Call of Duty Modern Warfare III Review

"Modern Warfare 3-2"

Campaign

November 13, 2023 at 4:51am
By Jason Stettner

The events of Modern Warfare II weren’t too long ago but we continue that adventure with Price and the rest of Task Force 141. While there are a series of events that take place during this particular story, the team ends up essentially right where they start it.

That sounds odd, but yeah this is essentially just a random continuation to the past story while not really adding anything of value to it. There are some deeper hitting points, but those fall flat and ultimately you’re left feeling little to nothing with that aspect being a pale comparison of what came prior in the original Modern Warfare trilogy.

Anyways, the story starts here with a mysterious team breaking Makarov out of prison. Who is this guy? Well, if you played the original trilogy you’d know and if not he’s just some random bad dude that nobody likes. You then enjoy a series of filler levels where you walk about in carved out Warzone maps that have been touched up. There are some flashbacks and it’s really just all a bunch of nonsense thrown together into one short campaign.

You do tend to die easier here without your safety vest armor packs and I believe that’s just to try padding this out further. The levels are minimal, random and ultimately rather lame. They did create some unique areas that feel like traditional missions but those are minimal and also rely heavily upon retreading what has already happened in other campaigns.

The staples you might say, but less effectively deployed. It’s honestly just the most bizarre campaign direction and by the end you feel it’s just getting started but nothing has happened at all. It’s the easiest campaign to immediately uninstall to save storage or just not engage with at all as I’m not sure you’ll have missed anything just diving into Modern Warfare IV later on.

I guess one benefit here is that Farah is back as she was strangely sidelined in the second game but there’s also not much for her to really do here either. This trilogy really is a shell of that original story arc, such wasted potential from the rebooted original release.

Multiplayer

Picture playing Modern Warfare II from last year, speed that up and shove maps from a Call of Duty game that released fourteen years ago into it. That’s what the multiplayer is. Now, I really loved last year’s multiplayer. So to me this is serviceable but after a number of many hour streams I’m already feeling burnt out because this is so familiar.

The maps, the weapons and everything else just feels like I’ve already gone through the motions on them. I do like that I get more value from my character skins and that I keep using weapons I’ve been enjoying. Even having some nostalgia from Modern Warfare 2 maps is nice. It’s just, I’ve already experienced all of this across my life.

These maps have been remade, at least a few of them at various points and I’ve already been playing this game over the last year. Sure, there are some more smaller technical adjustments but unless you’re super intense about Call of Duty and take it to some professional level that stuff really doesn’t matter. At least they nerfed the marksman rifles I suppose, that’s something.

Anyways, it’s hard to talk about what’s new here because there really isn’t anything. Everything is about the same as the previous release with just minor adjustments. I will note the daily challenges to unlock things is stupid. I mean, if those are even functioning properly.

War Mode
Originally tug of war in Call of Duty 3 this was updated to an objective style game type for WW2 and now that iteration has returned here. It’s another carved out Warzone level and only a single map. It’s a great idea, although maybe pacing wise too fast. It’s largest issue however is that it’s a single map so it is worn thin very swiftly. Shame, could have been a stand out here like it was for WW2. It’s just lacking content.

Ground War/Invasion
These are the same as before with a few levels carved out from Warzone between them. Ground War has you battling in large teams over positions it’s chaotic and suffers from server issues. I hope that gets cleaned up swiftly as it’s beta levels of bad performance there. Invasion is similar but a Team Deathmatch style of large scale conflict.

Zombies

This is the culmination of the zombies mode continuing to be a lazy side addition to try and attract a crowd that I imagine is just tired of the mode at this point. It’s nothing like the zombies I fell in love with back during World at War and the early Black Ops games. Sigh, even some of the weirder spin-offs did better takes than whatever it has become now.

Basically there was the DMZ released last year for Modern Warfare II. They have taken that, made it a misty purple environment and shoved zombies onto it. It’s boring, lame and I was immediately just not into it. It still features the same mercenaries, lame random missions and occasional bosses which are now zombie monsters.

Random people spout nonsense at you and nothing is described as to having any purpose. It’s a worthless waste of time unless you’re one of the very niche group of people that liked the DMZ for some reason. Enjoy collecting soothing hand cream I guess while the odd zombie roams about. What a waste of storage.

Gameplay

As I mentioned prior. Picture Modern Warfare II but speed it up slightly with old maps shoved into the game. That’s how this plays and feels. I never like the idea that each Call of Duty is the same as they do differ year to year.

This time however, it is literally the exact same as last year. We’ve never had a year where it’s just the exact same, until now. It even has the same bugs and issues as last year’s version like with loadout screens randomly popping up in multiplayer for example. Sure, you get some polished maps and great visuals.

They’re however less impressive since they’re not pushing the technology any further than they were the previous year. On Xbox Series X it’s a dynamic 4k resolution at 60fps or a dynamic 1440p resolution at 120fps if you want a higher frame rate.

Exact same as last year and while you do get some great looking scenery it’s just not really that much improved. 2019’s to 2022’s felt like a visual upgrade, this one doesn’t have that feeling of improvement. Movement and everything else is also basically the same. So it just feels like an expansion to last year’s release basically. Minus anything substantial to make it feel fresh.

The Conclusion

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is the most minimal effort we’ve ever seen from the franchise being essentially the exact same game from the previous year. It really does feel like an expansion pack. They literally took last year’s game, sped it up and shoved maps from fourteen years ago into it.

It’s derivative, lazy and is wearing very thin for me in a short period of time. I felt refreshed by last year’s entry in the series and truly enjoyed the multiplayer. This is tiring because there’s nothing new, nothing at all. The campaign is a complete dud.

It’s short, boring and feels like a waste of time. The open mission maps are horrid, the story was so dull I checked out completely not even caring in the slightest about its hard hitting moment. A sad, pale comparison of what happened in the original trilogy. Also, who is Makarov aside from people saying he’s a bad guy. If you didn’t play the original you wouldn’t give a damn who this villain is.

The multiplayer while generally solid and I think if you’re just going in for that you’ll be fine. It’s just, sort of the same. There’s nothing fresh there and the burnout for me on it is going to be unreal. You may like some of the tweaks, but they’ve taken classic maps and widened them while removing all cover. It’s going to be tiring very shortly and I worry for my year of streaming/playing it as it’s an important commitment for my video work.

The zombies is atrocious. They took the worst mode to enter Call of Duty and just shoved zombies into it. I miss old zombies, I miss it ever so much. This really is, I think the end of me ever being excited about that game mode. They have no idea what to do with it and this is tragic. The highlight is collecting the soothing hand cream to sell it, awful game mode.

This game is tragic, and I feel bad the developers that likely had to grind to get this out the door as it’s just a painful collection of more effective concepts. If you just play multiplayer you’re going to be okay, I want that to be clear. If you want a strong overall package this fails and falters greatly. I don’t love giving low scores to games that technically run fine, but this package as a whole is a failure and I do not recommend it.

Read our Modern Warfare II Review
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Call of Duty Modern Warfare III Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Activision

Rating Overall: 4.0