Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 began a short early access period this week, and players raised the usual round of Call of Duty complaints about map size, movement speed, and spawn placement. According to Kotaku, these issues were relatively minor, and most players seemed largely content with the game overall.
The bigger point of discussion turned out to be cosmetic: longtime Call of Duty character Captain Price appeared with a noticeably receding hairline in early access footage. Price has traditionally been depicted with a full head of hair throughout the series, even when it's usually hidden under a hat, making the change stand out to players. A screenshot highlighting the issue was posted to Twitter by user @innerghost_ on August 23, 2026, and quickly drew attention.
Infinity Ward, via the CallofDutyCM Twitter account, acknowledged the issue on August 24, 2026, stating the team was aware Price's hair was not rendering correctly at the lowest level of detail and that a fix would come in a future update. The studio also added the issue as a standalone card on the game's public Trello project management board, and noted that the problem would not occur for players meeting the game's recommended specifications.
Other players jumped in to defend the developers, posting screenshots of Price with his normal hairstyle at higher settings. One player questioned the original screenshot with the comment, "What in the 1050 TI is this?", and another user noted that the image in question had been captured at ultra low, ultra performance, and 11% resolution settings.
Despite the developer's clarification, players continued to joke about the glitch online, including one post referring to the character as "Lieutenant Cost" instead of Captain Price. Kotaku noted the hope that the issue would be resolved before the game's open beta later in the weekend.
A separate IGN article referencing an unplanned update tied to beta feedback was cited as covering the same event, but the content of that report could not be accessed and did not provide additional verifiable details beyond what Kotaku reported.