The best around
Every year I say “I am not reviewing the next Call of Duty” and after the trainwreck that was last year’s Black Ops 7, I meant that with the passion of a thousand suns. I mean I usually can find something to love about a CoD game but last years was the first time I really was done. But, like The Weeknd; here I go again; and I honestly am glad I came back, because Modern Warfare 4 is head and shoulders above last years.
Did you know that Modern Warfare 4 is the 23rd Call of Duty title? Crazy right? Just makes me feel old because I remember all of them… anyway you aren’t here to discuss my knee pain. Modern Warfare 4 is developed by Infinity Ward and is the conclusion to the story that they started back in 2019 with MW’s reboot. The campaign begins with a group of soldiers in Korea walking through the streets. The first thing that is noticeable is the graphics; the campaign is absolutely gorgeous; and I am playing on a Series X so I can only imagine the game on PC. Jut an insane amount of detail; from character models to the guns, everything looks stunning in motion.
MSRP: $69.99
Platforms: XBOX (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $69.99
As I said this year’s campaign takes players to Korea, more specifically South Korea, as the soldiers are front and center for an invasion by North Korea after they detonated an EMP blast in a border city. Of course, this is a MW story so there is ‘more than meets the eye’ and soon the Russians are involved in the Middle East with a new threat played by actor Mads Mikkelsen known only as “The Archer’ pulling the strings. More than any other Call of Duty campaign this one felt like a summer blockbuster movie. The writing and acting are all incredibly well done, and the fantastic animations helped sell the story even more.
But there is more to Modern Warfare 4 than the campaign, returning is that extraction shooter mode DMZ; and it’s better than ever. I have played more than a few of the extraction shooters that have come out lately and DMZ feels closet to Arc Raiders. The mode has players drop into a large map where they will face AI Korean soldiers as well as other players; as they loot, fight and complete missions. What surprised me the most is that DMZ actually tells its own narrative, while not as deep or bombastic as the main campaign; it helped to give me more reasons to return to the DMZ other than my need of 3D printing parts.
Unlike Arc Raiders the majority of players I have run into in the DMZ are all about the PVP combat. Even if there is a boss character nearby and it would be more advantageous to work together, they would still rather fight me; it’s exhausting because we could just work together and accomplish more but people are all about a bloodlust. So, if you happen to drop-in just know that other players aren’t your friends. I also feel like some of the issue is it’s hard to tell real players from AI because everyone looks like a generic army guy. Say what you will about the skins in CoD, but they would be really helpful in this mode in my opinion.
Lastly let’s talk about the multiplayer, in a word its good. The team removed the omni movement system from last year which basically made it so you were always running. I didn’t hate that movement system and missed it at first but I quickly got used to its absence. I am not a hardcore shooter fan anymore, so I am not playing this multiplayer and dissecting frames and looking for TTK and all that; I play for fun. And with that in mind, Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer has been a blast. The new map ‘Kill Block’ is super neat because it takes 3 sections of a level and mashes them together. There are over 500 combinations that the game can create which basically means players won’t see the same full map twice for a while.
Modern Warfare 4 feels like Call of Duty at its absolute finest. An intense campaign that is engaging and well-paced, multiplayer that feels like the best in the series and the fantastic DMZ extraction mode. While it remains to be seen if this entry just ends up being yet another Call of Duty in its yearly release cycle, so far though this feels like the return fans are owed.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.