW4 campaign early access window that opened October 16. For context, Black Ops 7 topped out around 100,500 concurrent players across its entire launch — so MW4’s campaign alone, with no multiplayer live, has already cleared it. Pixel Herald’s own tracking put the peak at 108,471 — up 253% on the week before.
The reviews are the real story
Player counts spike and fade, but the rating is harder to argue with: 87.4% positive across 2,000+ Steam reviews (Insider Gaming), making it the best-reviewed Call of Duty on Steam since the original Black Ops in 2010. Destructoid’s count sits at 86% positive with 1,000+ reviews and calls it one of the best-received CoD games in recent history — “by far outclassing Black Ops 7.” Critics are calling the campaign one of the strongest in recent CoD history, praising its production values, pacing, and darker tone.
Why Steam is booming this time
One big factor: MW4 is not on Xbox Game Pass at launch — reports put the Game Pass window at Holiday 2027. Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 both had day-one Game Pass availability siphoning Steam numbers. With that siphon closed, Steam is where the PC audience is. The next target is the series’ all-time Steam record: ~315,300 concurrent players set by Black Ops 6 in late 2024. With multiplayer still to come, that record is in play.
What’s still to come
The full launch lands Friday, October 23 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 — and DMZ early access opens Tuesday, October 20 for digital pre-orders. One honest caveat: these early scores are campaign-only, and past CoD campaigns (MW2 2022, MW3 2023) saw their early praise fade once multiplayer reviews landed. For now, though, Infinity Ward has the single-player crowd fully onside.
KongMNG’s take
A campaign-only early access beating a full game’s lifetime peak is the kind of stat that ends arguments. The Game Pass absence is doing real work here — but you don’t get 87% positive from distribution alone. October 23 is now appointment viewing.