Throughout the Call of Duty franchise, critical fans have argued that the single-player campaign often feels like a tutorial for the real meat of the game: multiplayer. If that argument rings true for any game, though, it is Modern Warfare 3, as the MW3 campaign is a glorified Warzone tutorial.
Picking up immediately after 2022’s MW2 campaign, this seemingly rushed title from developer Sledgehammer Games is a direct sequel to the previous game. This feels odd in-and-of itself for a series, which usually hops between sub-series each year. But the main issue with the single-player MW3 campaign isn’t its continuity but its length and structure.
Sure, it has some of the classic blockbuster cinematic action movie-like missions you know and expect from the series. But these are few and far between, with the bulk of the campaign being the new open-world-like missions. You are dumped into an open map with few objectives, such as stealing some items or planting a GPS.
These freeform objectives sound fun and intriguing at a glance, but the execution is quite poor. It turns out you can ignore and run past most enemies, making the missions relatively easy and nothing more than a slightly more focused version of DMZ. They offer no challenge, which results in the mode feeling like a tutorial for the core battle royale experience.
This is even right down to the fact you have armor plates like in the battle royale mode. You even open up supply crates and can loot weapons you find, and so on. The actual story elements within these open missions are scarce as well. You pretty much play a DMZ mission for 10-20 minutes to then get some actual story cutscenes as a reward.
This would be somewhat acceptable if the occasional traditional missions were actually good. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case, either. The opening mission of breaking Makarov out of prison feels messy and random. But the biggest culprit of the “traditional” CoD story mission comes from the later one, “Passengers.”
This is, unfortunately, the direct sequel to the infamous “No Russian” no one asked for. Without spoiling too much, this triggering and problematic mission sees you forced to hijack a plane in the middle of the sky. It may not go as dark as Call of Duty’s most unforgettable (in a bad way) campaign mission, but it still goes further than it should.
As for the actual story itself, this doesn’t necessarily do anything impressive. I certainly enjoyed the characters and plot from even recent games like Vanguard more than this one. With how throwaway this single-player campaign feels like, it honestly reeks of DLC material in its short, 3-4-hour length. In my opinion, you are better off watching the cutscenes on YouTube at this point. And then you can save time for what will presumably be more enjoyable in the multiplayer, Zombies, and actual Warzone.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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