‘Modern Warfare III’ is a Low Point For the ‘Call of Duty’ Franchise

Modern Warfare III could be the first Call of duty a game that leaves me completely baffled, and that’s saying something for a guy who gave up on the franchise in 2014.

It is building up to this crucial moment. People always go on and on about the decline of video games and the future of the industry is in jeopardy due to the increasingly callous market development strategies and attempts to get lifeless cash, but not so much we have never proven that before. half-hearted cynics.

Sure, we can make memes on Reddit to dunk on them Call of duty enthusiasts all day. Some may even roll with the punches, admitting that although Activision has grown gradually greedy over the past decade, and the more creative games bankrupt, they can still enjoy unironically a game or two of Domination or Team Deathmatch with friends.

The truth is, even if Activision and its numerous game studios were developing and releasing great Call of duty But we probably won’t be able to tell apart from these many other annual installments that offer fans the same interactive art over and over again. That is not the case, unfortunately Modern Warfare III. This is not a book you judge by its cover. This is not a gem hidden behind the exterior of mediocrity. If anything, it’s precise practice for bringing out the worst Call of duty together in a last ditch effort to keep the franchise relevant, leaving you wanting more and maybe even questioning if you really spent $70 on a three hour campaign that was clearly produced to serve as DLC for Modern Warfare II.

Don’t get me wrong; with the current industry obsession with maximizing content over quality and giving us titles that run at least twice as long as their previous-gen counterparts, I’d welcome a game like Call of dutywhich traditionally entertained 6-7 hour campaigns. Modern Warfare III He exceeds this mark and betrays our trust, promising in his name that we will continue as we should MW reboot series, only to leave us hanging with a story that ends just as you’re starting to settle for the show.

Even worse is the fact that, unlike the original Modern warfare trilogy that ended with the third installment, it is clear that Activision plans to expand this sub-series beyond that threshold, and we would not be surprised if Modern Warfare IV or even a fifth entry somewhere down the line, especially given the abrupt, cliffhanger-y way the 2023 game ends.

Modern Warfare III There is something of an aberration even in the fatigued Call of duty franchise. By convention, we should get the next one Black cooperatives game by Treyarch, followed by another installment from Sledgehammer Games. But 2023 caught Activision off guard, with the company scrambling to keep its stock value high amid Microsoft’s acquisition battle.

Lo and behold, they find the perfect solution in the form of the next one Modern warfare. This particular result has only broken records for Activision since its inception in early 2005, with 2022’s. Modern Warfare II pushing past the franchise’s all-time record by generating $800 million in three days – so why wouldn’t they be tempted to rush the sequel’s release at such a chaotic time?

Except for the fact that Modern Warfare III with Sledgehammer that was not the sequel. The story was originally intended to serve as DLC for Modern Warfare IImeant to introduce Makarov as the main character of the story, but Activision switched direction in the middle of the pendulum, asking the studio instead to turn this into a full-on sequel. Call of duty experience.

Developers often get creative and experimental with DLCs; it’s a fun playground where nothing is off limits, and the small scale of the project helps foster that creativity. Modern Warfare III unfortunately it’s an outlier in this regard, despite Sledgehammer’s best efforts to take the gameplay down a new path.

The selling point has always been the cinematic thrill of contemporary warfare MW, but you get none of that here. The missions are broken down into sandbox levels where you control a particular member of Task Force 141 and go through a checklist of objectives. The open environment and tools of CoD Royale gives players some freedom in how they approach these missions, but it all reminds us more of those “Force Strike” side missions than anything from your classic. Call of duty single-player campaign experience. This story and setting might have worked in the guise of an expansion pack, if only barely, but for an official continuation of the story that began with the 2019 reboot, it just comes off as sub-par.

It is extremely strange to consider, under the technical limitations of time, that the year 2007 exists. Modern warfare and the subsequent follow-ups in 2009 and 2011 were much more immersive, deeper (telling wise), and even more exciting to play through. Now, more than ten years later, we get a game that barely lives up to the standards of its time, let alone the acclaim of its predecessors. Even Modern Warfare IIIReferences to the past – including a mission that takes place in a snowy landscape – cannot imitate its success, despite being much better in terms of visual fidelity.

I don’t know about you, but when I was much younger and playing the older games, this is not what I imagined Call of duty would be in ten years. And yes, it’s weird that I review the entire franchise when I should only be talking about one entry, but as I said at the beginning of this review, Modern Warfare III it seems to embody everything that’s going wrong with this series, whether it’s mediocre design, a barely coherent plot, or Activision’s general insistence on moving the franchise into oblivion.

This review is based on the Playstation 5 version of the game, and all screenshots taken by We Got This Covered are from time spent playing the game. Activision provided a review copy.