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.5 games in this family →'s flagship military-shooter franchise, developed by Infinity Ward, the studio behind the original Modern Warfare and the 2022 reboot. Announced at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, 2026, it is set to launch on October 23, 2026 as a premium title across Battle.net, Steam, Xbox on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and, for the first time in the series, Nintendo Switch 2. 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.5 games in this family →, the engine lineage the modern Call of Duty studios share, and carries a campaign, multiplayer, and the returning DMZ extraction mode, which has its own plate in this guide.

Modern Warfare 4 is a paid release, not free-to-play, and the DMZ extraction mode is part of that package rather than a separate free download, which is a change from the first DMZ that shipped inside the free Warzone 2.0. On PC, launching it means 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.5 games in this family →'s kernel-mode driver loads with the game. Before release, Activision's own RICOCHET progress reports and the official Modern Warfare 4 intel pages are the best sources for what the current build actually asks of your system, and the specifics can still change between now and October 23.

On PC, Modern Warfare 4 is protected by RICOCHET, Activision's in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat, which the company has confirmed is live in the game. RICOCHET's kernel driver loads when a protected Call of Duty title launches and unloads when it closes, rather than running as an always-on service at boot. Alongside the kernel component it runs server-side detection, machine-learning models, and the in-game mitigations Activision documents in its public progress reports; the broader picture lives under the ricochet anti-cheat family entry. Because the game has not shipped yet, its exact Windows process names are not observed here, and this plate will gain them once Vera sees the released client.

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. Activision publishes an appeals process; the outcomes of individual appeals are difficult to verify from the outside. Activision has been part of Microsoft since the acquisition closed in October 2023, which is part of why a 2026 Call of Duty ships day one on Xbox's own PC storefront alongside Steam and Battle.net. As with any unreleased title, treat pre-launch feature claims as subject to change until the game is in players' hands.