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An unessential Call of Duty that does nothing to overturn the impression that it was made too quickly.
Rain or shine, the Call of Duty must continue. It’s a mantra that has served Activision well for the past two decades, as Call of Duty has grown from another WWII shooter to the best-selling franchise in history. For 18 of those years, the series has maintained an annual release schedule, consistently shattering previous records with only the occasional hiccup when a less-than-stellar but still enjoyable entry appeared.
Modern Warfare 3 is more than just a bump; it’s an indictment of the Call of Duty franchise, a rushed product created to fill a $70 gap in Activision’s calendar and sold as something it wasn’t (according to reports). Let’s be clear: this is an expansion in all but name and price. Even if it were more substantial, I’m not convinced that Modern Warfare 3 would be enjoyable. Despite riding the coattails of last year’s excellent Modern Warfare 2, catering to strong 2009 nostalgia, and making welcome improvements to Gunsmith, many of Sledgehammer Games’ original contributions appear superfluous or simply inferior to what we had previously.
This is the series’ low point. It’s the first time that CoD’s $70 entry fee has felt insulting to longtime players, but the series’ live service model means that fans who want to participate in Call of Duty events and battle passes for the next year have no other option. Outside of Warzone, the Call of Duty action will take place in Modern Warfare 3 throughout 2024, for better or worse.
Homecoming of CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3
Modern Warfare 3’s unique design is immediately noticeable in multiplayer. For the first time in the series’ history, no original 6v6 maps are available at launch. Instead, Sledgehammer went into the COD vault and recreated all 16 launch maps from the original Modern Warfare 2 (2009). This nostalgia payload was one of the first details revealed about MW3, and damn, it got me excited. The cultural impact of Call of Duty on teens in the late 2000s cannot be overstated, and MW2 was arguably the pinnacle. Even as personal doubts about this year’s COD simmered, I remained convinced that the warm embrace of maps I hadn’t seen in 14 years was enough to justify Modern Warfare 3’s existence. Oh, not really.
I’m enjoying revisiting favorite maps, and I can’t say enough positive things about Sledgehammer’s attention to detail in creating them. Terminal, Highrise, Favela, and Sub Base all almost perfectly capture the originals’ vibe.
Maybe because so many of us already know these maps from our formative years of marauding through them with energy drinks at our sides, Modern Warfare 3 may be the most immediately sweaty Call of Duty I’ve played, though much of that impression could be attributed to competitive-friendly movement updates (more on that later).
The problem with Modern Warfare 3’s maps is predictable: not all of them hold up. Having 16 maps at launch (plus a few more for non-standard modes) is a rare treat in our modern age of service shooters, but honestly, there are a lot of stinkers that probably should’ve stayed in the aughts. Estate, which is essentially one big hill with a house on top that always devolves into a sniper mosh pit, can be eliminated, as can the bowl-shaped meat grinder Afghan, the wonky sightlines of Underpass, and Scrapyard’s laughably inconsistent spawn killings. They’re so… 2009.
It’s strange to see Infinity Ward’s old work retooled with the new CoD in mind. Sometimes the old and the new clash in confusing ways, such as when the old maps now have functional doors like in modern CoDs, but they also still have fake doors in the same places they used to, resulting in awkward moments where I’m not sure which buildings I can and can’t enter.
I have mixed feelings about Sledgehammer’s throwback maps. On the one hand, they are exactly what I hoped for: true to the originals with a feel-good message that longtime fans can rally around. But it cost us our usual volley of brand new maps, which I’m missing more than I expected. It’s bittersweet to already have every map “figured out,” and disheartening to remove the rose-colored glasses from classics I thought I loved. There’s an overabundance of familiarity going on here, rendering this map pool obsolete long before Call of Duty’s usual “best by” date. If this was a map pack for last year’s Modern Warfare 2 reboot, as it appears to have been planned at some point, it would be one of the greatest single Add-ons in FPS history. But as a map pool, can it carry the weight of a full standalone game? It’s perfectly fine.
Assembly line
Modern Warfare 3’s new guns elicit a similar shrug. The arsenal of approximately 30 launch weapons consists of reimagined guns from MW3 (2011) and original twists on old designs. At the very least, I believe there are some old favorites in there—Modern Warfare 3 has more boring guns than any other Call of Duty game in recent memory. A good third of the new ones are assault rifles and “battle rifles” (which are simply ARs that shoot slower) that share a common design language, or in some cases are the same gun with minor differences.
Modern Warfare 2 recycled its guns in the same way as its “weapon platform” concept, but it also allowed for variety in M4 variants, the AK family, bullpups, integrated silencers, and an entire fleet of MP5s with distinct strengths and weaknesses.
Modern Warfare 3’s guns are extremely blurry. Half of the time, I can’t tell which ultra-popular assault rifle killed me: the fast-firing MTZ with steady recoil and an extended magazine, or the fast-firing MCW with steady recoil and an expanded magazine. Overlapping functionally is nothing new in Call of Duty, but personality is something that Infinity Ward and Treyarch usually nail—even if the differences between an M4 and an AK are measured in centimeters, style draws us in. The concussive roar, battle-worn scratches, and confident reload of Modern Warfare 2’s M4 drew me in just as much as its damage value, but I’m not feeling the same pull toward any specific gun this year.
Some gun categories appear to have been included arbitrarily or out of obligation. I can’t see why I’d ever use an SMG in Modern Warfare 3 when they’re essentially worse assault rifles, and the 33% increase in player HP since last year has diminished the appeal of single-shot marksman rifles. The absence of both during my first week of matches indicates that the community agrees. It’s a small comfort that Modern Warfare 3’s “carry forward” feature allows me to use all of the cool guns I leveled up a year ago, but as I return to my trusty Basilisk revolver, I wonder why I’m playing Modern Warfare 3 just to relive Modern Warfare 2.
I’m a fan of the few truly unique twists on traditional guns, such as the Longbow, a quirky AK-47-shaped sniper rifle with a bolt-action that defies all convention, and the COR-45 handgun, which can be converted into a secondary SMG with a special “Aftermarket” attachment.
