When I was in college, I was introduced to a good friend’s friend and neighbour, who liked to game like we did. Many nights were spent at the third guy’s house, drinking beer and taking turns playing the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In fact, they’re probably the best memories I have of playing the series. It never seemed to get old, and we’d play late into the night, always making sure to swap the controller once our rounds had been completed.
Fast forward 14 or so years and 2009 is back again, at least in one way. With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Activision has brought back a lot of the core Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer experience, thanks to updated versions of its beloved maps. As such, what’s old is new again, although that’s just one part of a game that has been receiving some flack since its release.
Said to have been rushed, with developers who worked overtime in order to get it finished in a shorter development period than usual, this year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is admittedly a mixed bag, which will appeal to everyone differently. If you’re someone who only plays multiplayer, you’ll probably enjoy it; at least more than most. Meanwhile, if you play these games for their campaigns (which I’ve, admittedly, always done) then you may be disappointed. Zombies fans might fall in-between, though I can’t say for sure because I’ve never enjoyed Nazi Zombies or any of its more recent spin-offs. I love zombies and I like first-person shooters, but the mode — and its previously poor hit detection — did nothing for me. That’s my bias here.
If you’re someone who just likes to casually game, know that it’s more of the patented Call of Duty experience, for better or worse. That said, the main reason to buy this game is the old maps having returned. Nothing else really stands out, and does feel rushed. That’s likely not something that will bother those who just like to hop on for an hour or two and shoot other players, but it may make them reconsider buying this year’s entry if they’re fine with Modern Warfare II and its maps. After all, that’s pretty much all that’s changed for the better.
Let’s start with the campaign, which has been a focal point of the levied criticism.
Modern Warfare III, which was rumoured to have originally been planned as downloadable content for Modern Warfare II — something that makes sense given they use the same launcher and sort of share an achievement list — picks up after the events of the last game. In fact, its first mission has you playing as the bad guys, who break into a gulag with a water view in order to free Makarov from his captives after four years in prison.
The rest of the campaign, then, is you dealing with Makarov and his plans to create global chaos, by stealing and using missiles filled with awfully toxic gas and using a fake bomber to destroy a plane. He’s as evil as evil gets, and has absolutely no conscience, so he must be dealt with.
What results is a story mode with more missions than I expected given the negative comments and posts online, albeit one that’s far from being the best this series has ever seen, or anywhere close. It feels dated and rushed, and doesn’t push the Call of Duty brand any further except in terms of the Modern Warfare reboots’ storyline.
Our main problem with this story mode is how much it’s been inspired by Warzone, and how little depth and variety that leaves a number of its missions. Gone are the previous campaign structures, where levels were designed around stages where the story pushed you forward and things happened narratively. For the large part, that’s been replaced by open combat missions, wherein the player must complete certain objectives in an open map. For instance, one tasks you with destroying three helicopters, another has you finding GPS trackers and putting them on crates at a waterfront cargo bay, and a third asks you to infiltrate a base. These leave the how up to the player, but don’t feel all that cohesive in comparison to what we’re used to. It’s basically them having created a multiplayer map, dropped some enemies in and told us to deal with it at our own pace. It makes me miss the campaigns of yesteryear.
Now, I’m not saying that these open combat stages are godawful, or anything like that. They’re just basic, mediocre and rushed feeling. There’s little in the way of creativity or variety when it comes to them, not that Call of Duty is known for its variety, for the most part. It knows what it is and does just that. With that being said, previous titles used to have major set pieces, unique missions and the like, but there’s so much open combat here that the more traditional missions are few and far between. Even then, they feel more open combat than what we’re used to.
Like Warzone, the open combat missions allow you to use a parachute, and pick a loadout. You’ll find boxes full of ammo, different gadgets (drones, ascenders, UAVs, etc.) and weapons throughout each map as well. In all of the missions, it’s also possible to add picked up metal plates to your gear to reduce damage taken, but they break.
If you like Warzone, then maybe you’ll prefer these types of missions, but I don’t know why anyone would. Then again, I can’t get into battle royales and did not enjoy my time with the original Warzone, so I haven’t bothered playing any other(s).
The mediocre story is traditional Call of Duty, where a group of good guys (including favourites like Soap, Price, Ghost, Gaz and Farah) travel the world in order to stop a super bad guy from killing innocent people and starting World War III. Most of this one happens to, once again, take place in Urzikstan, although there are flashback missions where you to go locations from the previous games. There’s even a stage set in the snowy tundra, where camouflaged snipers become a pain in the ass. You’re not going to get anything unique, groundbreaking or all that memorable here, though, because it’s just not as deep or well conceived as others. Furthermore, the game ends frustratingly, after two missions that follow what I thought was supposed to be the end. Those two stages make the ending a bit better than the convoluted and confusing one it would’ve otherwise been, but I was quite disappointed by the end of the final one. I won’t say any more out of fear of spoilers. It just seems like we’re going to get Modern Warfare IV, when we could’ve gotten an original Call of Duty instead.
I’ve also never truly ‘gotten into’ this storyline. It jumps around so much throughout the three games that it’s sometimes convoluted and hard to follow. As such, I wish we’d get a new storyline instead of continuing this one.
Overall, the campaign is fine but unspectacular and near the lower end of the Call of Duty campaigns. It did have more missions than I’d expected, though, after seeing people joke about it being four hours in length. I’d say it took me five or six, but I died some.
Zombies, then, is less story oriented and more open world than what came before it. You skydive down onto a large map, then fend for yourself, sometimes with the help of a few teammates. Zombies are scattered around the map, as are objectives you can tackle, munitions drops, etc. It feels less designed and more basic than what came before it, but I must admit that I’m just not a Zombies fan. It would’ve taken a lot to impress or hook me here, and this did not. If you like this kind of thing, though, you may like it and get hooked. I’ll be sticking with multiplayer, though.
Of course, multiplayer is the big draw, which is why the game’s achievements list says that almost no one (in respect to the amount of people who bought this game) has completed the story mode. The stat is shockingly low.
For the most part, this multiplayer suite is the same as what came before it. The menus are almost identical, and the modes are as well. This is a new game, though, so your kill/death ratio won’t carry over, which is kind of a good thing for me. Other things can be carried over, though, including your loadout.
The only real, tangible and standout difference comes in the form of the sixteen remastered maps from 2009’s Modern Warfare 2, which some consider to be the pinnacle of this franchise. I won’t lie: It’s been really nice returning to old favourites that my friends and I played through while having some beers, and that I played alone when I was at home. Terminal has always been my favourite Call of Duty map, and having it back is great. Same for Rust, Scrapyard and Skidrow. Some are obviously better than others, though, and certain maps don’t excite me much. I’ll sometimes leave the lobby if they’re chosen because they’re just too big for my taste.
To be completely honest, I only really play three different game modes each year. They are kill confirmed, team deathmatch and free-for-all, the latter of which is my favourite. I don’t really enjoy other modes all that much, and find that my enjoyment is highest in those three. Then again, I grew up playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, and have never been crazy about objective based modes outside of Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield: Bad Company. As such, my opinion that some of the maps are too big is due to them not being all that suited for free-for-all, despite them being in its playlist.
Thus far, I’ve played about fifteen hours of Modern Warfare III multiplayer alone. That includes eight-and-a-half on launch day, which I never in my wildest dreams expected to play. The new maps excited me, though, and kept me playing longer than I otherwise would’ve. I’ve also found myself looking forward to playing more at times, although I’m also dealing with some series fatigue at the same time and find that I get a bit bored after a while. Before this, though, I hardly played Modern Warfare II online. I would occasionally, but not daily or even weekly.
I don’t know if it’s new, but I’ve noticed that you can be kicked for inactivity. It’s not something I noticed before, but it’s happened to me at times because I’ve – admittedly – been camping to get my K/D ratio up to 1.0. It’s only .03 off now, but I’ve had some really rough games as of late. Pay attention to this notification, because it will kick you even if you move a few feet and then go back to your spot.
Presentation-wise, this is more of the same and what you’d expect. Modern Warfare III is a nice-looking game, but it doesn’t look much different from any of the previous games. The textures may be slightly better, and there are a few really nice looking cutscenes, but it’s mostly the same game in terms of looks and sound. It does seem like operators talk more during multiplayer, though, but that could just be me. All you need to know is that the game looks good, runs well (on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S at least), and sounds bombastic.
At the end of the day, whether Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is a worthwhile purchase depends on you. If you’re someone who plays Call of Duty regularly then it’s almost a no brainer if you want new content. However, if you don’t play much or only play for the campaign or Zombies, it’s not as easy to justify. Either way, you’ll need to download and install the majority of it as an update to Modern Warfare II if you have that installed, because — as mentioned above — they use the same launcher.
This has admittedly become one of the hardest reviews I’ve ever had to do, because I’ve enjoyed myself with the multiplayer, but found Zombies lacking and wasn’t blown away by the campaign. Still, I went into the single player mode knowing it wasn’t ideal by any means. I do think I’ve enjoyed this game more than most, though, and am okay with being a bit of an outlier.
This review is based on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions of the game, which we were provided with.