The Call of Duty campaign is back, so I figured I would give a brief look at it. I’m a big fan of Call of Duty single-player stuff and after all the press Modern Warfare received in previews, I was excited to see what Infinity Ward had going on this year.
This covers the Single Player ONLY for Modern Warfare.
The rules of engagement have changed?
Reboots happen all the time. A series outlives its time in the sun and in order to win people over again, they return back to what the people loved. That is exactly the case with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. A reboot of the subseries that started in 2007, Modern Warfare (2019) brings some familiar faces with a pretty new coat of paint.
Clocking in at just under 6 hours, Modern Warfare’s campaign is shorter than most entries in the franchise. I’m not sure this is a negative, simply a pacing choice by the team to keep the player feel an even greater sense of urgency.
This urgency builds tension, something that Modern Warfare does well. The game is at it’s best when we see smaller-scale moments, rather than the typical Michael Bay-esque action set pieces we typically find in Call of Duty.
‘Clean House’, the fifth mission, sees one of our playable leads, Kyle Garrick, on a mission to take down The Wolf, one of the games generically named villains. The team enters a home in London and is forced to identify and eliminate threats within this small area to find The Wolf. The whole mission feels tense and incredibly raw, as a mother runs for cover and seemingly civilian folk go for guns.
As the player, you are tasked with picking who is a target. Your shots decide the life and death of these people. As the player, you feel a weight to your actions, rather than just mowing down crowds of enemies. This is a fresh feeling for a Call of Duty title, one that is very much welcomed.
Another standout mission is ‘Going Dark’, the twelfth mission. Let loose in a compound with Captain Price, you are tasked with searching each house for the head of the opposing forces. You are given a sandbox and night vision goggles. Other than that, you have the freedom to proceed with the mission in whatever way you see fit. Building the tension, while also giving the player a certain ‘freedom’, ‘Going Dark’ feels refreshing.
Moments like these are where Modern Warfare shines, shying away from the typical formula to provide new experiences. These missions are some of the best the franchise has seen. When Modern Warfare goes back to its metaphorical guns, it starts to fall apart into tedium. The sections that feel like your average corridor shooter are generally tired and boring. Luckily, they end quickly and throw you towards something more interesting.
The cast of characters, while underdeveloped, all fill their roles within the story well enough. You’ll play as three characters throughout the experience. Kyle (a British Special Forces member who falls under Price’s influence), Alex (your typical American soldier archetype), and Farah (a freedom fighter who lives in a war-torn fictional country). Captain Price, the returning character we all know, is the standout. Constantly in the player’s ear, he steers many of the choices we are forced to make through the game. This new, grittier, version of Price is likely my favorite part of the reboot.
I felt some of Farrah’s backstory missed the mark in terms of execution. One sequence, in particular, had me scratching my head in confusion, simply as a result of the way the scene was approached. She appears to be the moral compass of our story, but as a result of the aforementioned urgency our story has, it all feels jammed in and falls flat. The stakes are there, but you never really find yourself caring. Even from marketing, they try to paint a picture of a grey area between good and bad but end up drawing a clear line in the sand from the get-go.
From a gameplay standpoint, Modern Warfare feels like the Call of Duty we are used to. Previous entries such as WWII and Infinite Warfare introduced new mechanics that changed up the gameplay loop. WWII featured squad commands, giving the player reign over NPCs to give you the idea that you had control over fights as well as removing regenerating health. Infinite Warfare gave us a hub world and side missions, along with a plethora of other things.
Modern Warfare feels dated as a result. It returns back to Call of Duty but fails to do anything meaningful with the formula. Some missions feel tactical and measured, putting pressure on the player to check their actions. The rest just feels like an early 2000’s shooter. This juxtaposition really hurt the whole experience for me. Modern Warfare has really high highs, but also very low and borderline boring lows.
From a technical standpoint though, Modern Warfare is a cut above. Featuring some of the best cinematics I’ve ever seen in gaming and equally breathtaking graphics, Call of Duty’s much needed new graphical engine is a home run. The sound design is incredible as well. Allowing you to use the studio reference audio, going through the campaign with a good headset is a must.
Overall, Modern Warfare is a solid single-player experience. Though the narrative falls flat, the focus on smaller scale combat breathes new life into the formula. It sets the groundwork for what could be an even better sequel with the help of innovation and a focus on what this one did best.
At the end of the day, I’m just glad to have the campaign back after a year off.
The Fan Men 