Morning Save Point: MW4 Best-Reviewed CoD in 16 Years, Cyberpunk $17.99

Monday opens with the strongest opening week a Call of Duty campaign has had in over a decade. Cyberpunk 2077 has its deepest Steam cut in months. A Red Dead Redemption 2 modder wired an AI-driven Nemesis System into Rockstar’s open range. Here is your morning brief.

The big one

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is sitting at 93% positive reviews on Steam with about 4,500 ratings logged, the highest a Call of Duty title has scored since 2010’s Black Ops. The campaign went live early for digital preorders on October 16, DMZ early access follows for preorder customers on October 20, and multiplayer plus the full unlock land on October 23 at midnight local time. IGN’s in-progress review lands the campaign at 8 out of 10. DualShockers calls it “the best-received CoD in over a decade,” pointing to bespoke level design, the new Korean-theater storyline around Private Park, and a hand-to-hand combat system that works better than anyone expected. Players on Reddit have already finished YOLO mode, the post-campaign one-life setting, with the fastest confirmed time sitting around 20 hours.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 also pays tribute to late COD co-creator and Infinity Ward co-founder Vince Zampella in the credits, VGC and DualShockers report. Zampella, who ran Infinity Ward through the original Modern Warfare trilogy before co-founding Respawn Entertainment and later running the Battlefield series at EA, died earlier this year. Modern Warfare 4 is the first Call of Duty built at Infinity Ward since. Our MW4 release-time guide has the per-zone unlock box for launch night, and our MW4 preload story has the timeline to the 23rd. The practical read for players: the campaign is the strongest since the original Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, and the multiplayer test starts four days from now.

Also happening

• Cyberpunk 2077 hits $17.99 on Steam, its lowest price yet this year, down from $59.99 (70% off), with Phantom Liberty also at $17.99 (40% off). Both end October 26. The cut lands the same week CD Projekt Red’s anime spinoff Edgerunners 2 was revealed with Hideo Kojima Productions’ involvement, per our Kojima Edgerunners 2 story this morning. If you’ve been waiting to revisit Night City or try it for the first time, this is the price.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 gets a modder-built, AI-powered Nemesis System. The enRage mod by nicklovin99 tracks how every NPC feels about Arthur, names each one, groups them by gang affiliation, and creates rivalries inside and across gangs. Enemies hold grudges, adopt dogs, recover from alcoholism, and carry old wounds across sessions. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the 2018 Rockstar western; Shadow of War is the 2017 Monolith action RPG where the Nemesis System originated. Mod page on Nexus Mods credits Claude Code for the scripting assist. Our full coverage will run later today.
• CS2 pro Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen is facing a suspended prison sentence over alleged tax fraud in Finland, Dexerto reports. CS2 is Valve’s free-to-play Counter-Strike sequel; Aleksib is a Finnish Counter-Strike veteran who most recently played for Natus Vincere. Details on the alleged sums were not disclosed. The case has not been finalized.
• Outlast almost didn’t ship. Developer Red Barrels co-founder Philippe Morin told GameSpot (republished by PC Gamer) that publishers passed on the original pitch because they would “rather invest $50,000 in 10 mobile games” than $500,000 in a horror game. The Montreal studio of 10 former Ubisoft devs ended up funding it through the Canada Media Fund, personal savings, credit cards, and home mortgages. Outlast released in 2013, has now sold 15 million copies, and just hit an all-time peak of 147,955 concurrent players on The Outlast Trials.
• Xbox is running a Disc-to-Digital program that lets players digitize owned physical copies at no extra cost, per WIRED and Alltop’s gaming headlines. Xbox’s Disc-to-Digital is part of Microsoft’s broader physical-software strategy. The full program details and supported titles have not been posted publicly. We will dig into this today.
• The Witcher 3 Remastered ships a new update today with image sharpening and resolution improvements per CD Projekt Red’s patch notes, ahead of tomorrow’s Final Fantasy Resonance launch.

Launching today

Nothing big lands on October 19. Tomorrow is the calm before a packed five-day stretch: Helldivers 2: Scope of Authority Warbond on Tuesday, The Killing Stone port on Wednesday, then six games on Thursday (Final Fantasy Resonance, Cult of the Lamb Switch 2, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Switch 2, Hitman: Absolution Switch 2, PEAK, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort), capped by Modern Warfare 4 worldwide on October 23 and One Piece: Grand Gourmet the same day. Our full release calendar has every confirmed date and platform. Plan your wallet accordingly.

Deal of the day

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is $9.99 on Steam, 75% off, down from $39.99, and the sale ends today at noon Central. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is the bundle of six Halo games (Reach, Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4) plus multiplayer. Today’s price matches the previous low from March 2026’s Halo anniversary push. That’s two-thirds off, and it is going away in a few hours. If you want to play the Master Chief story or revisit it on PC, this is the day. (Halo store page).

One more thing

The Last of Us Part II Remastered has a brand-new speedrun category, and the World Record is 32 minutes. Speedrun.com added the “Grounded Permadeath” category last week, which requires no hits and a single save file. Players have been working through the route since the rules went live. The Last of Us Part II Remastered is the 2024 PS5 and PC remaster of Naughty Dog’s 2020 action game; Grounded is its hardest difficulty, where one hit means death and resources are scarce. The first confirmed sub-40-minute run went up on October 16. We do not recommend trying this at home without at least one throw controller.

Edited by the Pixel Herald newsroom.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report