Modern Warfare 4 Classic vs Regular Prestige: which one to pick

You hit level 55, the game offers you Prestige, and before it lets you do anything it wants to know whether you’re going Classic or Regular. Classic sounds like the pensioner’s option and Regular sounds like the sensible default. Neither of those is right, so let me go through what actually happens.

Classic Prestige vs Regular Prestige

Both of them send you back to level 1. The difference is what you keep, and whether the game pays you for losing it.

One thing takes the edge off Classic. If you own the Blueprint for a gun, from the store or a Battle Pass, the base version of that gun is yours for good. So Classic doesn’t wipe the whole armoury. It only takes the stuff you earned the slow way.

Which Prestige to pick

I’d go Classic. Levelling is most of what this mode is, so a second lap with 20% extra XP doesn’t feel like a punishment to me (I can’t leave a number going up alone, which is a personal failing). You get a token and the Prime skins for the trouble, and Regular gets bugger all.

Regular is a fine choice if you’ve got a class you love and only play an hour a night. Keeping everything and carrying on isn’t cowardice, it’s just turning down free stuff for a quieter life.

What makes it less scary is that it asks you again at every Prestige, all ten of them. So go Classic first, see how the rebuild feels, and drop to Regular whenever it starts feeling like paperwork. The one catch is the Prime rewards, which only come with Classic. If you want a full set of them, you’re picking Classic every time.

Permanent Unlock Tokens

You get one token per Classic Prestige. Spend it on a level unlock and that item stays unlocked through every Classic reset after that. The game’s own example is the Throwing Knife at level 48, which tells you roughly what it’s for: things you’d otherwise have to climb all the way back up to.

The mistake to avoid is spending it on a gun you own the Blueprint for. That gun is permanent already, so you’ve just binned a token. Perks, Field Upgrades, Killstreaks and Equipment are where they earn their keep. The first two I’d take are Ninja at level 30, because quiet footsteps help from the first minute of every lap, and Stim at level 47, because healing in your tactical slot is just good and I won’t be taking questions on that.

All Prestige rewards

Each Prestige pays out a little something every 10 levels, then the proper reward at level 50. Enter Prestige 1 and the Sandstorm operator skin is yours straight away, which is the game being nice to you early on. These are the level 50 rewards, Regular against Classic.

Four of the ten are operator skins and the other six are Blueprints, so Prestiges 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are the ones for the gun people. (Skins are lovely, but nobody has ever won a gunfight on the strength of a nice jacket.) Also, Trench Fiend is a much better name than Calm Resolve, and it’s the Classic one. Make of that what you will.

Prestige Master

Finish Prestige 10 and it just keeps going. Prestige Master runs from level 56 up to 1,000, and at the end you become a Prestige Legend, whose rewards haven’t been shown yet (which is either exciting or slightly sinister). At level 56 you get the Paragon operator skin and the orange level colour straight away. After that it’s a loading screen at 60, an emblem at 65, a weapon charm at 70, a sticker at 80 and the Han 86 Blueprint at 90. Level 100 gets you the navy level colour, with more colours every 25 levels after that.

Weapon Prestige

Weapon Prestige has nothing to do with any of this, but it’s easy to mix up because it has the same name. It’s per gun, and you can only do it once that gun is at max level. It sends the weapon back to level 1 and relocks its normal attachments. Apex and Blueprint attachments stay, along with your camos, reticles and stickers. Your Classic or Regular choice doesn’t touch it.

Everything else we have on the game is on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 hub.