Should you buy MW3 on Steam or Battle.net?

The new Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is now on Steam and Battle.net. Fans have complained about its seemingly rushed campaign, but others made their peace and must choose which platform to use for the game’s multiplayer and zombies mode.

You may think MW3 would run the same on PC regardless of the storefront you get it from, but it might not be that simple. The experience isn’t very different on either platform, but there’s a few notable differences, and we’ll walk you through those to help with your decision.

MW3 on Steam vs. Battle.net, the basics

Steam is both the biggest video game storefront in the world and the biggest gaming hub. Since MW3 features crossplay across all platforms, getting it for Steam may strike you as the most practical choice.

However, your points don’t carry over from one version to another.

The most important advantage on the Battle.net side is the supposedly superior performance in default settings. Players claim that 2022’s MW2 ran better on Battle.net than it did on Steam. That’s because Steam allocates PC resources for background functionalities by default. I still haven’t found conclusive evidence that MW3 runs better on either platform, though.

Either way, the good news is that these functionalities can be disabled, but this remains a factor worth considering if you don’t own a high-end gaming PC and don’t want to tinker with your platform’s options.

A guaranteed advantage that Battle.net’s platform has over Valve’s is that it doesn’t suffer from Steam’s weekly maintenance downtime. Remember that every Tuesday, you might not be able to play the game for a period of up to thirty minutes.

In conclusion

If you happen to own a high-end gaming PC and already have a soft spot for either platform, just go with that one. The differences aren’t enough to warrant concern If you’re a die-hard fan of the series who doesn’t own a gaming PC but who wants to be deployment-ready 24/7, then consider getting the Battle.net version.

You can now play the new MW3 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and on Microsoft Windows via either Steam or Battle.net.