M4 Weapon Platform in Modern Warfare 2, Explained

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the most ambitious entry to date, bringing unprecedented levels of customization to your platform of choice. One of the newest features is the reinvention of 2019’s Gunsmith, allowing weapons to share attachments as long as their base forms are unlocked. We’re going to be looking at one of the game’s earliest and most iconic weapons, the M4 Assault Rifle, and breaking down how the M4 works in the new Gunsmith system in Modern Warfare 2.

The M4’s Weapon Platform Explained

As mentioned, the M4 is an early game assault rifle that opens up the doors for many of the game’s better weapons. With the M4, you can unlock two more weapons which in turn can unlock an additional two weapons, with the names of the weapons and unlock requirements listed below:

• 556 Icarus Light Machine Gun: Reach level 19 with the M4
  • M16 Assault Rifle: Reach level 14 with the 556 Icarus Light Machine Gun
• FTac Recon Battle Rifle: Reach level 14 with the M4
  • FSS Hurricane Submachine Gun: Reach level 16 with the FTac Recon Battle Rifle

MW2 introduces a new system that makes one weapon a “platform”. Opening up the platform menu shows guns that are similarly manufactured and the requirements needed to unlock them. In this case, the M4 is the “head” of the platform, with the remaining four weapons being members of the family.

Much like any unlockable item in Call of Duty, playing the game’s various modes will grant you weapon XP towards leveling up your guns. It is important to note, you can use double weapon XP tokens to speed up the progression. However, the game’s various multiplayer modes seem to award more experience than the Spec-Ops missions do.

Total Number of Universal Attachments in the M4 Platform

Given that the above weapons are all a part of the same weapon platform, they do share a number of attachments between each other:

• 556 Icarus Light Machine Gun: 1 muzzle, 1 underbarrel, 1 stock, 1 optic
• M16 Assault Rifle: 1 muzzle, 1 under barrel, 1 rear grip, 2 barrel
• FTac Recon Battle Rifle: 1 rear grip, 1 stock, 1 optic, 2 barrel
• FSS Hurricane Submachine Gun: 1 rear grip

In order to unlock any of the universal attachments, you must simply level up the gun they belong to. For example, leveling up the M16 to level three unlocks the 14″ Carbine Shroud barrel for both the M4 and the M16. Simply experimenting with other weapons after unlocking them will unlock plenty of attachments across the head of the platform and the family members allowing for unprecedented customization.

That’s everything you need to know about the M4’s weapon platform, including how to unlock various weapons of the M4’s family and total number of attachments each gun shares with the head of the platform. We’re still diving into MW2’s multiplayer mode to create the best content needed, but for now we have plenty of guides to help you. Check out our review of MW2, how to access the Trello board for MW2 to check up on the game’s status, or how to unlock the Vaznev-9K.