MW4 October 25 Update: Search and Destroy Kill XP Tripled, Bomb Stretching Fix Rolled Back
Search and Destroy grinders just got a big raise. Infinity Ward's October 25 update for Modern Warfare 4 boosts the XP for a single kill from 100 to 300 in Search and Destroy and Collateral, according to the official launch patch notes. The same update also reverses a recent Search and Destroy fix that broke bomb pickups, and it cleans up a long list of DMZ problems.
It's the third MW4 update since launch. It follows the day-one update on October 23 and the October 24 patch that stopped DMZ party leaders from sending squadmates MIA.
Kill XP tripled in S&D and Collateral
Round-based modes give you far fewer kills per match than Team Deathmatch or Hardpoint, so leveling in them has felt slow. Infinity Ward says it is "looking at XP earn rates in Multiplayer modes" and will make changes "starting with this update." The first step is the 3x kill XP bump for Search and Destroy and Collateral. More XP tweaks for other modes look likely, but none have been announced yet.
Bomb stretching fix rolled back
The other headline is a reversal. Infinity Ward has rolled back an earlier fix for "bomb stretching" in Search and Destroy. That fix caused a knock-on bug: players couldn't pick up the bomb in certain positions. Bomb stretching is back for now, and the studio says it will address it again "as soon as we are able."
Other Multiplayer fixes:
- Collateral: the bomb could disappear after players interacted with it. Fixed.
- Loadouts: the game could briefly freeze the first time you edited a loadout during a match. Fixed.
- Announcer: the game mode intro now plays at the start of Frontline and Hijack matches.
DMZ fixes
DMZ gets a solid batch of changes, per Infinity Ward:
- Critical Extraction: players could skip the Hospital Elevator objective in this Story Mission. That's closed.
- Drill Charges: damage against enemy Colossus has been reduced.
- Blueprints: buying saved Builds from modified Blueprints could charge the full cost of the original Blueprint. Fixed.
- Overflow Stash: you could try to deploy with items still in your Overflow Stash. Now operators must reconcile the stash before their next deployment, so clear it out before you queue.
- A Sedan missing from its Tac-Map marker, AI clipping through the Crashed Drone, an oversized Last Stand icon and several Breaking New Ground onboarding bugs are also fixed.
The notes also list "various DMZ exploits" closed and a fix for players being AFK-kicked while spectating in some Multiplayer modes. Twisted Voxel's rundown highlights the same XP boost and DMZ Blueprint cost fix.
Global and UI fixes
On Xbox and PC, players using the full Korean language setting couldn't launch Black Ops 7 from MW4. That's fixed. Gunsmith now shows stats for locked Attachments. Prestiging now properly clears Loadouts. The Patriot XMR, Oden and Cronen Squall are no longer mislabeled as Battle Rifles in parts of the menus.
What's next
Weapon balance still hasn't arrived. Infinity Ward repeats that it is "looking at potential weapon tuning changes for a future update," the same message it gave on day one. In the meantime, our MW4 roadmap breakdown covers what's coming: Shipment on October 27, and Season 1 for MW4 and the new Warzone on November 6, per Infinity Ward's official roadmap.
