Look, let's be honest—Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has stubbornly held onto the number one spot on Steam's global top sellers list for three consecutive days since early access kicked off on the 17th. In a rather shocking plot twist for the franchise, it has even managed to secure a Very Positive user rating on Steam for the very first time.

Modern Warfare 4 sets its sights on a fictional Second Korean War ignited by a full-scale invasion from North Korea. You step into the boots of South Korean soldier Private Park Hyun-jun to endure gritty trench warfare, or jump over to Captain Price's perspective to bounce between Paris and New York while clashing against Makarov's shadowy backers and Task Force 141.

Ever since the campaign early access began on the 17th, Modern Warfare 4 has comfortably sat at a Very Positive rating (92% positive from 3,142 user reviews), which is a massive redemption arc considering the franchise's recent history. Previous reboot titles usually kicked off with enough bugs, campaign length complaints, and multiplayer gripes to drag their scores down to Mixed or Mostly Negative, rarely ever climbing higher than Mostly Positive even when they did okay. Modern Warfare 4, however, has managed to maintain an overwhelmingly supportive ratio right out of the gate.

User reviews are practically singing praises for the novel setting in South Korea and the surprisingly faithful depiction of the brutal realities of war. Gamers are noting that the varied mission design—featuring night operations, urban combat, and high-speed chases—keeps the boredom away, while the direction overall cranks the immersion up to eleven. Consequently, the prevailing sentiment is that this might just be the absolute best campaign since the original trilogy. Players in South Korea have been especially loud in their applause for the meticulous localisation and the grounded realism of Private Park Hyun-jun. Still, you can't please everyone, and a few folks are quite divided on the new close-quarters combat mechanics, alongside some grumbling over clumsy optimisation and the persistent nuisance of the unified launcher.

While the reception to the campaign itself has been broadly solid, some critics point out that dropping full price for roughly eight hours of gameplay feels a bit cheeky given how multiplayer-centric the franchise usually is. We will simply have to wait and see if the upcoming multiplayer and DMZ modes can keep this current goodwill afloat.

Elsewhere on the charts, Phantom Blade Zero managed to grab the third spot despite being over ten days away from launch, proving there is plenty of hype to go around. Wardogs followed closely in fourth place amid its new season, while Cyberpunk 2077 slid into seventh thanks to a discount running since the 13th.

Over on the peak concurrent players chart, Deadlock climbed past Apex Legends to take sixth place with a cool 257,061 concurrent players. It even smashed past the 300,000 mark on the 17th to break its own record, showing quite an impressive upward trajectory for something that still requires an invitation to play. Meanwhile, Call of Duty pulled in 101,727 concurrent players, largely driven by the early campaign access.