Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Review

While Call of Duty keeps attempting to recreate itself with each iteration to keep from becoming stale. The first time this happened we got what was possibly the best entry of the series, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which jumped ahead to a modern era from WWII and brought us one of the more memorable trilogies of video-game shooters.

Now 12 years later, we’ve been to an alternate future where Exoskeletons are used in warfare, we’ve fought hackers and cyborgs and even went out to space all just to come back a classic, modern military story made for today. The new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare brings back a classic character and has some bright ideas about keeping to the shadows.

Like most Call of Duty games, the story is told by the point of view of multiple soldiers. This time around we’re mainly put in the shows of CIA Operative Alex, and SAS Sergent Kyle Garrick, as they attempt to recover a dangerous chemical gas that was believed to be stolen by a terrorist group called Al-Qatala and their leader known as The Wolf.

This brings them to the fictional Urzikstan, a country currently occupied by a Russia and lead by a ruthless general who commits several war crimes throughout the game. The CIA and SAS recruit the local resistance cell lead by Farah Karim and her Brother Hadir to help find the missing chemicals and in exchange, the will help them overthrow the Russian general who has control of their land.

What I found surprising about the story this time around is that while the story is from the point of view of Kyle and Alex, this is very much a story about Farah and her brother as they are given the most backstory and fleshed out throughout the events of the campaign. The original Modern Warfare’s Captain Price also takes a major role in this game working to de-escalate the situation with Russia.

Of course, this being Call of Duty, there are some great set pieces here that would feel at home with some of Michael Bay’s better work, but those looking for a more open experience will likely be disappointed as all the levels are quite linear and generally short as before I knew how close I was to the end of the game, it ended.

One of my biggest complaints about the story is the lack of replay-value the campaign had, while there was additional difficulty modes available, the story seems to be a one-and-done type of experience as you’re not given any choices to change the events and there are no collectibles that will have you scouring the levels looking for new items. That being said, there are some additional reasons to play through the story as it does unlock special features in Multiplayers such as playable characters and Free Double XP tokens.

While the story gameplay is very calculating in its presentation, Multiplayer remains the frantic shooter-fest that it always has been. This year seems to pull the series back to the basics by removing the Blackout Mode and Zombies which the series has been highlighting for the past iterations in favour of a Survival mode (found in the Co-Op section) and a large scale war game mode that feels more at home with Battlefield than Call of Duty.

One major highlight of the Multiplayer is the Gunfight, a new 2v2 mode where there are no respawns, players get the same guns, and maps are considerably smaller. This new mode is a welcomed addition to the game as it quick, tense, and highlights a lot of teamwork, skill, and luck. I often find myself playing this mode more than the standard Multiplayer games just because of how satisfying

What’s going to be the game-changer this year is the lack of a season pass and the upcoming release of the Battle Pass, which we have minimum details about. Knowing that moving forward, all major updates – including new maps and gear, will be free to all players and not locked behind a paywall is a major selling point for this iteration, especially if you’re just here for the Multiplayer experience.

While Call of Duty’s latest iteration is great, it is still more of what we come to expect from the franchise – only with a couple of exceptions when it comes to how to handle the community moving forward. We’re no longer getting a paid season pass but all the future DLC for free, and in its place is a new battle pass system which at the time of our review is not available.

Even when comparing this iteration to others in the franchise, I can’t see the latest outing top of the list. It tries something different yet plays too safe, lacking that one amazing thing or twist that made games the original Modern Warfare and Black Ops stand out amongst the sea of yearly releases.