I should start with some sympathy. As you might’ve already read in our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 campaign review, this 2023 reboot has, reportedly, been developed in about half the time of a usual Call of Duty. It was also reliably reported to have started life as a mere expansion for last year’s also-rebooted Modern Warfare 2, rather than a full game (vaguely rebuked by Sledgehammer studio head Aaron Halon). And its developers have, we’re told, been made to work evenings and weekends in the weeks leading up to its release. All of this shows; none of it is its developers’ fault.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reviewDeveloper: SledgehammerPublisher: ActivisionPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (Steam, Battle.net
But this is the worst Call of Duty in some time. Its typical prestige, mega-budget gloss and fastidious attention to the craft – whatever you may think of that craft itself – is either missing in action or otherwise overshadowed. It’s a game towered over by an amalgamation of the series’ worst tendencies – no, more than that, by an entire industry’s worst tendencies – a position from which no amount of retro multiplayer map nostalgia and battle pass tat can help it emerge.
As ever with modern Call of Duty, the new Modern Warfare 3 comes in a few parts, assembled clumsily – and, honestly, bafflingly, at least to me – in a kind of perpetual launcher dubbed CoD HQ. For your 70 smackers you’ll get an all-new single-player campaign, more of the same traditional multiplayer, and a freshly resurrected Zombies mode.
The campaign, as we’ve talked about in more depth in our MW3 campaign review, is a disappointment this year. Its new open play area missions, which present you with a mix of Far Cry-style outpost sieges, Hitman-style assassination play areas or more linear, but strangely metroidvania-like, quests that see you carry freshly looted gear into new playthroughs, pale in comparison to the more open-ended games that inspired it. They underwhelm from every angle, from their deeply limited stealth mechanics to the lack of playfulness and invention in the overall level design.