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Call of Duty boasts Modern Warfare 3 has broken new engagement records

Launch dubbed "historic", but no mention yet of sales numbers.

Characters from Modern Warfare 3, wearing army gear and helmets, stare out through smoke in this moody artwork for the game.
Image credit: Activision Blizzard

Activision has said its new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has broken multiple player engagement records, without providing any specific player numbers.

"Just two weeks in, Modern Warfare 3 has already set records with the highest engagement in the new Modern Warfare trilogy," states a post by the Call of Duty account on X, formerly Twitter.

These records include the fact Modern Warfare 3 owners are playing "more hours per player overall" and "campaign players [are] putting in more time per player" than in the modern Modern Warfare 1 and 2.

"MWZ is the most engaging third mode in MW history," Activision also noted.

Eurogamer plays Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.Watch on YouTube

But there's no mention at all of sales numbers for the game, which has arrived just 12 months after last year's Modern Warfare 2 - the first time in the franchise's history that it has revisited the same sub-brand in consecutive years.

Here in the UK, boxed sales numbers for Call of Duty fell by 25 percent on last year's launch.

Controversy has swirled around the game's development, with a trustworthy report that it was developed at pace to meet this year's launch date as a full release, rather than as an expansion to last year's effort.

The response from fans has also been mixed, with criticism of the game's campaign length.

Sledgehammer Games boss Aaron Halon issued a statement following the game's launch to say Modern Warfare 3 had been "a labour of love" and "years in the making" - and that "anything said to the contrary is simply not true".

"An exercise in extracting value from its players rather than providing it, the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is what happens when this industry is at its worst," our Chris Tapsell wrote in Eurogamer's Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 review.

Modern Warfare 3 will launch Season 1 on 6th December, when several additional multiplayer maps are set to arrive.

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