A couple years ago, Infinity Ward made the – some would say crappy – decision to release the PC version of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" without access to dedicated servers. There was quite the expected revolt from the PC gaming community, leading to petitions being signed and a bit of a rift between the developer and the PC community. That animosity has remained present, but it looks like Infinity Ward have actually listened to the complaints.
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" is launching with dedicated servers, "day one."
The PC version of "Modern Warfare 2" ended up with a rather console-like multiplayer system, ditching dedicated servers for the new IWnet, a matchmaking service. The outcry from PC gamers was totally understandable; why take away one of the perks afforded to playing on PC, namely the ability to control your own server? Infinity Ward expressed understanding towards the complaints, but ultimately, dedicated servers were never an official part of "Modern Warfare 2" – community coders eventually found a way around IWnet anyways.
While Infinity Ward didn't change their stance on the issue, Activision and Treyarch clearly got the message. When "Call of Duty: Black Ops" released a year later, dedicated servers were back on board – mostly. While Treyarch provided a number of free dedicated servers at launch, if you wanted to have some control over a personal server, you were forced to rent one through GameServers.com.
Today, Infinity Ward's creative strategist, Robert Bowling, has confirmed that "Modern Warfare 3" will, in fact, have dedicated servers.
"Yes! 'Modern Warfare 3' on PC will support dedicated servers, day 1," Bowling tweeted. "You can fav or admin your own to control setup, rules, bans."
There's no word yet if controlling your own dedicated server will once again require a relationship with GameServers, but at the very least, dedicated servers are making a return to the "Modern Warfare" PC franchise. It took a while, but count this one up as a win for the PC community's petition efforts.