Non pre-orderers can drop in from August 28th

Image credit: Activision

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, this year's Activision shooter about military markspeople (who occasionally look like Beavis and Butt-Head) sliding around with SMGs and shouting 10-4 after checking their corners, is set for pre-release beta testing in August. There are two playtests currently on the calendar, though the first's exclusive to those who pre-order the game.

The pre-order exclusive 'weekend', which is actually five days long because words are meaningless, kicks off of August 21st and will run through until August 25th. Then, a regular open beta, freely available to anyone regardless of whether they've already forked over cash to Activision, will run from August 28th to September 1st. So sayeth Activision in a blog post on the topic.

As for what's on the activity list for this pre-release boot camp, the publisher pinned the following to the barracks notice board: "Get ready to drop into multiple Multiplayer maps and modes, choosing from a wide selection of brand-new Operators, including all the Vault Edition Operators for players who pre-order the Vault Edition, and unlocking as many as 19 different weapons before deploying into everything from small-scale 3v3 skirmishes to massive tactical battles featuring tanks and more. Test your mettle across new and returning modes, from Search & Destroy to the brand-new Kill Block, plus the Training Mobility Course."

Kill Block - aka the slaughter square, the life-sapping lump and the holy-moly-I've-shot-a-guy hunk - is being positioned as a big fresh draw. It's a multiplayer map that serves as an ever-shifting training course, with bits of it swapping in and out between match rounds, with the idea of keeping folks participating in the mode's 10v10 gunfights on their toes. If you want a taste of the mode in action featuring people being headshotted in time to some funky beats, give the video below a look.

Watch on YouTube

Beyond the multiplayer, Modern Warfare 4's campaign focuses on a North Korea vs South Korea conflict, with added Captain Price shenanigans.

The game's out October 23rd, and won't be on Xbox Game Pass at launch, the latter being reflective of a change Microsoft made earlier this year.