Modern Warfare 2 gunsmith attachments can be confusing for players

Players of Call of Duty FPS are being confused by the Modern Warfare 2 gunsmith attachments. They have vague descriptions and a lot of confusing terminology. Although the multiplayer Infinity Ward game has been hugely successful on Steam, Battlenet and consoles, players are struggling to build the best Modern Warfare 2 gun.

Call of Duty Vanguard, and Call of Duty Cold War had full statistics for weapons. MW2 doesn’t have this system. Instead, it gives a general plus or minus to each stat in the attachment effects section. You can get a bit more of an impression of how much difference each one makes by looking at the change in your bars – but an overcomplication of the terminology makes even that difficult to parse.

“Why is there now recoil control, recoil smoothness, recoil stabilisation, recoil steadiness, vertical recoil control, and horizontal recoil control,” asks one user on the MW2 Reddit, “Can we convolute it any more? This is absolutely unnecessary, and just tries to lead to an illusion of complexity so they can add more attachments.” Others in response point out that some of the terms are, in fact, synonyms. Seemingly all of them feed into an overall ‘recoil control’ bar, but that only serves to further muddy the numbers.

Another player humorously points out that the Cronen Zero-P Optic scope, described as an ‘Advanced 4x optic,’ bizarrely offers players ‘5.0x magnification’ among its benefits. They simply ask, “So which is it?”

One commenter remarks that in 2019’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare, ‘recoil control’ applies to vertical recoil, while ‘stabilisation’ refers to horizontal recoil. They say, “I assume that’s the same now, but then why have vertical and horizontal control mentioned as well? What does steadyness do? Visual recoil, if I had to guess, or maybe sway while firing?” It’s certainly a lot to try and comprehend.

Personally, I’ve really been enjoying my time with the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer so far, but its gunsmith system is certainly the thing that has clicked with me least. There are so many attachments now, and with such a vague, convoluted blend of positives and negatives for each one, that I find it overwhelming to try and figure out what’s ‘best’ to use.

Fortunately, PCGamesN is full of people much more attuned to these systems than myself, and they’ve got you covered on the best loadouts no matter which gun you favour. Be sure to check out our best loadouts for the MW2 M4, Lachmann-556, 556 Icarus, FSS Hurricane, FTAC Recon, and much more so you don’t have to pore over all those numbers yourself.

We’ve also got you covered on all the killstreaks, scorestreaks, and unlock tiers in our Modern Warfare 2 killstreaks guide. Check out our Modern Warfare 2 perk packages guide for more information. Also, you can see Call of Duty streamers performing to explain the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige scheme and how to get Modern Warfare 2 Twitch Drops.