Modern Warfare 2 Gunsmith 2.0 promises more customization with shared unlocks and less grind

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward released an inside look at the Gunsmith 2.0 customization system, promising more options that are easier to unlock.

Gunsmith 2.0 is built around weapon platforms which encompass families of attachments. You've still got stocks, scopes, magazines, and the other Call of Duty bits and bobs, but now you've also got receivers which fundamentally change the type of a weapon. And if you unlock a bunch of attachments for an assault rifle and then change to an SMG within the same family of receivers, for example, you can bring all those attachments to that SMG.

"Each of those shared attachments that you unlock is now cross-progressable and attachable onto another weapon in the same class," a video from Infinity Ward explains.

"This takes away from the grind of having to unlock every single attachment on each weapon every time you want to level up a weapon," another designer adds.

"Depending on the attachment, it is either unlocked for all weapons within a Platform, or unlocked for all weapons in the entire game," the developer added in a blog post. "Expect reduced repetitiveness and reasonable challenges to unlock attachments and camouflage."

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This approach to personalization also extends to themed "Vaults" of cosmetics for customizing weapon blueprints. The example given was the FJX Cinder Vault, which is included with the game's Vault Edition and provides unified scarlet flare for all the possible attachments on a specific gun, such as the popular M4 as shown in the video above. However, fine print in Infinity Ward's blog post notably explains that "Weapon Vault designs [are] limited to Weapon Vault contents at launch."

Additionally, Modern Warfare 2 players will be able to test and inspect their custom weapons in-game via the new firing range, which ought to make it easier to get a side-by-side feel for different attachments.

Here are all of the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 beta dates that have been confirmed.