Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows 2023’s Modern Warfare III is a somewhat controversial entry in the series among fans. It concludes the Modern Warfare reboot trilogy (assuming they don’t make it a tetralogy), but a lot of us felt there was a lot left to be desired. It’s not so much that it does a lot wrong, per se, but there also isn’t a great deal that it does particularly right. It’s probably the most okay Call of Duty in recent years. Activision initially announced that 2023 wouldn’t be getting a new Call of Duty game. Honestly, they should have stuck with that as Modern Warfare III just feels rushed all around. The campaign, my main focus, saw a steep drop in writing quality. Again, it’s not bad, but it’s definitely not good. It’s just meh. This is the most disappointed I’ve been in a main series Call of Duty campaign since Ghosts. Truthfully, it’s probably my third least second least favorite campaign of the massive series behind only Ghosts and Call of Duty 3. That’s not to say the campaign does nothing right. There are a few “Open Combat” missions that give you a set of objectives in a large non-linear map, and those are a lot of fun. I definitely hope those come back in future entries. That’s honestly all the campaign does especially right, though, and those are only like a third of the campaign; the rest of the missions are traditional linear missions. As for the multiplayer, it’s Call of Duty multiplayer. It hardly ever changes in any meaningful way. This one, though, does have some disappointing aspects that point to lazy development (or, more likely, a horrendously rushed deadline from Activision executives). There are no original maps; the only maps you have to play on are remastered maps with most being from the 2009 Modern Warfare 2. All of this starts to make sense when you consider that Sledgehammer only had a year and a half to make this game - half the normal Call of Duty development time. According to some reports I’ve seen floating around, part of the reason that it feels more like an expansion to Modern Warfare 2 is because that’s exactly what it was supposed to be; apparently even the development team thought they were working on a MW2 expansion until pretty far into development when they were told it was going to be a full release. Modern Warfare 3 is, all around, a bit of a shit show. It’s not a bad game, but it’s a bad sequel, and it’s a rip off to the consumer to charge $70 for what should have been a $30 or $40 expansion. The game is fun, but it’s just not what fans deserved and not what would justify the price it commands. Hopefully Microsoft will bring to Activision the kind of quality control they’ve brought to Bethesda (although you can’t take the bugs out of Bugthesda) because this is Activision bullshit at its most egregious. I had high hopes with how impressed I was with the past few Call of Duty entries, but Modern Warfare 3 fails to live up to any of my expectations. My Rating - C |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
April 2024
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