MW4 thermal optic reticles: which of the ten to unlock

The short version

Modern Warfare 4 has a thermal optic, the Bruen THRM-60, and its reticles unlock as you get kills with it. Gaaba got all ten and put each one in front of the same test target: in the open, behind smoke and against a player using Cold Blooded. His verdict in one line: Thermal Scanline (black and white, 500 kills) is the one to grind for, Thermal Sentry (blue with red players) is a good second, Thermal Cross 3 is clean and worth it, and the rest run from fine to skip. Two cautions. He says the stronger a reticle is at showing players, the worse it is at showing a player using Cold Blooded, so none of them is a cure-all. And almost all of his testing was in multiplayer on a container-yard map. He says he has not yet tried Honey Pot or Scanline in DMZ, so this is a guide to the reticles, not proof of how they behave on Hajin.

Watch Gaaba's video on YouTube → Gaaba on YouTube →

The optic and how the reticles unlock

The attachment is the Bruen THRM-60 Optic. His item card calls it a Shared Attachment, describes it as an advanced thermal optic designed for locating targets in low-vis environments, and lists 2.1x magnification and thermal target identification under Pros; the second line is clipped on screen. He says the attachment is available for LMGs and ARs. The card lists no weapons, so we cannot confirm that. His captions call it the Bruin 60; the card spells it Bruen THRM-60. He says every 100 kills aiming down sight unlocks a new reticle. The Reticle Select screen is more precise: after the equipped Default, the nine circles carry the labels 100k, 200k, 200k, 200k, 300k, 300k, 300k, 400k and 500k. We read the k as kills, because he gives the same numbers for Cross 3 (300), Honey Pot (400) and Scanline (500). So the steps are uneven, not one every 100 kills.

How to read his five test circles

Every gameplay clip has five circles across the top, which he explains at 0:18. Reticle is the reticle as it looks in the settings. FR view is the firing range version, which he says is quite deceiving on some reticles. Normal is the target in the open. Smoke is the target behind smoke. Cold Blooded is a player using Cold Blooded. From his frames we read the circles as an overlay of the same test target, a bot labelled Axel-Tomahawk in front of parked vehicles, shown in each condition, not as the live view. The reticle's name sits along the bottom of the screen. He says most players try one reticle, shrug, and never use the optic again, forgetting that it gets better later.

Default and the three Post Circles

Default (from 0:18). Blue-grey with a pale cross. He spends this part explaining the five circles and the name along the bottom. Post Circle 1 (about 0:42, 100 kills). He calls it a lot brighter and says it works well in low light. He plays mostly on Shipment, where he says nearly everyone uses Cold Blooded and the day is bright and sunny, so it is not the best example, but he expects it to do well in low-light areas, particularly in DMZ. In the frame below the Smoke circle goes almost white. He also says you cannot change the dot in the middle of any of them, and that what makes a reticle good is the lighting and how it copes with smoke. Post Circle 2 (about 1:12, 200 kills). In the firing range view the target's armour looks highlighted. He tested it and says it does not highlight armour in Warzone or in multiplayer: it is just a dummy. Post Circle 3 (about 1:39, 200 kills). He calls it awful with smoke. With smoke and gunfire in a real fight he says you cannot see anything through it, so he barely used it and does not recommend it.

Thermal Sentry

Thermal Sentry (about 1:54, 200 kills) is his second favourite. The scope is a deep blue and players show bright red, and he says you cannot miss them, even through smoke. Its weakness is Cold Blooded: he says it is pretty hard to see those players with it. His rule from here on is that the stronger a reticle is at showing players, the worse it is at showing Cold Blooded ones. He says he will take the gun into Warzone for a while to see whether the reticle helps. He points to smoke grenades, cover, crossing buildings and reviving, and mentions a perk and a trait that protect you with smoke while you are revived. He asks viewers whether thermals will matter more in future Warzone games.

Thermal Cross 1, 2 and 3

Cross 1 (about 2:48, 300 kills). Bright green, with players outlined in white. In the firing range view the armour plates look high-visibility. He says that is not true in multiplayer or Warzone, calls the reticle pointless and says enemies are hard to make out. Skip it. Cross 2 (about 3:09, 300 kills). A red, orange and green heat map. He was excited to unlock it and calls it rubbish. Smoke from your own weapon, gunfire, rockets and explosions make it impossible to see anyone, even through smoke at the B flag, and players look the same as the background. His verdict: big L. Cross 3 (about 3:36, 300 kills). A grey scene with players in red. He says this is the one, a clean little cross where a player stands out clearly against the background, smoke pretty much does not hide them and you can still see the whole body. Its weakness is Cold Blooded, where players are like the invisible man. He says it looks fantastic and is worth the 300 kills.

Does the optic highlight armour?

In the firing range view of Post Circle 2, Cross 1 and Cross 3 the target's armour looks lit up. He says it does not carry into real matches. For Cross 3 he tested it properly in a private game: a player wore armour, he shot the armour off in a few hits and the thermal picture did not change. His conclusion is that it does not really highlight armour, and that the Cold Blooded case is the same. The two frames below are from that test, at 4:18 and 4:21. In the first the target is red; in the second it is pale grey and hard to pick out, which we take to be the Cold Blooded half of the test. Please do not pick a reticle for the armour highlight. He has not tested it in DMZ, and neither have we.

Thermal Honey Pot

Honey Pot (about 4:24, 400 kills). A dark red scope with players glowing yellow and white and a hexagon reticle. He says it looks like something out of Predator and is fantastic until the fight starts: gun smoke, explosions, fire and molotovs hide everyone. He would not recommend it. He thinks it might look good on a wet map, such as DMZ when it starts raining, but says taking it into DMZ is risky and very expensive, so he has not tried it there. Maybe one day when he has more money. For now he says avoid it: no real benefit, it just looks cool.

Thermal Scanline

Scanline (about 5:12, 500 kills) is why he made the video. It is black and white, like a negative of Honey Pot, and players show as solid white shapes. He says smoke is no problem, gunfire, grenades and fire barely affect it, and you see pretty much just players. He calls it pretty broken and his favourite optic in the game, and says he expects to use it quite regularly in DMZ once he has the money. He likes it for scanning across a horizon, where a player lying in wait would show up. In DMZ a name does not hang over a player's head the way it does in multiplayer, so you are looking for the body. He says 500 kills is a grind, but he recommends it.

What we haven't confirmed

We have not used this optic. Everything about the reticles is Gaaba's testing in multiplayer, on a container-yard map in Domination (read from the on-screen score and flags), with a bot as the test target. He says himself that he has not tried Honey Pot or Scanline in DMZ. Still open: whether Cold Blooded works the same way in DMZ, whether armour is lit up in DMZ, the optic's DMZ price, which weapons can mount it, and whether Post Circle 1 and 2, which he covers briefly, behave as he describes. The unlock counts are read from one menu frame and the order of the grid is our reading. His verdicts are opinions on the launch build. If you want to see further than any reticle helps, our graphics and visibility guide covers the settings side.

Graphics: visibility and raid FPS →

Source briefing

Creator: Gaaba, "A Broken THERMAL OPTIC for ya #MW4" (YouTube, 29 October 2026), 6 minutes 55 seconds. We read the YouTube captions, which are auto-generated and not always right, and watched the footage. Item names, unlock labels and reticle names come from his on-screen frames. All prose is our own. The figures on this page are single frames from his video, each shown with its timestamp and credited to him, so you can see what he shows. All rights to the video stay with Gaaba. If he would prefer us not to show frames, tell us and we will take them down. Please watch his video and visit his channel.

Watch Gaaba's video on YouTube → Gaaba on YouTube →