The first major patch and update have arrived for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and with it arrives the first set of free maps and a brand new game mode, Hardpoint.

The free maps were hinted at yesterday and were released with today’s major patch. The first addition was a brand new map for Ground War, Krovnik Farm which should help give players more of a variety as they were previously limited to just two Ground War maps. The second addition is Shoot House which will be added to the Multiplayer rotation.

The newest arrival to the selection of game modes is Hardpoint, which is somewhat similar to Headquarters although the team holding the point will still be able to respawn.

The developers have also created a new playlisted called Shoot House 24/7 which will allow you to get to know every nook and cranny of the brand new map in different game modes including Team Deathmatch, Domination, Kill Confirmed, and Headquarters.

As promised before the launch of the game, all of this content is free and available to all players on all consoles.

More importantly, some major bugs and annoyances have been resolved with the patch that accompanied the update. One major change that many players will be overjoyed with is the return to the Sprint and Tactical Sprint speeds that were in the beta. Many players would have noticed that their players were somewhat slower compared to the beta.

Claymores have also received a bit of an overhaul. If you’ve been browsing through social media, you will know that public enemy number one was the Claymore which players felt were way too overpowered and overused. However, if you now shoot the claymore with you bullets, it will not be lethal anymore as long as you have full health. Additionally, the team has “reduced the trigger and damage radius and also reduced the damage width to better match the trigger width.”

Mounting a weapon has also been nerfed. There will now be a slight increase to recoil whilst you have mounted your weapon.

Both the 725 Shotgun and M4A1 have also been nerfed so expect to see a bit more variety in the weapons that players use. The 725 has had an increase to its ADS and Hip Spread and also had its damage range decreased.

The M4A1 now has a reduced damage range and has had a small recoil increase.

Various smaller fixes have also been made to the daily challenges and active missions to ensure that they work perfectly. However, these are not fully resolved so you may still encounter issues with some challenges tracking progress.

Are you happy with the changes that have been made with the latest update and patch? Will you be playing on the new maps? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.