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How to get early access to Modern Warfare 3

How to play MW3's campaign early.

promotion image for modern warfare 3 showing captain price, a zombie soldier, and makarov
Image credit: Activision
Jessica Orr avatar
Guide by Jessica Orr Senior Guides Writer
Published on

Modern Warfare 3 isn't technically out until 10th November, but you can play this year's Call of Duty before that if you have early access.

We've quickly detailed how to get early access to Modern Warfare 3 below so you can reunite with Price, Gaz, Ghost and Soap to start chasing Makarov early, after his teaser at the end of Modern Warfare 2.

Please note that you can only get early access to single player campaign missions, as Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer mode has a set release date of 10th November for everybody.

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How to get early access to Modern Warfare 3

You have to pre-order the game to get early access to Modern Warfare 3, which starts on Thursday, 2nd November. This is early access to the campaign, not multiplayer. Multiplayer modes have a set release date of 10th November.

It's still worth playing the campaign early, however, as you get rewards for MW3's various multiplayer modes by completing campaign missions. These rewards include Operators, a weapon Blueprint, and Double XP Tokens for weapons and players.

You can still get these rewards when the game officially launches on 10th November, as they're a permanent fixture.

graphic showing nine campaign rewards for modern warfare 3 which includes operators corso, pathfinder, jadder, and doc
Image credit: Activision

Modern Warfare 3 early access start date and time

Once you've pre-ordered the game, you then get early access to Modern Warfare 3 at 5pm (GMT) / 10am (PDT) on Thursday, 2nd November.

In other timezones, early access for MW3 starts on:

  • West Coast US: Thursday 2nd November at 10am (PDT)
  • Central US: Thursday 2nd November at 12pm (CDT)
  • East Coast US: Thursday 2nd November at 1pm (EDT)
  • UK: Thursday 2nd November at 5pm (GMT)
  • Europe: Thursday 2nd November at 6pm (CET)
  • Japan: Friday 3rd November at 2am (JST)
  • Australia: Friday 3rd November at 4am (AET)

To speed things along, you can also preload the campaign right now on Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, and Battle.net before its early access release. The file size varies slightly between systems, but you'll want around 50 - 55 GB of space free to download the campaign. You also need to download Call of Duty HQ, which is roughly 80GB on Xbox and 100GB on PS5.

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