What is the new Cutthroat mode in Modern Warfare 3?

What is Cutthroat in Modern Warfare 3, and how does it work? With the release of the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 beta, players are throwing themselves into the various familiar 6v6 game modes that we've come to know throughout Call Of Duty's history. But one unfamiliar name is among them: the new Cutthroat game mode, which offers an experience we've never seen before in Modern Warfare.

Below we'll walk you through exactly how the new Cutthroat game mode works in MW3, what to expect in your first Cutthroat match, and a few handy pointers for success in Cutthroat.

Modern Warfare 3's Cutthroat mode explained

The new Cutthroat game mode was first announced back in August with Activision's official Modern Warfare 3 announcement post, but only now have we had a chance to see how Cutthroat plays in person. Cutthroat is a round-based 3v3v3 game mode where the aim is to win 3 rounds, either by being the last team standing or by capturing the point in the centre of the map when the time limit runs out.

Here are the key points of the Cutthroat mode in MW3:

• Cutthroat pits 3 teams of 3 against each other across multiple rounds.
• No respawns! If you die, you must wait until next round to respawn.
• If you are brought to zero health, you are downed and can be revived or finished.
• You can bring your own loadouts into the match.
• To win the round, you must be the last team standing.
• If multiple teams are left standing by the end of the round, whoever has captured the flag at the centre of the map wins the round.
• If neither win condition is fufilled, whoever has most health wins the round.
• The first team to win 3 rounds wins the match.

If you played Gunfight back in the days of 2019's Modern Warfare, then Cutthroat is a very similar concept, with the round-based elimination format. The key differences are that it's 3v3v3 instead of 2v2, and unlike Gunfight, you are free to use your own custom loadouts in Cutthroat.

The three maps available so far for Cutthroat are Estate, Favela, and Skidrow. Each team spawns roughly equal distances from one another, although one team may spawn closer to the flag than the others. This isn't necessarily an advantage - capturing the flag only comes into play occasionally. Most of the time the maps are so small and the fighting so intense that the round ends before the time runs out.

Modern Warfare 3 Cutthroat tips

Here are a few handy tips to help you win matches in Modern Warfare 3's new Cutthroat mode:

1. Stick close to your teammates

Despite Modern Warfare 3's time-to-kill being slower than most other COD games, you can still kill someone very quickly in Cutthroat. And with no respawns, it's a huge detriment to your team if an enemy is able to peek out of cover, gun down one of your teammates, and then duck behind cover again to heal. Stick with your teammates so that you can always cover each other, return fire, and suppress enemies.

2. Use pings and voice chat to communicate

Communication is arguably more important in Cutthroat mode than in any other mode in MW3. Enemies can quickly circle around you and flank, and with the stakes so high (remember, no respawns!), it's very important to know where every enemy is coming from. That's why you should try your hardest to communicate both your plans and your enemy positional information with your teammates, either through voice chat or with pings (or preferably a combination of both).

3. Don't prioritise the flag

Cutthroat's secondary win condition may involve capturing the flag on the map, but you should NOT prioritise getting to and then defending the flag. More often than not it's deliberately placed in a difficult to defend location that forces open confrontation. You're much better served spending most of the round's duration scouting around the edges of the map looking for quick and easy kills.

4. Bring your map knowledge to bear from other modes

Cutthroat's map pool is shared with the Mosh Pit map pool. While many of these maps are well-known to veterans who played the original Modern Warfare series, if you're a new player without a strong knowledge of the various maps in Cutthroat, it's a good idea to spend some time playing Mosh Pit. It's far easier to learn a map in a game mode where respawns are enabled!

That's everything you need to know in order to start playing and winning at Modern Warfare 3's new Cutthroat game mode. To prepare yourself properly for the highly competitive environment in Cutthroat, check out our guide on the best loadouts in Modern Warfare 3.