Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s campaign is currently available in early access, featuring the familiar face of Captain Price and a fully-assembled Task Force 141 on a brand-new blockbuster mission to stop stolen missiles from being used in a revenge plot against the United States. If you’re looking to set aside some time to play Modern Warfare 2’s campaign, here’s everything you need to know.

How long does it take to beat CoD: MW2’s campaign?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s campaign includes 17 story missions, and you can expect to carve out around five to six hours of game time to complete the campaign on the Regular “normal” difficulty setting. This doesn’t steer too far away from Modern Warfare 2019, which featured a campaign length of about 5 hours.

For my first experience, playing Modern Warfare 2 on Regular difficulty did take me a bit beyond the six-hour mark, and that’s longer than my usual campaign efforts. This year’s story features some missions that are less linear than we’ve seen in previous campaigns, as you sometimes have more open-world environments to explore and choose how you want to approach your objectives.

Modern Warfare 2’s campaign also packs a greater challenge than we’ve seen in past years, especially with the addition of more intuitive AI opponents. Even playing on Regular, I felt like I was dying after so few shots, which seems more in line with a Hard difficulty. So, even if you’re a longtime Call of Duty fan, you may find yourself taking longer than expected.

Obviously, this means your mileage can further vary whether you choose to play on the lowest Recruit setting, or you choose to test your resolve by playing on Hard or Veteran difficulty. Once you complete the campaign on any difficulty, you’ll have the option to choose the Realism difficulty, which provides you with the Veteran difficulty setting, lower health, and a limited HUD.

For the completionists, Trophy and Achievement hunters may also need to put in a little extra time, as some of the game campaign trophies will require patience and planning. According to the PlayStation trophies and Xbox achievements lists, Modern Warfare 2 has 24 challenges to complete across the campaign and Spec Ops mode, and a few will require you to complete missions without being seen or firing a gun.

While the campaign is now in early access for digital preorders, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will fully release on October 28 across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The game will launch with the standard multiplayer experience, large-scale Ground War mode, a revamped Gunsmith feature, and three Spec Ops missions.

Season 1 of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will kick off on November 16, launching with the release of Warzone 2.0. Here is everything that’s been announced for the Warzone sequel.