Do I Need MW2 to Play MW3 Campaign Early Access?

If you are wondering if you need to own MW2 in order to play MW3 campaign early access, you are not alone. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 early access for the campaign has officially kicked off. Players will have an opportunity to play the single-player story up to seven days ahead of the official release. However, on launch, some players are being asked to insert a MW2 cross-gen disk in order to play the campaign on their PS5. Why is this happening, and what can you do to fix it?

Do You Need Modern Warfare 2 to Play MW3 Campaign Early Access?

On the first day of Call of Duty campaign early access, a number of player on PlayStation 5 was rather unpleasantly surprised with a message asking them for a cross-gen Modern Warfare 2 disk. Apparently, the message says that they have previously installed the game on the PS4 and that they now need a cross-gen play disk in order to start the game on the PS5. However, the thing is, many of these players don’t even own MW2. Furthermore, they have never installed any COD game on a PS4. Finally, why is the game even asking for a MW2 disk when you try to play MW3? Do you need to own MW2 in order to play the MW3 campaign? Luckily, the answer is a resounding no. You only need to own Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. That is the only game you need to play any content from MW3.

The MW3 campaign “disk required” bug, which seems to now be solved, has appeared on the PS5. This is most likely due to the way Call of Duty is now structured. Namely, all COD experiences are now under one “COD HQ” launcher. From there, you can choose between MW2, MW3, DMZ, and Warzone. This has likely caused some conflicts, as your console didn’t know what you needed to own for the MW3 campaign. So there you have it. Now you know why this happened.