Samsung Uses Modern Warfare 4 to Push HDR10+ GAMING

Samsung signed on as the official TV and monitor partner for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and put HDR10+ GAMING in the game. The shooter also gains official 32:9 support on Odyssey G9 monitors ahead of the October 23 launch.

That pairing is a path to put Samsung’s gaming HDR format on more than 20 AAA titles by the first half of 2027, on screens that can speak it and on consoles that still cannot.

Samsung Made Modern Warfare 4 a Format Launch

Hun Lee, executive vice president of Samsung’s Visual Display business, cast the pact as a hardware story. Activision gets a living-room brand on the year’s biggest shooter. Samsung gets the shooter on the format it actually needs to spread.

We are pleased to be the official TV, monitor, soundbar and Wi-Fi speaker partner for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, bringing players a more immersive experience through Samsung’s premium display and audio technologies.

Hun Lee, Executive Vice President, Visual Display Business, Samsung Electronics

Cody Neal, head of partnerships at Activision, said Samsung’s screens let the studio show the game with “clarity, scale and responsiveness.” The line that will outlast the booth banners is narrower. Samsung and Call of Duty will integrate HDR10+ GAMING into Modern Warfare 4, and the game will support a 32:9 super-ultrawide ratio so Odyssey G9 owners can play in a wider frame.

Soundbars and Wi-Fi speakers ride along in the partner credit. They do not change what the game can output. The payload is the HDR path and the extra horizontal space on a 32:9 panel.

The Format Stops at the Console HDMI Port

HDR10+ GAMING is not the same pipe as HDR10+ in a movie file. Bill Mandel, co-manager of HDR10+ Technologies, said the game engine reads the certified screen’s brightness range and renders for that panel, instead of stuffing scene-by-scene tone-map data into a video stream. The pitch is automatic setup: less fiddling with peak-nit sliders, more of the look the lighting team signed off on.

That only works when the display, the GPU, and the game all speak the format. PlayStation 5 still outputs HDR10 for games. Xbox Series X and Series S carry Dolby Vision Gaming and not HDR10+. LG and Sony TVs stay on HDR10 and Dolby Vision. The two consoles that will take most of a Call of Duty launch cannot send Samsung’s gaming HDR flag down the cable.

THE HDR PATH BY PLATFORM

PC setup notes for the beta still pointed people at 16:9 and often switched HDR off to keep lag down. The format Samsung is selling is real on a certified desktop stack. It is invisible on the HDMI port most living rooms will use on day one.

Does Modern Warfare 4 Support 32:9 on Odyssey G9?

Yes. Samsung said Modern Warfare 4 will officially support a 32:9 super-ultrawide ratio, and it named Odyssey G9 owners as the players who get that wider view. A 32:9 panel is roughly two 16:9 screens set side by side, which is the whole point of the 49-inch Dual QHD G9 series.

Official support matters because super-ultrawide has been a gamble in shooters. Plenty of games pillarbox the image, stretch the HUD, or lock competitive play to 16:9 so nobody gets extra vision on the flanks. Samsung did not say the feature is wired only to Odyssey hardware, and it did not say ranked play will keep the full width. It said G9 users will be able to play in the wider format and feel more space in the map.

That is the piece of the deal a PC buyer can cash. HDR10+ GAMING needs a certified chain. 32:9 needs the game to stop fighting the monitor. Infinity Ward putting the ratio in as a supported mode is the first Call of Duty launch in this generation that treats the G9 as a first-class screen instead of a workaround.

What the Cologne Booth Put on Screen

Gamescom 2026 ran August 26 through 30 in Cologne. Samsung used the hall for two jobs at once: let people play Modern Warfare 4 on Odyssey monitors, and put a 2027 Odyssey lineup on stage before the shooter ships.

The company’s own Gamescom recap, posted September 4, said the Odyssey OLED G9 (G95SJ) is the first 49-inch Dual QHD gaming monitor with a 360Hz refresh rate. Twitch streamer Esfand joined the August 27 stage session and talked about how screen shape changes the way a player tracks a fight. On August 29 the booth ran a Samsung Odyssey Showdown, a 6v6 Modern Warfare 4 match with creators Zyro, Rewinside, EloTRiX, and Rosemondy.

Samsung TV had already pointed people at that floor for a shot at Vault Edition codes.

No line holds forever.

Prepare to push beyond the limits in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, coming to Gamescom 2026.

📍 Visit the Samsung booth at Gamescom for a chance to win Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4 – Vault Edition (https://t.co/kRp8Ml4rE4) and more.#gamescom2026… pic.twitter.com/XFvBjQ4zvp

— Samsung TV (@SamsungTV) August 17, 2026

Five hundred Vault Edition Battle.net codes were set aside for on-site tasks, with the rules posted at the booth and subject to change. Visitors could also play the title on Odyssey screens weeks before the October 23 release. The 2027 G9 shown in Cologne is a different SKU from the three HDR10+ GAMING monitors named in Samsung’s August footnote, so the booth hero and the certified list are not the same product.

THE WINDOW AROUND LAUNCH

1. August 17, 2026: Samsung announces the Activision display and audio partnership and starts beta-code distribution in the Samsung Promotion app.
2. August 21, 2026: Call of Duty: NEXT streams in Samsung Gaming Hub at 9 a.m. PST, and the early-access beta opens through August 25.
3. August 26, 2026: Gamescom opens in Cologne, with Modern Warfare 4 on Odyssey screens at the Samsung booth.
4. August 27, 2026: Samsung stages its 2027 Odyssey lineup, including the 49-inch 360Hz OLED G9.
5. August 28, 2026: The open beta through September 1 begins for all platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2.
6. August 29, 2026: The Odyssey Showdown 6v6 runs at the booth.
7. October 16, 2026: Digital pre-orders get campaign early access, seven days before launch.
8. October 23, 2026: Modern Warfare 4 launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC, and Switch 2.

The beta is closed. The booth is packed up. The remaining dates are the campaign sneak and the full ship, and they still sit in front of the format Samsung wants people to notice.

More Than 20 AAA Titles by Mid-2027

On the Cologne stage Samsung said it is working with Activision Blizzard to bring HDR10+ GAMING to Modern Warfare 4, and it set a quota behind that one game. The company plans to expand the format to more than 20 AAA titles by the first half of 2027. Pepe Dijkstra, director of Samsung’s European Visual Organization, said developers want consistent HDR across scenes and screens without asking players to recailbrate every time they boot a game.

This is not the franchise’s first pass at the format. HDR10+ Technologies LLC added Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, alongside The First Descendant and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, to HDR10+ GAMING in December 2023. Unreal Engine picked up a plugin path in version 5.2.1 in October 2023. Modern Warfare 4 is the marquee, not the pilot.

Instead of relying on dynamic tone map metadata, HDR10+ GAMING allows the game engine to understand the capabilities of the connected display, such as its brightness range, and then the game engine will render the images for that specific screen.

Bill Mandel, Co-Manager, HDR10+ Technologies

Samsung also said it has led the global gaming-monitor market for seven consecutive years. The CoD deal sits on that stack: keep Odyssey in the shot, keep HDR10+ GAMING in the engine, and use a title that already sells tens of millions of copies as the proof point other studios can copy.

Beta Codes Went Through the Samsung Promotion App

The August calendar was a funnel. A Call of Duty: NEXT tune-in banner sat on the Samsung TV Gaming Hub masthead. Hub users could watch the August 21 showcase without leaving the TV. Selected players could pull early-access beta codes from the Samsung Promotion app, with codes listed from August 17 on a first-come basis. A Samsung Account ID and device information were required, and the pool was limited.

Those codes covered the August 21 through 25 early-access window. The open weekend that followed did not need a Samsung login. Gaming Hub still sat in the pitch as the place to reach Xbox Cloud Gaming and other game apps on the TV, with the usual caveats: a network connection, a service subscription, a compatible controller, and a Samsung Account.

Samsung already locked Odyssey and Gaming Hub into that launch window when the partnership went out. The codes and the masthead were how a TV owner who never bought a G9 still saw the shooter on a Samsung panel before October.

Certified Screens, Not Every Living Room

The partner credit is exclusive. The format is not. HDR10+ lists certified HDR10+ GAMING displays from Samsung, Hisense, Amazon, Prism+, and Haier, plus a growing set of PC monitors. Certified gear has to report its panel traits to the engine, and the GPU has to flag the signal. A Hisense set that passed the same test can run the mode. An LG OLED in Game Mode cannot, because the brand never joined the format.

Samsung’s own August footnote named three Odyssey monitors for HDR10+ GAMING: the 32-inch Odyssey OLED G8 G80SD, the 57-inch Dual UHD Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC, and the 27-inch Odyssey OLED G6 G60SD running QHD at 360Hz. The game has to be compatible, and extra on-screen settings may still need a nudge. That list is the practical shopping card until the 2027 G95SJ is certified and in stores.

WHO CAN RUN THE MODE

• Certified TV brands: Samsung, Hisense, Amazon, Prism+, and Haier sets that passed HDR10+ GAMING testing.
• Named Odyssey monitors: G80SD 32-inch OLED G8, G95NC 57-inch Neo G9, and G60SD 27-inch OLED G6, per Samsung’s August note.
• PC path: a certified monitor or TV plus a GPU that flags HDR10+ GAMING into the game.
• Console path: none on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and Series S, which still cannot output the format.
• 32:9 path: official in Modern Warfare 4, called out for Odyssey G9 users, with ranked-mode rules still unstated.

Infinity Ward ships it October 23 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Windows, and Nintendo Switch 2, with no last-gen SKU and no Game Pass day-one slot. Digital pre-orders get the campaign on October 16. On a certified Odyssey or a certified TV, the new HDR flag and the wide ratio are the parts of the Samsung deal that actually change the picture. On a PS5 across the room, the official partner is still a logo on a box the HDMI port cannot honor.