He couldn't limit any of the weapons, though, and that was a problem.
I took it out of the box and then, 12 hours later, we were having to run the tournament." The tournament in question took place at Insomnia 32, held in November 2007 at Newbury Racecourse, with a $6,000 prize pool stumped up by publishers Activision.īlack ended up with a mod that enabled just a small selection of maps – Crash, Backlot, District, Strike, and Vacant – and limited the perks to three preselected options. "We had to hack a mod together in about 12 hours, after the game was released. " COD4 wasn't really that competitive out of the box," Black tells me. Rob Black, now working with ESL, played COD1 and COD2 professionally, before organising several competitions – including the running of the first COD4 tournament in the world. Modern Warfare wasn't quite ready for competitive play on release, but it had someone to help the process along, to embed it in the eSports consciousness of the UK and beyond. " COD4 wasn't really that competitive out of the box, so we had to hack a mod together in about 12 hours." – Rob Black This feeling, combined with strong UK representation in the ranks of professional Call of Duty 1 and 2 players, lead to a competitive scene springing to life almost immediately.
Modern Warfare was an explosive title packed with bluster about the sheer scale of 21st century warfare, but its gameplay felt tight and its action tense – more like a close-contested paintball match than a roaring open battlefield.