Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 seems to have changed footstep audio in a recent patch, but unfortunately players aren't necessarily happy about the direction of the change. Modern Warfare 2 players have been complaining about the loud footsteps that were increasing the amount of camping in the game. Infinity Ward has seemingly listened to player feedback and issued changes to footstep audio but made it louder instead of quieter.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is Infinity Ward's and Activision's latest-generation first-person shooter in the Call of Duty franchise. The game features a single-player campaign in which players step into the boots of Task Force 141's soldiers as they take on new and familiar opponents on the southern US border. The multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2 features several modes, like the popular Domination or the newly-introduced Prisoner Rescue.
Players have been complaining in Modern Warfare 2 about footstep audio not being conducive to good gameplay. The argument is that loud footsteps reveal the location of players too easily to campers. In addition, Dead Silence is not a perk in Modern Warfare 2, instead, it is now an unlockable Field Upgrade, meaning that campers are having a field day. Infinity Ward issued a fix to footstep audio in the Season 1 patch, but streamer and player Xclusive Ace has suggested that the change might have done more harm than good.
Infinity Ward had issues balancing the audio even in the previous Call of Duty title, but the company seemed to want to resolve the problem quickly this time around. Patch notes stated: "The audio team has made significant improvements to the audio system to address this key area." However, according to recordings from before and after the patch released by Ace on Twitter, footstep audio only got louder. The waveform picture tells a clear story. The footsteps are louder, and not by a small margin.
While this is a strange turn of events, there might be a somewhat simple explanation. The game shares code with the battle royale title Call of Duty: Warzone 2, and some, if not most, changes affect both games. The games are also very different in gameplay, and the same solution might not work for both. This could be why balancing footsteps in both Call of Duty games at the same time with the same code might be nigh impossible, and why problems seem to persist.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
