Cosmetic surgery.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is introducing a highly-requested feature to Warzone later this year. With the launch of the game's first season, players will be able to turn off character skins from other Call of Duty games in the free-to-play mode.

When the filter is turned on, you'll only see Modern Warfare 4 character skins in the lobby and matches. This is notable for a number of reasons, not least because developer Infinity Ward committed to taking an "authentic" and "grounded" approach to Modern Warfare 4 skins and future collaborations. In other words, all the skins you're going to see will be the ones that exist in Modern Warfare 4.

"This all-new filter has been built specifically for the Modern Warfare 4 chapter, giving players more control over the operator skins they see in Call of Duty: Warzone only," a post on the official blog reads.

Since its introduction in 2020, Warzone has become a melting pot for yearly Call of Duty releases. The free-to-play mode has accumulated hundreds of character and weapon skins, weapon builds, blueprints and countless cosmetics from various COD titles over the years. Given the differing themes of each game, and each developer's approach to how silly the skins could get, Warzone ended up with an amalgamation of looks that rarely go well together.

As the size of Warzone's skin wardrobe grew, so too did players' desire for a toggle that prevented them from seeing skins they felt didn't fit with the mode's aesthetic. Black Ops 6 and 7, for instance, featured collaborations with American Dad, The Boys, Beavis and Butt-Head and many other franchises whose character and look don't fit with Call of Duty's.

The arrival of the skin toggle is something many thought would never happen, not due to any potential technical hurdles, but simply because a major selling point of those skins is that other players can see you as that character. The filter only turns the skin off for the player who toggles it on, not everyone in the lobby - and crucially not the player who bought said skin.

It's also worth keeping in mind that there's no way for players to know how many of their teammates and enemies in any given match have the filter on or off, a key point those in favour of the filter's existence have relied on in the past.

While the filter is welcome, it doesn't stop Infinity Ward and Activision adding skins players may consider wacky or out-of-place down the line. Indeed, this is not a 'smart' filter that identifies which skins fit and which do not; it simply turns off skins from other games all together.

As it stands, the filter is exclusive to Warzone, but I imagine players will ask for it in Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer if/when post-launch skins arrive which they deem inappropriate for the game's atmosphere.

Modern Warfare 4 arrives 23rd October on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2.

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