Modern Warfare 2 players call for movement mechanic from BO1 and MW3

Ryan Lemay
An operator diving in Modern Warfare 2.

Modern Warfare 2’s movement drew criticism for not being dynamic enough, but some players argue it’s actually gone too far.

Infinity Ward controversially removed slide canceling from Modern Warfare 2, which allowed players to cancel the slide animation and reset their tactical sprint. Increased fluidity cut down on travel time and added an extra level of escapability in gunfights. Slide canceling took over MW2019, Warzone, and Vanguard.

MW2’s “dolphin hop” filled the void as a semi-comparable fill-in. CDL pro players use the movement tech for diving across maps and escaping gunfights. Despite finding a somewhat capable replacement, players still demanded more freedom in movement.

However, when looking back at classic CoD titles, some community members had a change of heart.

Modern Warfare 2 community members slam jump shooting

A MW2 player compared jump shooting from Black Ops 1, MW3, and MW2 to: “show how long the momentum is lost after jumping, then on spot single jump and on spot bunny hop.”

In the older CoD games, jumping while aiming down sight resulted in massive weapon sway, making it hard to fire immediately after jumping. Flashforward to MW2 and the gun barely moves at all after jumping, so players can always shoot accurately.

This encourages players to jump around corners and from cover to cover to maneuver in engagements. Some community members questioned why such a drastic change was made.

One player responded: “I was wondering why I never experienced the number of corner jumpers in BO1 and MW2, but this video makes it make sense.”

Combining a powerful aim assist and jump shooting makes it hard to counter a player that hops around a corner.

A second user added: “Aim assist is also super strong, which makes it easy to swing jump round every corner, and then the aim assist hooks up, and you just need to shoot.”

If the developers brought back an ADS penalty, it would force players to stay grounded.

“They need to bring back that landing sway,” argued a third disgruntled user.

Sledgehammer Games has never shied away from overhauling movement, so it will be interesting to see what the studio decides if it develops CoD 2023, as rumors suggest.

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About The Author

Ryan is a former games writer for Dexerto. Ryan graduated from Ithaca College in 2021 with a sports media degree and a journalism minor. He gained experience as a writer for the Morning Times newspaper before joining Dexerto as a games writer. He mainly writes about first-person shooters, including Call of Duty and Battlefield, but he is also a big FIFA fan.