Starting today, the new maps from the Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Package have been intergrated into all of the playlists, which means that two more playlists have popped up. Hardcore Moshpit is made up of every hardcore mode – deathmatch, demolition, capture the flag, headquarters pro, search and destroy, and sabotage.

The other playlist is actually a returning favorite: the capture the flag playlist. So go ahead and capture the fun.

The playlists should be available right now on Xbox Live. PlayStation and Steam users should see the playlists in a week or so.

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling recently answered some fan questions on Twitter, detailing the next couple of fixes for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

In regards to the One Man Army complaints, he stated that “we’ve been testing and experimenting with multiple OMA tweaks looking for the best solution.” He later added, “we’re testing what should be the final tweak to OMA. If that goes through, I’ll post when to expect an update.”

As for the rock glitch on Fuel, he wrote the following: “No ETA on it, but I’m hoping to know soon and yes, the Rock on Fuel will be included in those updates.”

The Capture the Flag Only playlist will also be making a return: “Yes. No ETA on when, it should make a return in the next playlist update.” Infinity Ward is also looking to add more hardcore modes: “Theres a good chance of it, but still testing. Some hopefully no bugs arise from it and we should see a good number of HC modes.”

Don’t expect anything to be done soon with the Spinning Skull Emblems, however, as Infinity Ward is concentrating on the patches and playlists updates first: “No news, they’ve been sidetracked with testing patch and playlist updates, which took priority.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released on November 10, 2009, for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

The two main developers behind Call of Duty have tonight debunked rumours that a subscription plan to play the series online will be coming into play in the near future.

Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward and its community manager Robert Bowling tweeted:

“For the record, nobody has to pay to play COD or MW2 multiplayer, nor will they.”

This has since been followed up by Josh Olin, community boss of Treyarch, who’s developing this year’s iteration in the series Black Ops.

The tweet says:

“No, you will not have to ‘Pay to Play’ #CODBlackOps Multiplayer either. Rumor -> Squashed.”

It comes as a user from 360Junkies posted a video earlier this morning, where he tried to join a friend’s multiplayer session of Modern Warfare 2.

Instead, a menu for a subscription plan for the game was shown instead.

But there you have it. Dead. In the water. Like a drowning pigeon.

Looks like there’s no smoke without fire. The video apparently shows a “membership” plan for Call of Duty, via Modern Warfare 2.

If a video recorded by a 360Junkies member is to be believed, the sub-plan would be payable via MS points.

The video shows the player trying to join a multiplayer session in the game via a friend’s gamercard, as detailed below.

“I was trying to join a friend’s session on MW2 the other day and had this screen pop up. It clearly says at the top of this menu: ‘Modern Warfare 2 Membersh’, in which we can confidently assume that the last word is “Memberships”. If you’ll notice at the bottom is an option to “Add Microsoft Points”, clearly indicating that this was intended to be a menu for purchasing different levels of Membership, presumably memberships would have been offered in a variety of durations.”

Remember, this could be anything.

Legal proceedings between Activision and Infinity Ward moved forward yesterday, with lawyers for the Infinity Ward Employee Group filing an amendment to the lawsuit.

New Allegations

According to court documents dug up by Kotaku, the amendment adds new claims and also reduces the amount being sought by the Infinity Ward Employee Group, which is made up of former and current employees of the developer.

The new claims outlined in the amendment paint Activision as a “Police State”, with the firm placing guards at doors and exits, breaking promises, and conducting “secret interrogations” of employees. It also claims higher-ups not only threatened, but tried to coax employees into creating the next Modern Warfare game by holding the over $54 million dollars in bonuses for ransom.

Former employees stated in the addendum what happened to the appropriated bonuses, and lowered the original suit price of half a billion dollars down to $216 million for punitive damages and unpaid bonuses.

Breach of contract

The Infinity Ward Employee Group, made up of approximately 40 former and current employees of the developer, banded together in April 2010 to file a lawsuit against Activision for half a billion dollars, alleging breach of contract and unpaid royalties.

According to the suit filed with Activision, had the publisher not fired Jason West and Vince Zampella, withheld the promised bonuses, and not created a hostile work environment with a “Police State” atmosphere, the employees would not be suing and those who left the firm would have instead stayed on.

In March, Activision paid 40 percent of the bonuses owed to the Modern Warfare 2 team, but according to the Infinity Ward Group, it withheld the rest until Modern Warfare 3 was completed and shipped by November 2011.

The employees also state that after a meeting with Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, they were assured by him all bonus money owed would be paid at the end of the month. The suit claims this did not happen, and when some brought this to the attention of Thomas Tippl in April, they were told by the CFO to “Get over it”.

“We had no choice”  but to fire West and Zampella

Back in May, during a financial call to investors, CEO Bobby Kotick told analysts and share holders Activision “had no choice” but to terminate Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vincent Zampella’s employment.

“We felt we had no choice but to terminate the Infinity Ward executives. There was no gray area, as talented as they might have been”, said Kotick. “There was nothing that would have allowed us to retain them, we did this to protect the company’s assets and the interest of our shareholders..

“The decision to terminate the two executives was not done lightly, and was not done to deprive them of their bonuses. Nor was it done without a great deal of deliberation about the consequences. I personally considered [West and Zampella] friends. Their conduct was a compromise of our friendship, which was equally disappointing”.

In March, Jason West and Vince Zampella filed a lawsuit against Activision, separate from the one filed by the Infinity Ward Employee Group, seeking $36 million in unpaid royalties and  full control of the Modern Warfare brand.

Activision in turn filed a countersuit against West and Zampella.

After being terminated from Activision, West and Zampella went on to form Respawn Entertainment which signed a deal with Activision rival Electronic Arts, subsequently gaining former Infinity Ward employees in the process.

The contract with the firm provides Respawn with full control over intellectual properties it creates under EA Partners, and provides publishing and distribution rights to its games for the foreseeable future.

A hearing is set

While both lawsuits against Activision are separate from one another, on August 5, a judge will determine whether both will be consolidated into one trial.

An initial trial date was set for May 23, 2011 – two weeks before E3 2011 – but it may be changed once the judge has a chance to mull over the pending suits.

Just in case you had forgotten, it has been a month after all, the Resurgence Pack for Modern Warfare 2 hits PC and PS3 today in the US.

Now that the 30-day exclusivity to Xbox 360 has passed, those who play on PC and PS3 are privy to five multiplayer maps: Strike and Vacant from CoD4, and Carnival, Fuel, and Trailer Park which are new.

The pack will run you $15.00/£10.99 on both systems.

PC users in the UK also get it today, while PS3 users will have to wait until tomorrow.

Infinity Ward has announced that the Resurgence Package for Modern Warfare 2 will hit PC and PS3 on July 6 in the US and July 7 in Europe.

The confirmation comes from a tweet made by Robert Bowling earlier today.

Resurgence hit XBL earlier in the month, and runs 1200 MS/$15/£10.20 – so you should expect to pay the same amount on other formats.

Just like the Stimulus Package before it, this bit of DLC contains five multiplayer maps: Strike and Vacant from CoD4, and Carnival, Fuel, and Trailer Park which are new.

How can this short action flick manage to knock out the previous title holder for best fan made Call of Duty movie? It’s bigger, bloodier and has a more substantial budget. And it’s from the same creative team.

The second chapter of Niko Pueringer and Sam Gorski’s Modern Warfare: Frozen Crossing makes use of its comparatively massive budget—this one cost about $600 USD, compared to the $209.42 USD—with sharper effects, more bloodspray and loads of slo-mo bullet-filled action. It even switches to iron sights for a moment, just to show the makers of the Doom movie how it’s done, Modern Warfare-style.

In fact, there might even be a story in there too, if you’re looking for even more reasons to click play.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to play Modern Warfare 2 with a true Rock God, you’ll only have to wait until June 8 to find out. Ozzy Osbourne and his son Jack will visit Xbox Live and get down and dirty in MW 2.

If you’re a Gold Member, sign onto Live on Tuesday, June 8, between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM ET and meet Oz 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Look for Gamertag: Ozzy GwF

In the video below, Ozzy promises to “disintegrate each last one of you,” but I have my doubts that he’ll even be able to find the trigger… he’s no spring chicken, after all. Jack, on the other hand, might pose a problem.

Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward will unleash the new Resurgence map pack for Modern Warfare 2 next week and creative strategist Robert Bowling is here, in video form, to tell you all about it.

When screen shots won’t do, this new look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′s second (and final?) batch of downloadable content may convince you to drop the 1200 Microsoft Points. Resurgence adds five maps, three new (Fuel, Carnival, Trailer Park) and two old (Strike, Vacant) to the Xbox 360 version of the game next week.

Infinity Ward has announced that Modern Warfare 2’s getting Double XP this weekend in celebration of Memorial Day in the US.

The news was tweeted by Robert Bowling.

Not too surprising that there will be one considering it is not only a holiday weekend, but one set aside for remembrance of those who died serving in the armed forces.

Most celebrate it by playing games or by having a BBQ and drinking loads of beer.

The Double XP Weekend will hit both XBL and PSN.

Update: Added Map Pack pics below.

The new Modern Warfare 2 map pack, Resurgence, has been detailed in an interview with Major Nelson.

Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling confirmed that the two old maps from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to return will be Vacant and Strike. The three new maps confirmed for the DLC are known as Trailer Park, Carnival and Fuel.

Trailer Park is seen as a “super condensed” map, cutting through abandoned trailers and is pretty much “a maze”, according to Bowling. Carnival is a daytime map and a “decimated amusement park”, full of rides you’d tend to expect there like fun houses and rollercoasters.

The final map is called Fuel, which is a “sniper haven”, full of wide open space in an oil refinery and is “completely unique” from other maps in the Resurgence pack.

Bowling didn’t state a price for the pack in the interview with Nelson, but expect it to be $15 (1200 MS points) like the Stimulus Package.

Resurgence was announced yesterday for a June 3 release on Xbox Live first.

Check maps pictures below.

Enough whining about the high price of the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack! It’s time to whine about the likely high price of the Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Pack, due out early next month for the Xbox 360.

During a company financial earnings call last week, Activision’s Thomas Tippl seemed to indicate that the next map pack release for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would drop in the latter half of the calendar year. Apparently Thomas Tippl cannot read a calendar, because June 3, the day the Resurgence Pack is scheduled to hit Xbox Live, is definitely on this side of the year. Perhaps he was talking about the PlayStation 3 and PC versions?

Either way, it’s great news for both people who enjoy playing Modern Warfare 2 and people who enjoy complaining about it.

For the players, Infinity Ward is celebrating the announcement with two double experience point weekends, one starting on May 28 and the other on June 4, after the Resurgence Pack is released.

As for the complainers, Activision was very pleased with the sales of the $15 Stimulus Pack, so there’s a good chance the Resurgence Pack will follow a similar pricing model.

As for details, all we know so far is that the pack will contain five maps. Here’s hoping none of them are remakes, though judging by the name, I’d say one or two might be likely. Fingers crossed!

The second map pack for the blockbuster Modern Warfare 2 will be released in the second half of 2010, an Activision executive confirmed today. That will be the first fresh dose of Modern Warfare since the recently-issued Stimulus Pack.

During a company financial earnings call, Activision’s Thomas Tippl said that the back half of the calendar year will include both the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops as well as a new Modern Warfare 2 expansion. Black Ops is in development by Activision’s Treyarch team. The second map pack, Tippl said, is being made by Infinity Ward.

No further details about the map pack were offered.

When asked about the $15 price of the first Modern Warfare map pack, the Stimulus Package and whether it will stick, Tippl said: “The $15 price point has still provided a fantastic value to gamers.. we think that has worked.”

Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey has said that he believes Infinity Ward will be “essentially closed” once the next map pack for Modern Warfare 2 is released.

Due to the numerous defections within the developer and all the lawsuits floating around, Hickey is under the impression that the studio will be absorbed into Activision and future work in the series will be spread out amongst the rest of its developers.

“Continued defections from [Activision's] Infinity Ward studio have created meaningful uncertainty around the future of their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise,” said Hickey.

“We expect Infinity Ward studio will be essentially closed after their next map pack release, with development work on Modern Warfare 3 spread between two studios not historically tied to the franchise.”

At least two map packs were promised at the onset, with the Stimulus Pack already released to great sales.

As far as Modern Warfare 3 is concerned, Hickey predicts that it will land in stores during Q4 of Activision’s fiscal year 2011 and potentially rake-in $738M.

That figure is reasonable, considering that Modern Warfare 2 won a Guinness for making $401M in just its first 24-hours on the market.

Currently, three titles are in the works in the Call of Duty franchise.

There’s Treyarch with the oft-rumored Vietnam-centric game, slated for a reveal through  the May issue of OPM; Infinity Ward was  developing Modern Warfare 3; and then there’s  Sledgehammer’s “innovative take” on the Call of Duty franchise that Thomas Tippl, Activision’s COO, said would “further broaden”  the franchise’s audience.

So, regardless if Infinity Ward as we all know it remains intact after the next map pack or not, Activision will still be pumping out the CoD titles – just with different names on ‘em.

Via Gamasutra.

Modern Warfare 2 has won a Guinness World Record for becoming the most successful entertainment launch of all time, as it raked in $401M during its first 24-hours of launch.

With verified one day sales totaled $401.6M (£242.4M) worldwide, it nabbed the title away from Grand Theft Auto IV, which was the previous record holder with $310M (£159M) in its first day on sale in 2008, and the previous record-holder, Halo 3, which took in $170M (£84M) its first 24 hours on sale.

Infinity Ward received a Guinness last year for“the most popular online console game” due to Call of Duty 4 being played by 13 million people on Xbox Live since November 2007.

“Videogame releases such as the Call of Duty series have outperformed the launches of major Hollywood blockbusters for several years and the day-one sales for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 proved once again that video games have become cultural events in their own right,” said Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition Editor, Gaz Deaves.

“The fan movement and hype surrounding this game in the run-up to launch was almost unprecedented in scale; we acknowledged early on that the big question wasn’t if it would break all-time entertainment records, but rather by how much.”

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling’s response to the award gave all accolades to the game’s community for the support it has shown the developer over the years.

“This achievement is a reflection of the support from our community of fans around the world,” he said. “The Call of Duty series and Modern Warfare have been our passion – we’ve dedicated our lives to giving our best, so it’s an honor to be recognized by setting a new standard among all entertainment properties.”

$401 million, eh? Guess now execs can afford to buy that island they’ve always wanted.

Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling has just confirmed that the Stimulus Package, the first DLC for Modern Warfare, will release in May for PS3 and PC.

It’ll hit North America for PS3 on May 4, with a release elsewhere on May 5. PC gets it worldwide on May 4.

This is to be expected as Xbox 360 had a 30-day head start on the maps.

So far, the DLC has broken all sorts of records over on XBL, with 2.5M downloads in it’s first week.

MW2 players have also invested more than 1.75 billion hours of gameplay on XBL since November when the game was released.

The news was confirmed by Bowling on Twitter.

Thanks to CatalystZero from the Immortals Clan for the heads up.

Microsoft has announced that the Stimulus Package for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was downloaded over one million times in the first 24 hours.

It also surpassed the 2.5 million mark within the first week.

The map pack add-on is currently only available through Xbox 360.

Looks like a lot of folks agreed with Robert Bowling on the 1,200 MS Point-price of the pack. If not, they downloaded it anyway.

It’s expected to hit PC and PS3 next month.

Those who wanna play Modern Warfare 2 on PC can play the multiplayer portion on Steam this weekend for free.

Starting Thursday, April 8, all you have to do is fire up Steam and start shooting.

Here’s the blurb:

Beginning this Thursday, April 8, gamers around the world can play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer free of charge during a special Free Weekend promotion on Steam. The definitive online experience, Modern Warfare 2 returns with a host of new perks and enhancements. Those who wish to enjoy every moment of the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer Free Weekend may pre-load Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer now. There is no obligation to participate.

At $3 per map, it was fair to ask what else you get for your money with the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package. The answer, apparently, is a big-ass marketing campaign.

In the U.K. at least, Activision has spent £1m to flack the game online and over TV throughout the Easter weekend, MCV reported.

Spending that much to market DLC is something of a milestone, showing it can and will be pushed as hard, comparatively speaking, as a game itself. Suppose that means we can look forward to more such DLC marketing – and the premium prices it commands.

So you’re upset that you have to pay $15 for five maps, two of which are old, and that the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package launched broken. You know what’d cheer you up? Free night vision goggles for your avatar!

What? Does this not appease you? Perhaps you didn’t understand what I was trying to communicate. Let me clarify. To celebrate the release of the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package on Xbox Live, Infinity Ward, Activision, and Microsoft are offering you free avatar night vision goggles. Simply download them from the Avatar Marketplace between now and 12AM Sunday night (Pacific), and you will not have to pay any Microsoft points for them whatsoever.

But wait? You already bought those goggles? Worry not! Microsoft will automatically credit back the purchase cost to your account by May 1.

Everything is okay now, right?

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has said, once again, that the Stimulus Map Pack for Modern Warfare 2 is a great value, and since it brings back two of the series’ most popular maps, gamers will have more opportunities to “experience them in a completely unique new way”.

“These are two of our most popular maps. There’s some of the original ones that you played during the Call Of Duty 4 Beta – they were our most popular maps all through the lifespan of Modern Warfare 1,” he told CVG. “So there’s no question over the mileage our hardcore gamers are going to get out of these maps now that they’re bringing them back into Modern Warfare 2. You get to experience them in a completely unique new way.

“Now you get them to play CTF on Crash or Demolition on Overgrown and come up with all these new tactics based on not only the new game types but the new perks, the new equipment and the new kill streaks that you have to take into account when you’re playing now.

“It was really cool to bring in some maps people absolutely love to play on and have hundreds of hours of gameplay in, but then also have the experience where you come up with new tactics on familiar battlefields.

“There’s definitely no doubt in my mind that these maps packs – and [Stimulus'] five maps – are definitely worth the investment. Anybody who buys them and then plays Modern Warfare 2 hardcore online is going to get their money’s worth out of these maps.

“I mean, five new locations to Modern Warfare 2, with three of those brand new to the series and each of them offering their own unique kind of gameplay – no matter what kind of play style you have, you’re going to get something out of these maps. I mean, whether you love the objective game based types, you’re going to love Storm. It’s a huge map great for objective-based, big team games.

“If you’re a free-for-all kind of guy it’s just all about the basics, you want to put guys down and you don’t want to worry about campers and all that stuff, you’re going to love Salvage – because it’s geared to that type of player. We’re adding a lot of variety and a lot of mileage to multiplayer with this map pack and anyone who buys it is going to see that investment is worthwhile”.

As far as competition from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is concerned, Bowling seems to brush it off like chip crumbs, and uses the fact that MW2 is constantly number one on the online play charts as proof that there is nothing to fret over.

“We’re not worried about it at all,” he said. “I mean, we don’t expect people to stop working on their games when we’re working on ours. You know they have an audience that are excited about their map packs and I’m sure their excited about ours.

“You know once it hits a certain level of popularity in the mainstream that’s when people start to stand back. But that doesn’t mean they stop playing. I mean the numbers show that these guys are still logging on every night.

“We’ve been number one since launch and this map pack is going to bring even more people to playing MW2 and extend their play time. I don’t see it slipping any time soon…as long as players are supporting us and enjoying the game we’re going to continue supporting them with various updates and DLC and events – so you know we’re going to do everything we can to make sure the community is still playing”.

The Stimulus Pack is now live for Xbox 360, despite a couple snafus at launch.

There is also a Double XP Weekend that will will start tomorrow.

Microsoft’s said the reason no one could play Modern Warfare 2’s Stimulus Package after it released on Tuesday was down to a “process failure”.

With no title update alongside the content the map pack didn’t functioned properly, according to Eric Neustadter, Operations Director of Xbox Live. Matchmaking also went down due to the poorly-timed update.

“Through a process failure on our part, the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package was released this morning before the Title Update (TU) for MW2 was available,” he said on the Live Operations Blog.

“Unfortunately, the Stimulus Package doesn’t function correctly without the TU. Once they had been released out of order, it wasn’t a simple thing for us to resolve. For a couple of hours the result was unpredictable but most people couldn’t get into a game through matchmaking. In technical terms, it was a big hairball that we had to unwind.”

The day the Modern Warfare 2 hardcore have been waiting for is here: the Infinity Ward shooter’s first map pack, the Stimulus Package, drops later today on Xbox Live Marketplace.

IW’s Rob Bowling has detailed what to expect later today, including a patch for all versions of the game and the start of a double XP week that was previously supposed to kick off at the weekend.

The Stimulus DLC includes five new maps: Bailout, Salvage, Storm, and classic maps Crash and Overgrown.

The DLC is exclusive to Xbox Live for at least 30 days, and will be coming to PS3 and PC down the line, but no exact date has yet been given for both platforms.

A second map pack will also be coming, as promised last week by Bowling, and will also be exclusive to Xbox Live Marketplace, as stated at E3 last summer.

Set to hit the Xbox 360 next week, the downloadable Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack brings with it five new maps and a just a touch more controversy to a studio recently embroiled in discord.

The founders of Activision owned Infinitiy Ward recently quit amid allegations of royalties being withheld by the publisher and the duo being insubordinate to their parent company.

But the internal upheaval and lawsuits haven’t managed to impact the team still at Infinity Ward, Infinity Ward Community Manger Robert Bowling tells Kotaku.

“Not at all, our main focus as a team here at Infinity Ward is this pack,” he said. “We want to focus on making the games we love.”

Unfortunately, the Stimulus Pack has brought with it its own bit of controversy, with some claiming that the price tag is too steep for what is being delivered.

The $15, five map, Stimulus Pack for Modern Warfare 2 hits the Xbox 360 next week on March 30 and the PS3 on April 30. THe pack includes three new maps
“Bailout,” a multi-level apartment complex; “Storm,” an open industrial park littered with heavy machinery; “Salvage,” a snowy junkyard fortified by stacked debris and crushed cars. It also includes two makes from the original Modern Warfare, “Crash,” a war-torn urban environment; and “Overgrown,” which features a massive dry creek bed.

While Bowling disagrees with those who say that the 328 MB map pack is over priced, he also pointed out to Kotaku that it is Activision, not Infinity Ward, that set the pack’s price.

The maps, Bowling said, were designed in part to address some of the things gamers want or don’t want in online matches.

For instance, some of the maps are designed to specifically keep players from hiding out in spots and sniping.The maps also are meant to bring new environments to the multiplayer aspects of the game.

I asked Bowling if the fact that two of the maps were brought over from the original Modern Warfare, meant that we might see more ports of those maps to Modern Warfare 2. It’s not that simple, Bowling said.

“The two we included are some of the most played on Modern Warfare,” he said. “They are also two that work really well in Modern Warfare 2, but just because one was a great map in Call of Duty 4 doesn’t mean it will play well in Modern Warfare 2.

“Things like (Modern Warfare 2′s) Marathon Perk could destroy the balance of a Call of Duty 4 map.”

While the Stimulus pack is designed to reinvigorate the Modern Warfare 2 online community, Bowling was quick to point out that the game has never dropped off of the most played list for online titles.