This article is a review-in-progress and contains spoilers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.
The Call of Duty franchise is one of the biggest in the world, and Activision is well aware of this, as they recently said, “Grand Theft Auto 6 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 are the two biggest games of the year.” Whether they’re right or wrong is down to the individual gamer, but I’d like to say they’ve earned the right to say that after playing through the campaign of Modern Warfare 4.
Every year, there’s a new COD game, and every year I tell myself that I won’t be purchasing it. Spoiler alert: I’ve been purchasing them for the last 5 years without fail. The back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare 2 (2022) and Modern Warfare 3 (2023) hurt the latter, especially when it came to its story mode. The same release schedule for Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 personally didn’t work for me, and I was left disengaged with both games.
Infinity Ward comes back to deliver Modern Warfare 4, and from the campaign so far, it feels like an apology for MW3 (2023) that I’m willing to accept.
Campaign
When we left off in the previous game, John Price (Barry Sloane) had assassinated Shepherd, which has led to a worldwide manhunt for him. Before catching up on Price and where he’s been, we’re introduced to Seirra-1. As we meet them, we see how all these colorful characters get along with each other as they listen to Wu-Tang Clan and shop at the convenience store. This is all disrupted when there’s a blackout before South Korea is met with a wave of attacks.
North Korea has begun invading the Korean Peninsula after the death of their Supreme Leader, with the assistance of Russia behind the scenes. Throughout these missions, you play as Private Park Hyun-Jun (Young Mazino). This introduction is phenomenal as you’re thrown into the chaos without any indication of what’s actually going on. The experience of playing this opening mission feels like a reflection of the players. Just as we’re introduced to the game, we’re put straight into the deep end. These young soldiers don’t want to go back, but they have a duty to serve and must persevere through.
There are going to be some people who wish that Modern Warfare 4 solely focused on Task Force 141, but the inclusion of these new characters reminds you how human they are. Their chemistry is through the charts, and despite only getting to spend time with them for a handful of hours, you immediately fall in love with them and their brotherly bond. A stand out favourite from the squad was Coporal Dunn, an American who feels out of place in this locale and in his squad, but he brings the comedy and down to his core is a layered character when the brutality of the war strips him apart.
In MW2 (2022) and MW3 (2023) it felt like Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games were too focused on creating moments that felt like callbacks to the original games, but instead they were tasteless and held no impact. With Modern Warfare 4, Infinity Ward has finally realized how to craft a game that respects the original while delivering something fresh and unique to the franchise. Like the original games, we find ourselves cutting back and forth between Price and the South Korean army.
Price’s story begins on the 5-day leadup to the invasion of the Korean Peninsula. The back and forth as we see what led to this disastrous event is what makes MW4 such an engrossing story to get lost in. It all kicks off as we close off loose ends from the last game and beat our way through a club into a rooftop and city chase for Makarov (Julian Kostov) to finally put it all to an end. The only issue is that this is the beginning of the end. Despite MW3 (2023) having such a rushed and disappointing ending, it has led into the chaos that ensues in MW4.
Throughout the course of the game, Price is on this vengeful journey that leads him to working with Valeria (María Elisa Camargo) in hopes of getting closer to the game’s big bad, the Archer (Mads Mikkelsen). The Archer is one of the best antagonists that the franchise has received since MW (2019) and arguably long before that. He has a goal that he’s committed to and will kill anyone and manipulate anyone to get his way. How the story deals with this character is one of its downsides. For a character recently introduced with so much background that feels vital to this world, he barely has any screentime. Despite being a memorable villain, the extra time would’ve allowed him to flourish and made those final moments at the end actually feel meaningful.
The core of MW4’s theme is consequences. As we follow Price through the story, every single one of his actions leads into something drastically worse until the inevitable by the end of the campaign. Infinity Ward doesn’t pull any punches, and at several points in the game, it kills off some of our favorite characters we’ve been following for almost a decade without any warning. It’s the lingering shots on the deceased that create that haunting, lasting effect as you realize these characters are to never return.
The gameplay loop feels like two separate games at times, as the Sierra-1 gameplay feels like your traditional Call of Duty story, whereas when you switch to Price, it feels like you’ve been dropped into an action film such as John Wick or Mission: Impossible. It creates a harmonious balance and is structured so that the player is able to feel and understand the consequences of Price’s very actions and how it has ultimately led to this war between South Korea and North Korea.
Early on in the game when you’re introduced to the North Korean soldiers, you’re forced to play as a random comrade as you follow Ko (Lanny Joon) and the commander of the Korean People’s Army, Ri Ju-Young (Prisca Kim), who is also the sister of the new Supreme Leader of North Korea, Ri Seung-Ho (Jeongmin Cho). In this mission, you’re instructed to bring all the civilians out while looking for the defector. It’s one of the few missions where you’re given the choice to follow your orders or have sympathy and allow for the people to keep hiding or run away. Your choices will either lead into your own death for acting as a traitor or you’ll simply follow as a mindless soldier.
This mission is one of the few instances of clever writing, as it connects to how characters like Ko and Ri Seung-Ho feel. These two don’t want to continue running North Korea like their previous leader and want there to be change. They don’t want war. Ko is one of the best characters introduced into the series, and his inclusion with Seirra-1 is the core heart of the game’s story. It shows that there can be some light at the end of the dark road. While Ko is being tested for his own morality, the player is also being tested alongside him. It would be a disservice for Infinity Ward to leave Seirra-1 and Ko behind despite the standout performances of Young Mazino and Lanny Joon.
There are a few issues that lie in MW4’s campaign, with the first being the darkness of some of the areas. You’re constantly made to shoot into crowds, and sometimes it’ll be in the night without any night vision, where it’s almost impossible to see. The game is unforgiving, as accidentally hitting a civilian will send you into a game-over state.
The largest issue with the MW4 campaign is the return of the open-world missions that are used to give a taste of their additional modes like DMZ and Warzone. The inclusion of armor plates felt tedious while playing through the story and didn’t add anything to the gameplay except for the fact I had to constantly be on the lookout for them.
The mission “Stranded” has you play in an open-world section in North Korea as you’re tasked to take back control in three objectives. The bright side to all this is that they allow you to fast travel to each objective, which gives off the sense that you’re still playing linear missions. It allows for this segment to be bearable, but where it fails is that it’s a rather long segment even with the fast traveling that brings the pacing of the story to a complete halt. Once we return to the linear structure of the game, it takes a while for the rollercoaster to get going.
There’s also a lack of freedom, as there are several points where you may slightly stray off the path, and instead of a warning to say you’re going the wrong way or to just let you wander around a bit, the game puts you once again into a game-over state. When it comes to what leads to you failing a mission, Infinity Ward remains unforgiving, and it can sometimes be rather irritating with what they count as a failure.
With an end to the Modern Warfare reboot series, Infinity Ward delivers on a campaign that’s cinematic, dark, gritty, and brutal, which refuses to hold back. Barry Sloane deserves all the praise as Price, bringing his story to a morbid but fitting end. For a Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 4 ends up being a breathtaking visual spectacle that will emotionally break you down.
It’s a return to form for the franchise as a whole, and although the story is closed with Task Force 141, the doors are still open for Seirra-1, Ko, and Ghost. It goes without saying that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is one of the greatest single-player campaigns of all time for the franchise and easily the best since MW (2019).
Reviewed on PlayStation 5.
