Modern Warfare 3’s camo grind seems nice & easy but Zombies is another story

Liam Mackay
Sniper on Modern Warfare 3 wasteland map

Call of Duty’s camo grind will be on once again when Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 10, but the changes made by Sledgehammer Games look to make it a much quicker and easier grind. Well, apart from Zombies.

Modern Warfare 3 brings a brand-new arsenal of weapons for players to grind, and that means there are plenty of new camos too. This year, players can unlock Gilded, Forged, Priceless, and Interstellar for MW3’s weapons, and the race to be the first to unlock them all will be on.

Vanguard players felt especially burnt out with its camo grind, and thankfully, Modern Warfare 2 made some welcome changes to streamline the process. With Modern Warfare 3 launching on November 10 the devs have revealed what to expect, and the grind looks to be even easier this year, with the exception of Zombies.

Fewer annoying weapons

RGL-80 Grenade launcher
The RGL-80 is the only Launcher coming to MW3 at launch.

Thankfully, Modern Warfare 3 features a rather basic lineup of weapons, and that will make things much easier this year.

The most frustrating part about getting camos in Modern Warfare 2 was grinding out the launchers and Riot Shield. Endlessly battering players with the Riot Shield was a slow and tiresome process and trying to get double kills with the launchers was nothing short of a nightmare.

Luckily, Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t bring a new Riot Shield and only has one launcher. To make things even better, the only launcher is the RGL-80 Grenade Launcher, so you shouldn’t have to be staring up at the sky for hours waiting to shoot down UAVs.

The only caveat is that there are two knives instead of the one in Modern Warfare 2, but with Ninja being a Perk once again, it should be much more straightforward.

Hardcore mode at launch

Unlike 2022’s MW2, Modern Warfare 3 brings Hardcore mode at launch. Thanks to its fast TTK almost any weapon is viable, which makes it the best place to grind camos by far.

Those tough-to-use Battle Rifles can one-shot players from range, and even the weakest pistol feels powerful when it’s one-tapping players in the chest. Last year, players had to wait for the Tier 1 Playlist to arrive but it was instantly hated. Luckily, you can start grinding camos in Hardcore as soon as MW3 launches.

Dull longshot grind has been scrapped

Captain Price in MW3 multiplayer

One of the most tedious aspects of Modern Warfare 2’s camo grind were the longshots for almost every single weapon in the game.

Luckily, Sledgehammer Games have moved away from that, with there only being 80 longshots across four weapons. This is a far cry from MW2’s 400+, so you don’t have to hold ADS for hours at a time waiting for players to cross your path.

The only thing missing is at launch Shipment – the perfect place to complete the majority of the camo challenges. But, with other Modern Warfare 2 2022 maps coming to the game ahead of Season 1, Shipment should join the roster pretty soon.

However, the Zombies camo grind will be a different story entirely. Not only are there brand-new Zombies camos for all the MW3 weapons, but all of the MW2 weapons as well. If you want to unlock every camo in the game you’ll need to grind 114 weapons which will take even the most productive camo grinders an extremely long time.

If you’re just looking to unlock those multiplayer camos though, it’s shaping up to be a much easier and less stressful year.