Image credit: Infinity Ward, Activision.

We're one day away from the end of the first session of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta, which kicked off Friday. Although Activision has yet to publish any numbers, we can look at its performance on Steam and compare it with other recent Call of Duty betas, as well as those from rival franchises.

This initial stage is mainly limited to players who pre-ordered the full game, though free beta codes from content creators, social media giveaways, and other sources have been available if you knew where to look. It's worth keeping that in mind before we begin, as that essentially limits the beta's reach, and could mean larger numbers next weekend when the open portion kicks off.

On Steam, the Modern Warfare 4 beta has amassed a solid peak concurrent of 115,145 players (via SteamDB). The daily concurrent started out strong on Friday, before dipping with each passing day. Notably, the Modern Warfare 4 beta has its own entry on Steam, and doesn't live under the Call of Duty app.

The full game may yet exist under that app, which would make it harder to track its performance, as the Call of Duty app also includes free-to-play Warzone as well as several of the past years' games.

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By Call of Duty standards, the numbers are good but by Infinity Ward standards, they could be better. The studio's Modern Warfare 2 beta peaked at a record 168,330 concurrent players in 2022. With the next Modern Warfare 4 beta session adding a Warzone sampler, and new modes and maps we may yet see that record matched or shattered.

The numbers are certainly better than last year's Black Ops 7 beta, which peaked at 100,000 concurrent players on Steam. One year prior, Activision said the Black Ops 6 beta was the biggest in franchise history, though without sharing any hard numbers.

The data doesn't look that impressive, however, when contrasted against Battlefield 6, whose open beta peaked at a staggering 521,079 concurrent players on Steam, well ahead of even the all-encompassing Call of Duty app.

It's always worth keeping in mind that Steam only shows one part of the picture. Though its numbers have been proven to be in line with other platforms, it's possible console numbers are better. Indeed, even on PC, some players used the Battle.net version or the Microsoft Store version, which won't show up on these charts.

Infinity Ward has been diligently updating the beta since it started, releasing a big patch on Saturday, and another on Sunday. The patches added a new map, new mode, and a new playlist. They also brought balance tweaks to two of the beta's best-performing weapons, and adjusted visibility on one of the maps.

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