MW3’s Thanksgiving weekend had ‘most hours per player’ since 2019

As many Americans tucked into Thanksgiving leftovers over the weekend, plenty more jumped into Modern Warfare 3, with the latest Call of Duty title keeping fans playing for record hours over the holiday period.

MW3 players recorded the most hours per player over the Thanksgiving vacation weekend, according to the CoD team on Nov. 28. It beats out a record set with the release of Modern Warfare (2019) and is a positive note after weeks of criticism leveled at developers as players got their hands on the new title. Unfortunately, the exact player counts weren’t shared by CoD devs. The closest figure we can lock in is a peak of 147,795 on Steam on Saturday night, according to stats site SteamDB—but this figure also includes MW2 and Warzone players and doesn’t cover the far larger player base on console.

MW (2019)’s launch was the largest in the previous console generation. The return of the Modern Warfare title pulled in over $600 million in less than a week and claimed major records, including pre-order sales on the PlayStation 4 and the biggest launch on PC of all time.

Nevertheless, it’s a win the dev team needs after Nov. 9’s rocky launch. Veteran fans have already ripped into the handling of MW3’s campaign and have been incredibly vocal over many of the multiplayer shortcomings. Fortunately, Sledgehammer Games has been very active in correcting the game’s bugs and issues and continues to communicate with the CoD fanbase, leaving many impressed with the direction the game is headed.

The CoD team is hoping these numbers hold up next week with the launch of season one, which will see the return of fan-favorite map Shipment as well as plenty more content such as game modes, weapons, the new Battle Pass, and more.