Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Campaign Early Access Dates And Details

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's official release date is November 10, but you can play the entire campaign mode a week early--starting today, November 2--by preordering MW3. Activision's promotion gives you access to the whole story before the game's launch, but something to be aware of is that a "service outage" is currently impacting multiple CoD games. According to a tweet, this may prevent access to the early-access campaign, along with other things like ownership checks and progression systems. A subsequent tweet, however, notes that systems are beginning to recover. In any event, read on for a rundown on all the details regarding MW3's early access.

How to play MW3's campaign early

To get access to MW3's campaign early, players need to preorder a digital copy of the game on any platform. This benefit does not apply to preorders on physical copies of the game.

2022's Modern Warfare II was the first entry in the series to allow people to play the campaign a week early by preordering. The benefit comes back this year, and we'd expect future games in the series to continue this trend (though anything can happen in the future, especially considering that Call of Duty is now owned by Microsoft).

When does MW3 campaign early access begin?

Early access begins on November 2, meaning it's live right now for players on all platforms. This includes the entire campaign.

Call of Duty campaigns are normally in the range of 4-6 hours long, so anyone hoping to finish the campaign before getting started with multiplayer may have enough time to do that before the game's official November 10 release date.

When does campaign preloading begin?

Preloading is live now for the campaign, with multiplayer and Zombies preloading set to begin on November 8.

What's the campaign all about?

MW3 is a direct sequel to 2022's Modern Warfare II. The story follows Task Force 141 getting back together to fight enemies on a global scale. Something new for MW3 are what's called "Open Combat Missions," which Activision says are more open-ended and non-linear than traditional Call of Duty missions that give players more choice for how to tackle an objective.

Other preorder perks

The standard version of MW3 ($70) includes one other bonus for preordering, which is the Zombie Ghost Operator skin. The more expensive Vault edition ($100), meanwhile, includes the Zombie Ghost Operator skin as well as the Soul Harvester Tracer weapon blueprint, the Nemesis Operator pack, two weapon vaults, and BlackCell Season 1 with 30 additional tier skips. See GameSpot's Modern Warfare 3 preorder guide to learn more.