Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Controversial security feature will probably become mandatory

If you want to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on your PC in the near future, you should get your cell phone ready. Apparently, Infinity Ward’s first-person shooter also requires an active phone number in order to be able to play at all.

This emerges from a wording on the Blizzard support page. In addition to Overwatch 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is also explicitly mentioned there, which relies on the so-called SMS Protect. “Newly created accounts” for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will also be required to provide a cell phone number.

Modern Warfare 2: SMS Protect with the same limitations

Should the Support page information apply, then the feature should also lead to problems with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This is because neither VOIP nor prepaid numbers may be used to activate SMS Protect.

In the case of Overwatch 2, this resulted in some players not being able to access the game at all because they were unable to register for the security feature. Criticism then increased, which is why Blizzard backtracked a short time later and defused the feature, at least for Overwatch veterans. However, new players must still provide a cell phone number.

It is currently unclear whether this will also be the case with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Activision Blizzard and developer Infinity Ward have not yet commented on this. It is therefore also unclear whether the security function already applies to the single-player campaign or whether access to multiplayer content is simply denied if no number is entered.

What about Steam?

Unlike Overwatch 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is not only offered on Battle.net, but also on Steam. There is a high probability that SMS Protect will also be used there.

Already during the beta phase in September, players absolutely had to link their Steam account to a cell phone number in order to be able to play at all. However, Steam usually also supports prepaid numbers, which is why the criticism was a bit quieter at the time.

However, if you absolutely don’t want to give a cell phone number, you will probably have little fun with the next Call of Duty game on both platforms.

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