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The previous king of nail-biting FPS campaigns has proven it needs some time off from annual releases with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3‘s campaign. Sledgehammer Games has helped develop many Call of Duty titles since Modern Warfare 3‘s original release on generation three consoles in 2011, but 2023’s CoD: MW3‘s campaign fails to include exciting features to help it stand out.
The immersive action of the Call of Duty series once helped set the standard for FPS story modes. Dramatized world events, large-than-life set pieces, and intense situations that were not afraid to put players in unsurvivable situations made CoD a series other shooters tried to emulate. While CoD: MW3‘s campaign does include each of the features that helped the series become prevalent, it doesn’t have enough of those grand moments to warrant being the twentieth game in the franchise.
Still Feels Like A 2011 Game
Modern Warfare 3 2023 features a short story mode that should take players around five hours to complete. Linear stages in classic CoD fashion and combat missions that attempt to introduce an open-world approach both feature in the campaign. While many of those stages do offer multiple paths and supply crates to find overpowered weaponry, sandbox stages take away the set pieces that positively characterized the series’ campaigns in the first place.
The MW3 2023 campaign includes exciting moments during its linear stages. Those moments work because the game’s narrative and linear level designs focus on its epic moments. A particular stage during a chemical bomb attack is an intense race for survival while players witness well-designed, well-organized chaos. That organized chaos is not replicated in open-ended arena stages and, unfortunately, limits how cinematic those missions can be.
Hidden supply crates populate Modern Warfare 3 2023’s arena-like stages which reward players with valuable items like silenced .50 caliber snipers, incendiary shotguns, and many other devastating options that can make replaying stages more viable. Discovered weapons and gear remain in the player’s loadout after death, which can dramatically alter a level’s difficulty with the right tools. However, after each supply crate is discovered, there is not much else to find that would drive players to want to replay campaign missions.
A Fantastic Villain Can’t Make Up For Unsatisfying Gameplay
Being the third sequel of CoD‘s rebooted Modern Warfare series might give longtime players an idea of what to expect from the game’s story, since much of it mirrors the original 2011 game. Still, several changes will surprise, especially the campaign’s cliffhanger ending, which leaves many exciting possibilities for a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Modern Warfare 3 2023 follows Captain Price and his squad as they struggle to stay ahead of cunning terrorist Vladimir Makarov. While MW3 does a fantastic job of building up its primary antagonist, the campaign lacks a sense of buildup with its disjointed missions.
Modern Warfare 3 2023’s incredibly detailed visuals and stellar performances from its cast make its cinematics look more like an intense political drama than an FPS game. When not hunting supply crates in the sandbox open combat missions, cinematic linear stages more devoted to the plot are filled with realistic character models and solid writing. However, one mission will send the squad to obliterate an enemy base from a high-flying AC-130, then follow it up with drawn-out sequences of blending into a crowd and following a potential lead to Makarov. The disjointed pacing kills the story’s momentum at several moments in MW3‘s campaign.
Final Thoughts & Review Score
Modern Warfare 3 2023’s campaign fails to replicate the excitement found in the 2011 original that was released twelve CoDs ago. Players still hide behind porta potties and wooden crates for cover from an enemy with a high-caliber machine gun instead of adapting modern advances like destruction physics, which are nearly nonexistent in the twentieth Call of Duty title. While the series continues to be successful with its multiplayer components, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a clear sign that the series’ campaigns are struggling to keep up with the innovation that other modern shooters have accomplished.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) releases on November 10, 2023 for PS5, PS4, XSX, Xbox One, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a PS5 code for the purpose of this review.
