Call of Duty is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the release of Modern Warfare 3. However, the latest game in the franchise is turning out to be a hard sell for long-time fans.
It took me just over four hours to complete the campaign. I found the story interesting at first, although the game quickly throws bland mission after mission at you to an abrupt end, followed by a story cutscene that narratively feels all over the place. Immediately, you realize every mission occurs on a small open area ripped from the Warzone Battle Royale game mode. These areas are known as “open combat missions,” which are multi-objective-based sandbox missions.
The game offers multiple options to complete an objective in these open areas, which allows you to have some fun by stealthing your way through the map, finding an explosive to help you destroy an objective, or going in guns blazing. In other instances, you find that getting to an objective can also be achieved in several different ways. You may find a parachute or an ascender to use zip lines, elevator shafts, and vehicles. Loot boxes like in Warzone are scattered throughout the map with stronger weapons and attachments and kill streaks to aid you in combat.
The campaign missions are exciting initially, but just when the fun gets going, you’re brought down by the same gameplay loop. For instance, shoot the wave of enemies and progress to the next wave of enemies. That’s not to say other Call of Duty entries aren’t guilty of this sequence, but after 20 years of the same missions, at what point will innovation in game design for such a juggernaut in gaming be the focus? This entry once again ends on a cliffhanger accompanied by a mid-credit scene that seemingly points at another entry in the modern warfare series or perhaps even a story DLC, much like this entry was initially planned to be and maybe should have been from the beginning.
While the more open area style approach to missions was interesting and new for the series, constantly being dropped into another open combat mission after a half-baked story cutscene quickly became a slog. With Modern Warfare 2’s post-credit tease of the infamous No Russian mission, every Call of Duty player awaited the moment to approach. Modern Warfare 3’s version of the controversial mission proved to be an equally horrid terrorist attack, this time on a passenger airplane rather than inside an airport like in the original Modern Warfare 2. However, this game’s retelling is more of a hand-holding experience for the player. It serves as another word salad scene between unattached characters that ultimately misses the mark.
This year’s new entry in the Call of Duty series brings Sledgehammer games to the helm of the 20-year-long franchise. It’s the first entry in the series since XBOX acquired Call of Duty publisher Activision/Blizzard/King in a $68.7 billion deal. While XBOX had no input this time around, widespread criticism of this year’s title will undoubtedly cause the new owners of the IP to tread carefully as they will be looked on with more scrutiny by “console fanboys” and “console war” tribalists.
My verdict on the Modern Warfare 3 campaign is that it’s not worth the admission price to play the same game released the year prior, only with less effort. In an age where the video game audience is more in tune with the going ons in the video game world, it’s hard to fool gamers into mindlessly purchasing because they are already fans of the product. I can only hope gamers research before buying, and if it’s one of those years where you’re only in it for the Multiplayer, I don’t blame you, but I don’t envy you either. The Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 campaign is available now to Vault Edition early access buyers, and the full game will be available globally on today.
