Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is the 2026 entry in ActivisionPublisherActivisionActivision is the publisher of the Call of Duty franchise. Since 2021 the Call of Duty competitive experience has been protected by RICOCHET, Activision's in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat.8 games in this family →'s flagship military-shooter franchise, developed by Infinity Ward, the studio behind the original Modern Warfare and the 2022 reboot, with Beenox on the PC version. Activision announced it on May 28, 2026, and it launches on October 23, 2026 on Battle.net, Steam, and Xbox on PC, plus Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2, which Activision says brings the Modern Warfare series to Nintendo players for the first time in more than a decade. Its campaign follows a North Korean invasion of South Korea. It is a paid release at $69.99, and Activision says it will not join Game Pass until Holiday 2027. It runs on Activision's in-house IW EngineEngineIW Engine (Activision / Infinity Ward)The IW Engine is Activision's proprietary engine line for the Call of Duty franchise, originally derived from id Tech and substantially rewritten across iterations. Modern Call of Duty titles run on IW 9.0 and its successors.8 games in this family → and carries a campaign, multiplayer, and the returning DMZ extraction mode, which has its own plate in this guide.

Before buying on PC, run Activision's Call of Duty Secure Attestation Wizard or open tpm.msc, because without both TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot you cannot play online at all. Enabling them is a UEFI change: Intel PTT or AMD fTPM switched on, UEFI boot mode rather than Legacy, and a GPT disk rather than MBR. Activision warns that changing these settings incorrectly can cause boot failures, so follow your motherboard maker's guide. Once you are in, RICOCHETAnti-cheatActivision RICOCHETRICOCHET is Activision's in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat, deployed across the Call of Duty franchise since 2021. The kernel driver loads while a protected Call of Duty title is running. Since the Black Ops 7 beta in October 2025, Activision has also required TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot for Black Ops 7, for Warzone since December 4, 2025, and for Modern Warfare 4, checking the settings by attestation against Microsoft Azure servers; earlier titles are not named in that requirement, so this guide records the ask on each title rather than on RICOCHET as a whole.8 games in this family →'s driver loads with the game and unloads when you close it.

On PC, Modern Warfare 4 is protected by RICOCHET, and its Steam page lists it as kernel-level anti-cheat; Activision says the driver launches with the game and shuts down when you exit. The larger ask is firmware: Activision states that TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are required to play, and that players without them are restricted from playing any online game mode, a stricter rule than the mode-by-mode limits it applies to Black Ops 7 and Warzone. On first launch Windows may show a User Account Control prompt for CODBrokerInstaller.exe or enrollaik.exe, which Activision describes as TPM 2.0 registration; declining it blocks play. Activision also requires Windows 10 version 22H2 or later and may require a phone number linked to your account. The main game process name is not yet observed here.

RICOCHET has been the subject of sustained public reporting since its 2021 introduction, covered by PC Gamer, BleepingComputer, and others, including Activision's own disclosures about deterrent mitigations such as Cloaking and Damage Shield, and documented false-positive ban waves on earlier Modern Warfare titles and Warzone. The firmware requirement first arrived with Black Ops 7 in 2025, when Activision said it would validate the settings through "a remote verification system (known as Remote Attestation)" using Microsoft Azure servers; its support page now applies one TPM process across Black Ops 7, Warzone, and Modern Warfare 4. Activision's stated rationale is that the features "help establish a trusted foundation for RICOCHET Anti-Cheat" and "make system-level tampering more difficult." Activision has been part of Microsoft since the acquisition closed in October 2023.