Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Review – A Disappointment of Warzone Proportions (PS5)

Call of Duty was on an unstoppable streak with the Modern Warfare reboots. After the undeniable success of the second of them, the expectations for 2023’s Modern Warfare entry were higher than ever. Including three game modes that initially feel like the Black Ops era (a Campaign, a Multiplayer, and a Zombies mode), Modern Warfare III failed to meet the expectations and there are many reasons why it’s safe to believe this game will sadly be forgotten in just a few months, and the developers of the long-running franchise will need to start to think of how to re-re-construct the Modern Warfare series and also how to alienate the Warzone concept from the main entries. And before we see the series rise again from its ashes like it always does, let’s see what made Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III go south.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is available for $69.99 on PC, PS4 & PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

Story – Highly Underwhelming

The Campaign mode continues after the events of Modern Warfare II, which leads the story right to the point where Makarov gets introduced, and that’s exactly how Modern Warfare III begins.

For anyone who might not know, Vladimir Makarov is the most iconic antagonist of the OG Modern Warfare series. Makarov was one of the most intimidating characters of the whole Call of Duty franchise and the perpetrator of the infamous “No Russian” mission. A highly popular mission that was so controversial and violent that you could finish the game while still having the option to skip it without affecting your progress or trophies. It was known that Modern Warfare III was going to be a reinterpretation of the events of the original Modern Warfare 2 game (where this mission made its appearance). Just by knowing that, there’s a lot to expect from Modern Warfare III.

However, the introduction of Makarov in this game is bad from the very beginning. We do a very generic prison break (like we have seen thousands of times in the series) where a few random characters search for a specific someone. And that someone is Makarov. When they finally get him out, he has little to no introduction. He just starts being there, introduced like any other generic villain in the series. It almost looks like Activision felt he didn’t need a proper introduction because we already knew who he was. Being a reboot, I expected Makarov to generate a similar impact he created in his debut “No Russian” mission.

The iconic antagonist makes a soft and underwhelming comeback.

After helping Makarov escape in the most generic and repetitive way possible, we go back to see the adventures of Task Force 141. There is little to say about the return of Captain Price, Soap, Ghost, and everyone on the team because their appearance is always meaningless and boring. Back in Modern Warfare II, all of the main characters had some form of purpose and character development. However, the narrative and overall story of Modern Warfare III is very, very dull, even for a Call of Duty game. The only purpose or goal they all have is capturing Makarov, and that makes him the only character who makes the story slightly interesting, and I still hate the reinterpretation of the fictional terrorist.

Remember I said how Makarov was, back then, one of the most intimidating characters in the Call of Duty franchise? The guy was plain scary, and his appearance would always make you want to go get him as soon as you could before he managed to kill another bunch of random civilians with his own hands. In this game, Makarov feels like a frustrated child playing war games. He has a whole army that respects and obeys him, but unlike the previous iterations of Modern Warfare, there is no reason for that, at least for the player’s knowledge. There isn’t anything that explains why he has so much power and people willing to die for his cause considering he’s never in the front of his twisted operations (he’s always hiding in the back of them). I honestly believe the developers made this story under the phrase “Everyone should already know and fear this character by now!”

One interesting bit of this campaign is that each couple of missions are played by a completely different character, which would be a lot more interesting than it actually is if the protagonists gave any kind of meaning to their corresponding missions. They could have used literally any other combination of characters for each mission and it would have been exactly the same.

Yuri from the original MW3 game also comes back subtly.

The two missions that I found fun to play were the ones that tried to reimagine the concept of the original No Russian mission. Even if they lacked the huge impact of it, they were interesting and engaging enough. I don’t want to spoil too much of the game, but I’m referring to the ones that occur in an airplane, and the other in a stadium. The rest of the missions feel boring and they have concepts that have been done several times in the franchise, and they just don’t feel interesting anymore. There are the open combat missions as well (which is the only actual new gameplay concept of the campaign), but I will talk about those later on.

I meant it when I said there isn’t too much to talk about this story besides Makarov. I wish I could say bad things about the characters because they lack empathy or will, but I would be lying. The characters seem to have a personal will to capture Makarov, but it just doesn’t feel meaningful enough. The antagonists of the previous reboots (like The Butcher, Graves, or Shepherd) were well-constructed and made us (the players) hate them for being what they were. Even as an OG Modern Warfare fan myself, I fail to understand Makarov as an antagonist in this reboot. And that’s the biggest problem of this story that makes it so average considering it revolves almost entirely around him.

It’s sad because there was a lot of potential in this campaign. Like I said before, I don’t want to spoil the experience for anyone who might haven’t played the game yet. But this narrative dullness ends up with the death of a relevant character. It even feels like they were killed off in vain by the developers with the mere intention of generating some kind of artificial impact for the game’s ending and still failed to accomplish. And the final cinematic after that feels so, so stupid and empty that I wish I could forget the meaningless sensation it left in me after the credits started to roll.

The linear missions variety is good, but there’s almost nothing new to them.

Gameplay – 33.3% Win Ratio

Modern Warfare III features three game modes, so I’m going to be breaking down each one of them and explaining why I believe only one of them is actually good, giving Activision a flimsy 33.3% win ratio on this Call of Duty entry. I’ve got to say that most of the overall gameplay mechanics were taken from previous entries or other separate titles from the franchise (ehem, ehem, Warzone), and that is exactly the reason why everyone keeps calling the game an “expensive DLC”. This statement may be a little bit harsh against the developers, but let’s see exactly what is the bigger picture behind it.

Campaign Mode – Bad Ideas, Bad Execution

Even if Christopher Judge’s small joke about this Call of Duty campaign being too short at The Game Awards was more accurate than what the developers are willing to recognize, that is far from being the worst part of this campaign.

The gameplay is basically the same as the previous Modern Warfare entry, maybe introducing only a couple of very small and miscellaneous gameplay mechanics that aren’t meaningful enough (like turning your weapon to avoid using the sights, giving you more mobility and accuracy in close-ranged combats). Most linear missions play exactly the same as previous games of the franchise. But there is a new concept that had never been explored in any Call of Duty game before, which is the open combat missions.

The open combat missions consist of basically throwing the player into a wide map in which you have to complete a set of objectives in order to finish the mission. There are some mechanics that are exclusive to these missions like gathering different weapons to customize your loadout, parachuting from one place to the other, using armor upgrades, and approaching the mission in whatever order you want… but this is just a horrible idea from the very beginning.

The Warzone component is present even in how some of the open combat missions begin.

Since I knew about these open combat missions before the release of the game, I felt something was wrong there. Activision didn’t just make all of these mechanics out of nowhere. They borrowed them from Warzone, Call of Duty‘s free (and also very successful) battle royale mode. So these open combat missions aren’t anything but the Warzone concept in a Modern Warfare III campaign, just without the PvP. And I get why people enjoy battle royales, even if I don’t anymore. But the problem is that these missions make up almost 50% of this campaign, and the Warzone concept disguised as “open combat” did nothing but harm the narrative experience of the game.

The developers said there were different kinds of approaches to each of these open combat missions, so you could adapt your playstyle to them. But that is very far from the truth because you either go stealthy or aggressive, and that’s it. If you really want games that actually let you play with your own approach, try Skyrim, Dishonored, or Cyberpunk 2077, just to name a few examples.

I wouldn’t hate the open combat missions as I do if they had something interesting in them. Running around, completing repetitive objectives with very awfully placed checkpoints, and gathering weapons that serve as “collectibles” in an open map where there isn’t a single optional interesting thing to do certainly doesn’t make up for the lack of cinematic moments these missions suffer from. Whenever I got to an open combat mission, I just wished the next one was a regular one. And when I finally got into the regular mission, these went by in 10 minutes and I was back again at an open combat mess. As a player who enjoys the cinematic aspect of the Call of Duty campaigns, I hope this is not only the first but also the last time we ever see this kind of missions.

The open combat missions lack the playstyle freedom they pretend to give the player.

Multiplayer Mode – The Brightest Star in the Sky

The multiplayer mode is, surprisingly enough (even if it’s far from being perfect), the better-crafted game mode of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and the only one that isn’t taking all of its elements from Warzone.

It is quite fun, fast-paced, and simple enough like the classic stuck-to-the-ground Call of Duty multiplayer modes. The MP game modes are fresh enough to cycle through them for more than a couple of hours and still have some fun in them. The new cutthroat mode has also proven to be very unpredictable in terms of strategies and flag spawns, which makes it the most addictive of all.

Besides the fun MP game modes, the weapons and attachments variety is also very appreciated. It is great to see a multiplayer mode without any loot boxes or pay-to-win microtransaction mechanics like Black Ops III, but while still having the same fresh feeling of the classic Call of Duty games that even the previous reboots of Modern Warfare were missing.

The map variety is also very great. There are several maps of the original games that make a comeback, which not only feeds the obvious nostalgic feeling they intend to generate, but also their design is simple, easy to remember, and compatible with the overall mechanics of Modern Warfare III‘s PvP.

The multiplayer mode is thrilling, exciting, and fast-paced.

The only complaint with the multiplayer mode I’d have would be how tedious it is to unlock some of the game’s items. While I really enjoy customizing my classes and having several options to change my playstyle, it is absolutely infuriating that in order to unlock an item I have to tackle three unbearable daily challenges. I think they’ve added more challenges to unlock certain items, but they’re still tedious and you always have to get out of your way to complete them, which is not always too friendly with each player’s playstyle. I would have personally preferred a more direct, progression-based unlock system, or maybe even the token-based mechanic that allowed you to unlock one specific item of your choice every time you prestige, as seen in previous titles of the series.

Also, the respawn system needs a complete rework, as sometimes you can spawn several times in the same spot, killed by the same enemy, over, and over, and over. The times the respawn system fails, it does it incredibly bad. But it works fine most of the time.

I sincerely recommend this mode if you have been missing the classic core feeling of the old Call of Duty multiplayer modes like me. It will definitely not only bring back some good memories, but also some new, fresh, and well-crafted mechanics that are fun to learn and make the MP loop as likeable as ever.

The fan-favorite gunfight game mode was also introduced in season one.

Zombies Mode – Easy to Learn, Hard to Digest

The zombies mode is easily the one that gives me the most mixed feelings of all the three modes.

This mode had a lot to prove to the Call of Duty Zombies fans. And I certainly had bad impressions of it since the very beginning. The only thing this mode proved with 100% accuracy is that Modern Warfare III is maybe not an overpriced DLC per se, but it is most definitely a fancy Warzone spin-off, taking all of its mechanics even onto the zombies mode.

And I honestly don’t hate the zombies mode as I initially did. I’ve been actually enjoying some of the mechanics because I’ve been playing it regularly enough and, I admit it, it has an intangible something that makes you want to get into Urzikstan “one more time” before going to bed.

Contrary to the usual zombies mode of every other Call of Duty game that featured it, Modern Warfare Zombies isn’t round-based. Just like the open combat missions of the campaign, you get thrown onto a large map, you complete objectives, gather schematics or rare items, and you have the (surprisingly fun) mechanic of having to safely exfil by calling a chopper before the toxic gas spreads and kills everyone in the match. You have one hour to exfil before the gas consumes the whole map and forcefully takes you back to the lobby.

Special zombies appear every now and then or by simply starting contracts.

The loop is entertaining enough once you know what you’re doing. You complete contracts, get the schematics you’re missing, and then you exfil and go back to the lobby to craft the items, go back again with more powerful items to complete some of the most difficult contracts and thus, get even rarer schematics.

The problem with the game mode is that I don’t see it lasting very long. The whole point of getting back into the map is because you want to gather that one schematic you’re missing. Once I have all of them… what is going to be the point of it? The loop, even if it gets fun after a while, is not going to be very healthy for the game because once you get everything, you’re also going to be done with the game mode itself.

Sure, there are some story missions to complete, get some other schematics, and also find out about the mode’s lore. But the thing is… these story missions are even worse than the open combat missions of the main campaign. Once I knew what I had to do to complete the three story acts I blamed myself for ever complaining about the campaign’s open combat missions, and I said I hated them.

Complete contracts to gather the strongest schematics and items of the game.

The story missions consist of, once again, challenges. Challenges that have no interest in them and are repetitive, unbearable tasks that even I don’t understand how I have completed most of them. “Kill 100 zombies with a field upgrade”, “bring down 3 helicopters”, and “kill 20 mercenaries with a precision airstrike”, are only some of the most excruciatingly boring tasks you have to do to unlock each act’s story mission. The worst part is that the story missions you unlock after that are ironically just like the linear missions of the campaign. A 10-minute mission that adds nothing different to the formula. You go to a specific location you’ve already visited several times but the game wants you to assume those are not the same buildings, and you just have to kill a few zombies and a few mercenaries. And then you’re back in the lobby.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the game didn’t get repetitive as fast as I think it does. Only some of the contracts you can find on the map are fun (like escorting the tank, delivering the cargo, and getting the weapon stash for example). But I deeply hate every single contract that involves killing mercenaries and I avoid them as much as I can. However, it doesn’t matter how much I like or hate a certain kind of contract… Once I’m done with all the “story missions” (that, I repeat, are just challenges) and get all the schematics, what will be the point of playing the game anymore? It’s been only a little more than a month since the game released, and I’m already seeing myself stopping to play it (which is something I really don’t expect from a Call of Duty Zombies mode).

It’s annoying to keep comparing the game with previous entries in the series, I’m completely aware of that. And I wouldn’t have to do it if I didn’t have more than 1500 hours in other Call of Duty games that featured incredible zombies modes that didn’t need any open-world maps or fancy schematics to make me keep playing them just for fun. But I don’t even have 60 hours into the game with all three modes combined, and it doesn’t look good for the game’s near future.

Complete the challenge-based missions of each act to advance in the Modern Warfare Zombies story.

This mode desperately needs more content every now and then. The season one update definitely brought some more juice into it, but not enough in my perception. As I see it, bringing another map to the game is very hard, considering how large and detailed it has to be. But then I remember they’re also copying and pasting Modern Warfare Zombies into Call of Duty Warzone by the way, so… who knows, they may eventually just copy and paste another Warzone map into the zombies mode to bring it back to life once the player base starts to decay.

I think my frustration is almost palpable in this section of the review because I can’t deny I saw potential in this game mode. I seriously think mixing the Warzone concept with the new Modern Warfare zombies was not the brightest idea, but it didn’t come out as bad as I initially perceived. But I still wish it was a little more playable on its own and not rely as hard as it does in the awful, challenge-based story missions and contracts. I wish I had the opportunity to just get right into the game and kill as many zombies as I can in one deployment, but that’s sadly not a fun thing to do with the low zombies spawn rate of some sections and the low danger of the task.

The game mode is interesting only if you haven’t explored every aspect of it. Once you do, the charm is progressively lost with each deployment, because you find out there isn’t anything fun to do other than the dull main objectives you have already done many times. I honestly don’t recommend this game mode if you’re waiting for something close to any of the previous zombies modes of the series or the life quality of them. But if you want to play something different, which is sadly nothing new on its own because, then again, it takes almost all of its elements from Warzone, I’d say give Modern Warfare Zombies a go. It’s not as bad as it initially seems but be warned that it won’t be as good either.

The exfilling mechanics and schematics are the only things that make this game mode mildly interesting.

Graphics & Sound – Great as Expected

The graphics and audio of the game are, as always, what you would expect from a Call of Duty game. It is, along with the previous two reboots of the series, one of the most visually appealing games of its generation. While it doesn’t improve too much when we compare it to the previous entry, there are certain changes in some in-game animations that make it feel slightly more realistic (when reloading or interacting with your weapon, for example), at least in my perception. However, most of these changes go unnoticed, but I honestly don’t mind that. I didn’t expect the visuals of the second Modern Warfare reboot to be improved in only one year, and they worked perfectly fine anyway as it’s one hell of a gorgeous game, so the same goes for Modern Warfare III.

The soundtrack is generic and dull as most Call of Duty games, but I also don’t mind that, considering the only time the franchise stood out for its whole soundtrack (and not just a couple of songs) was in Black Ops II, and that game is more than 11 years old. However, the overall quality of the audio of Modern Warfare III is great and I have little to no complaints about it.

There are also a few cool features for the PS5 dualsense controller that increase the immersion like the vibrations and haptic feedback, so that’s another good thing I can mention. I also want to applaud the fact that the game came out in a better state than its predecessor and lacks most of its annoying visual bugs. While there are still some bugs, errors, and crashes present in Modern Warfare III, it represents an overall improvement compared to the second entry of the reboots.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was reviewed on PS5.