How to level up fast in Modern Warfare 3
Here’s how to level up your guns fast in Modern Warfare 3
How can you level up fast in Modern Warfare 3? In order to gain access to certain weapons and items in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, you'll need to level up by gaining XP in a variety of ways. As you progress, you'll unlock weapons, accessories, equipment, killstreaks, and more that will all have a knock-on effect to your game as you'll be able to build loadouts that other players might not have yet, or that suit your playstyle better.
As we said, in order to level up, you need to earn XP across multiple categories; your rank, your weapons, and your Battle Pass. There's certain ways to do that fast and earn the multitude of rewards on offer. Luckily, we've put together our top tips for doing this below. Let's take a look.
How to level up fast in MW3
There's no one particular secret formula to getting your rank to level up. Instead, you'll need to use some or all of the tips below to make your way up. There's some stellar tips to make sure you're not wasting any time though and are getting right down to the business of XP farming.
Without further ado, here's what we recommend doing to level up fast in Modern Warfare 3:
1. Activating XP Tokens
When you complete Campaign missions, level up the Battle Pass, and compete in special events and promotions, you'll earn yourself XP tokens. These can then be activated during your Multiplayer gameplay to run for a limited varying time to earn extra XP rewards.
Firstly, don't activate it until you're ready to utilize the whole token. So, if you're ready to play a whole hour, then activate one of those. If you're only on for 30 minutes, play with one of those. You'll find your existing tokens in the window underneath the daily challenges in the party lobby. Another handy point is any XP tokens you've earnt in MW2 will carry over.
2. Complete daily and weekly challenges
The challenge system offers three unique daily challenges (and an extra bonus one upon completion) alongside seven weekly challenges, separated by Multiplayer and Zombies mode. The challenge requirements differ, from earning a certain number of kills or doing so with a certain weapon, but the chance to earn big XP rewards remains the same, making it the perfect way to level up fast.
3. Play certain Multiplayer game modes
To earn XP, you want a high concentration of kills. You also want to make sure in order to obtain these kills, you're not wasting too much time racing around empty space in a map. The Multiplayer game modes we'd recommend then are Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, Domination, and Ground War.
Hardpoint and Domination center around specific objectives and, as such, areas of the map. This means that enemies will gather in certain spots meaning you'll know roughly where to find them and hopefully kill them for that sweet, sweet XP.
Kill Confirmed means then enemies drop dog tags when they're killed, which can be collected for extra XP. You can collect XPs of your allies or opponents, regardless of whether you executed the kill yourself, so there's another objective to your XP gain other than just shooting down the enemy. As long as you're quick.
Ground War has a lot of players to kill and a lot of objectives to complete, both granting the player opportunity to earn XP for their rank. We'll talk more about this game mode again later, but for now it's all about getting the kills, respawning right back into the action, and staying present in the action so that your teammates can spawn on you. All of which earn you XP.
4. Use Scorestreaks
In our Killstreaks vs Scorestreaks guide, we explored how, like MW2, you can toggle between the ability to earn points to unlock your streak rewards, as opposed to number of kills. By running with Scorestreaks, you'll find yourself steering towards point earning, which means more XP, which means leveling up faster.
If you earn points towards your Scorestreak, you'll then be able to use the rewards like UAV and Precision Airstrike to earn yourself even more kills, and even more XP.
How to level up weapons fast in MW3
Here are a few top tips that are still excellent at leveling up your rank fast, but also do wonders at leveling up your weapon fast in Modern Warfare 3:
1. Use your chosen weapon a lot
This may sound really obvious, but if you're focused on leveling up a certain weapon, make sure you're always using it to get your kills. It's all about the grind when it comes to gaining XP, so make sure you've got it equipped on a few different classes so if you do want to switch to a different playstyle, your weapon of choice will come with you.
As always, headshots will get you more XP. Being precise with your shots will also help you level up faster and as you progress, be sure to use all the different attachments… which leads us onto our next top tip.
2. Play Zombies mode
It has fast become apparent that Modern Warfare Zombies is the ultimate way to level up weapons fast. With mass amounts of zombies to shoot down, it's an excellent way to clock up XP. We'd recommend popping the weapon you're after leveling into your insurance slot though, as you may want to utilize another to complete your kills. This way, you don't miss out on the XP. Plus, there's some extra things you can do in MWZ to call even more zombies out to play.
When you Exfil in MWZ, you prompt a huge zombie wave to come to your location making for even more kills and even more XP. If you utilize the Energy Mine Field Upgrade, unlocked straight away, you'll be able to take out zombies a lot faster. Farm the zombies, farm the XP.
If you've found a locked gun in a Zombies match, you'll need to equip it so you can extract it and unlock its use in Multiplayer too.
3. Play War Mode
Returning from Black Ops 4 and MW2, the 6v6 War Mode sees players completing their own team objectives, which vary between defending and attacking. With specific objective zones, the kills become more condensed meaning the chance of to kill more players per match equals more XP.
Players respawn near the objectives each time they're eliminated, so returning to the action and making sure everyone else is too is a great perk for this game mode when it comes to getting XP for your weapon.
4. Complete attachment challenges
Each weapon type comes with specific attachment challenges that will reward you with some healthy XP. Depending on the attachment, the challenge is usually to achieve a certain number of kills and once you've done that, you'll be rewarded with about 750-1000 XP per challenge.
5. Complete weapon specific challenges
You can also, of course, carry out the challenges attached to your chosen weapon type. They'll range from achieving a certain amount of kills to a certain amount of headshots and with each challenge, you'll work your way up the levels; Marksman, Veteran, Veteran (Prestige), and Master (Prestige). The further into the level tiers, the higher the reward. Achieving maximum proficiency on your weapon of choice will also give you 10,000 XP.
If you focus on completing these weapon-specific challenges, you will be rewarded with that sweet, sweet XP that'll feed into your levelling up. The higher the level, the closer you are to unlocking that Gold camo reward as level 31.
6. Complete weapon-related daily challenges
Each day in the lobby, three new daily challenges will appear. If you spot any specific challenges that are related directly to your weapon, do them. It's as simple as that.
7. Use a Prestige Token of Double Weapon XP
Prestige Tokens, earned by prestiging in MW3, come with special perks. The most relevant for this guide being the Double Weapon XP. When you activate the token, you'll be able to gain double XP on your weapon for two hours in-game time.
The Double XP tokens can be obtained by completing campaign missions. Luckily, your Double XP tokens will also transfer over to MW3 from MW2. Check out our full mission list guide detailing the Modern Warfare 3 campaign.
8. Double XP events
Keep a close eye on the Modern Warfare 3 events as they'll sometimes offer up double XP, which means if you participate in them, you'll be leveling up your weapon twice as fast.
9. Play Ground War
Zombies and War Mode aren't the only great game modes for fast gun leveling. Ground War is another option we'd recommend due to its increased player count and longer runtime. Given these features, there's truly a wealth of opportunity to clock up kills and in turn, XP. You can also respawn in a chosen location, so you can throw yourself straight back into the action or pick a more strategic standpoint to pick enemies off.
Of course, playing any game mode a lot will help you level up and just playing MW3 in general will also get you levelling up. There's just some modes that are better than others.
That's all our top tips for leveling up weapons fast in Modern Warfare 3. Once you've unlocked all those precious attachments, you'll want to make sure you're set up with the best Modern Warfare 3 loadouts.