Bad news for all fans who were hoping for an early beta access to the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – namely, the beta will be delayed, according to reports.

CoD Beta in September instead of August?

After the recently published leaks about weapons, maps and game modes in Modern Warfare 2, now comes the next big news – but not good. The beta of the new CoD title is to be postponed by a whole month. In a report on whatifgaming.com, the leaker RalphsValve has shared the dates for the release of the various beta phases and they are not in August, as previously assumed, but in mid to late September.

RalphsValve has always been a reliable source for Call of Duty news, and his leaks are usually correct.

Modern Warfare 2: Beta dates revealed, Open Beta set for September.

The beta phase is scheduled to start from September 15 and is divided into two sections. PlayStation users will get to enjoy MW2 first, followed by all other platforms a week later.

Weekend 1 (PlayStation exclusive)

• Early Access: September 15-16 (for pre-orderers)
• Open Beta: September 17-19

Weekend 2 (Cross-play Beta, all platforms)

• Early Access: September 22-23 (for pre-orderers).
• Open Beta: September 24 – 26

Community feedback? Nah, thanks.

The community reacted to the bad news with concern and also insiders Tom Henderson has already expressed his concerns. Modern Warfare is scheduled for release on October 28, which means that there is only one month between the beta phase and the release. As leaker TheGhostOfHope correctly pointed out on Twitter, there is too little time to react to any player feedback between beta and release. At this point in the development, it is at most possible to fix bugs, but not to respond to criticism or suggestions for improvement from the community.

There’s 0 chance of any general playerbase input at that point… It’s literally just bug fixes. Unless an Alpha happens and it’s also MP.

It’s entirely possible that Modern Warfare 2 will be released on a “take it or leave it” basis. Normally, the beta phase is not only used to find bugs, but also to collect feedback from the community and implement it into the game, if necessary, to guarantee an optimal gaming experience at release. Currently, we can only hope that MW2 will get a multiplayer alpha in which the basic gameplay elements in multiplayer mode will be extensively tested in order to prevent a disaster at release.

Officially, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be released on October 28. At the moment, we assume that the release date will be kept, even if the late start of the beta phase might suggest otherwise.