When 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot landed, it proved to be one of the best single-player FPS campaigns in years. It was a tough act to follow, but while 2022’s Modern Warfare II campaign had the occasional misstep, it captured the same highs when it mattered most. After reviewing MW2, it was fair to wonder if the best was yet to come.
However, there were niggling doubts, especially after the announcement that MW3 would arrive just a year after MW2, despite three years separating the first two. Still, you’d be forgiven for thinking the groundwork might’ve already been done given it also uses the IW 9.0 engine, that the narrative was already written, and that its actors had shelved their mo-cap suits over 12 months ago.
Oh, sweet summer child. The 2023 Modern Warfare III campaign is a flop. Days after clearing its short story, MW3 isn’t just remarkably unmemorable–it also feels very cynically designed, milking Warzone assets to the point it seems like DLC for the now-bloated, barely navigable Call of Duty hub that can take over 250GB of Xbox hard drive space on its official day-one launch.
The following Modern Warfare III campaign review is spoiler-free–not that there’s much to spoil.
Up the creek
Modern Warfare III’s 2023 campaign starts bluntly. There’s no catch-up on previous events, which is sorely lacking, considering just how much went down. Instead, you’re dumped straight into the first level, outside the iconic round gulag millions of players once freed Captain Price from in OG MW2. It’s a bait-and-switch; you’re breaking someone out, but for the other team–Makarov is waiting for you to give him his reboot debut.
Everything looks in order, if not a little dated. The facial capture quality that may’ve wooed you in MW2–or, at least, communicated the emotions intended–has lost its spark. This seems like a meeting-in-the-middle situation, where expressionlessness is as much a fault of the engine as it is the lifeless storyline, sorely lacking any extreme or believable emotions.
To his credit, Bulgarian actor Julian Kostov does a bang-up job portraying Vladimir Makarov. Gone is the cartoonish, scenery-chewing evil of his original counterpart, instead swapped for a more straightforward nihilistic hatred that we understand a little better in 2023.
Meanwhile, Claudia Doumit keeps up her great work as Farah Karim, even if the script doesn’t do her many favors. One early, inconsequential, laugh-out-loud moment sees her speak with a loved one, implying they’re at risk, and then they immediately die. The only thing missing is The Price is Right’s losing horn.
Few other members of the cast look like they believe in their cause or even their own emotions; Ghost is among the most expressive, which is saying something. You find yourself pining for the likes of MW2’s Valeria Garza, who we can only assume is still in a metal box in an aircraft hangar somewhere.
Then again, it’s hard to form a consistent narrative you can invest in when the tale and its pacing are undermined by a cost-and-time-cutting format change that drains adrenalin by removing ever-changing, surprising, and urgent moments that previously shaped an exciting and unforgettable story. Enter the Open Combat Missions, which are among the most oversold and underdelivering FPS mechanics in recent memory.
The joylessness of open combat missions
Back in August, campaign creative director David Swenson explained all about the all-new Open Combat Mission (OCM) format, which he claimed was “a new innovation that empowers player decisions like never before.” In a conversation with Xbox Wire, he explained it would be “an evolution in Call of Duty campaigns and an evolution of how players experience it,” “woven seamlessly into the story” and offering “more choices than you’ve ever had before.”
This just isn’t the case. Warzone’s influence was noted in the MW2 campaign through its relentless desire to mix things up with vehicles, armor plates, crafting, and more, but it still felt mostly secondary to a pure one-player story mode. OCMs expose why MW3 came out so quickly: they repurpose Warzone maps with the illusion of free will and planning, without following through to create something compelling that feels important or impactful to the overall narrative. All you know is that your repetitive task is urgent, thanks to relentless comms from whoever your handler is.
OCMs account for six of Modern Warfare III’s 15 missions–but around half the campaign’s runtime–and are nothing more than reverse-engineered multiplayer maps offering a “mission” that, more often than not, comes to an end as soon as you’ve carried out a perfunctory task: destroy three things, tag two things, scan three things, defuse four things.
The intel collection of the original Modern Warfare trilogy was a bore, but it’s reintroduced in OCMs through discoverable weapons and bonuses. Most of the time, they add nothing more than you’d’ve got from an enemy weapon pickup. Still, MW3 insists you gleefully gawp at a recently uncovered rifle or shotgun, even if you’re under the heavy fire of a helicopter, 20 disgruntled ultranationalists, or both.
If you die, you’re parachuted or warped back to a starting point with a loadout changer, which is nice and all, but terrible if you’ve not picked up a shortcut-accessing ascender, or you were on the other side of the map. Sure, there are vehicles, but you won’t use them, given how small the areas are and how much attention you’ll draw to yourself–especially because most enemies respawn when you return. Good-o.
You also have access to special items like a mortar attack, VTOL, or bomb drone, which cut corners and also make the core story all the more ridiculous. Imagine, if you will, that you’re sent to clear out an enemy base with care and silence, only to find an iPad that allows you to call in a friendly stealth bomber to level the joint. What luck!
No standout moment
If you were to ask someone for their favorite memory of MW 2019, chances are they’d name ‘Piccadilly’ or the phenomenal ‘Clean House.’ As for MW2, you’d be hard-pushed to think of anything better than ‘Alone,’ wandering the streets of Las Almas on a wing and a prayer, in one of the most claustrophobic stealth missions out there.
MW3 doesn’t have a standout moment. Just one could’ve really turned its fortunes around. The closest Modern Warfare III comes is in ‘Passenger’ when, ironically, the gameplay is restricted to one gun exchange and a lot of planned dialogue. It’s a testament to the old format–seeing something emotional and simple play out through someone else’s eyes can really push the needle. It’s just a shame it’s over too quickly, then followed by another OCM.
Sure, levels may be set in a grand city like St Petersburg or London, but MW3 never makes you feel like you’re there. Towards the end of the game, you’re finally treated to a landscape akin to the heady heights of MW2’s pitch-perfect Amsterdam, only for it to end almost immediately after a short follow mission and swapped out in favor of a tunnel system with light theming.
Even the big “reveal”–when you literally lift the hood off a character–is undermined by the fact you know who it is long before you do it, and it doesn’t really matter. Modern Warfare III constantly revs its engine to give you hope, but it never shifts out of neutral.
A bitter end
The biggest womp womp of all comes when MW3 draws to a close. You know it’s coming to an end, but when it hits, it’s still surprising because there are so many loose ends, and the final showdown lacks gravitas; after so many dull flashpoints, you don’t feel like you have much skin in the game. You expect there might be one more thing, but the credits roll, you’re dumped back to the wider CoD suite, and you’re rewarded with a couple of unlockables for Warzone. Apt, really.
Worse still is how Modern Warfare 3 has managed to keep its options open for a potential follow-up. In real terms, we can’t expect this to happen–not after this outing, and presuming this reboot will follow the original trilogy’s three-game format–but there’s no real feeling of success or completion.
The Modern Warfare series may take a leaf out of Mass Effect’s book and potentially pay fan service with an actual DLC, rather than a sequel that claims to be anything but. Still, Mass Effect 3’s only real issue was its ending; Modern Warfare III suffers from a much deeper problem–for dedicated campaign players, it feels like the story’s been cobbled together for the sake of getting a new Call of Duty game out for Christmas.
It’ll be nearly impossible to win the single-player audience back, but at this rate, it appears that Call of Duty won’t try to–even if it did manage to create something incredible to begin with.
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