Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 will grant digital pre-order players a full week of early campaign access, launching October 16 ahead of the October 23 full release. This early access window returns a feature first introduced in Modern Warfare 2, allowing players to experience the single-player story before the broader player base gets their hands on the game.

To unlock this early access, players must pre-order or purchase the digital version of Modern Warfare 4, regardless of whether they choose the standard or Vault Edition. Pre-orders are currently live on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders coming later in the year. Digital pre-orders also grant access to an upcoming beta, though specific dates for that test period have not yet been announced.

The campaign follows Private Park, a South Korean soldier experiencing combat for the first time, as North Korea launches an invasion of the peninsula. The story spans multiple locations including Korea itself, New York, Paris, and Mumbai, with parallel missions featuring Captain Price operating as a rogue agent following the events of Modern Warfare 3. The seven-day early window gives competitive players time to complete the campaign narrative before shifting focus to multiplayer and the DMZ extraction mode.

This early access period represents a significant shift for Call of Duty, as recent titles like Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 did not offer similar pre-release campaign access to digital purchasers.