// KOTAKU — GAMING
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4′s Campaign Is Exactly What I Want From A Big-Budget Shooter
ActivisionCall of DutyCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 4
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4‘s campaign. I hoped that at the very least it would be better than the nonsensical train wreck that was last year’s Black Ops 7 campaign. And I’m happy to report that, yes, MW4 has cleared that low bar and is a much better adventure than what we got a year ago. But what is more impressive is that this might be the best CoD campaign in many years, featuring a mix of boots-on-the-ground action, big flashy set pieces, and a story that mostly feels like a true ending for this era of the franchise.
Technically, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 isn’t out yet. But for players who pre-ordered the game digitally, the campaign is now available to play via early access. And that’s what I checked out using a code from Activision.
Modern Warfare 4 features a tense story pitting friends against each other while showing the invasion of South Korea from the perspective of a small squad of local marines trying to survive. The overall setup for this new campaign is that Captain John Price is now on the run after killing a U.S. general who betrayed him and his team. Now Price is after a man codenamed the Archer, the Defense Minister of Russia, who is determined to create a new Russian empire by any means necessary. To stop him, Price begins working with some folks he’d previously called his enemies, leading to his own men turning on him to try to capture him or, if they have to, take him out. Meanwhile, North Korea is invading South Korea with what appears to be help from a much more powerful country.
You can totally hop into Modern Warfare 4 without playing the previous three games, but some moments hit harder if you’ve spent time with these characters before, especially when the game starts blasting away its cast left and right as it races towards its big climactic ending involving the Archer, played by a wonderfully sinister Mads Mikkelsen. Activision has said that this is the last Modern Warfare game in the rebooted series, and it really does feel that way with how many people are left dead by the time the credits roll.
But what won me over with this year’s campaign isn’t the story; it’s the action and how everything is paced. MW4 features a revamped, more dynamic combat and movement system that feels more grounded than what was in Black Ops 6 and 7. It also feels like the devs behind MW4 played a lot of bodycam-inspired games and watched a lot of John Wick, with Price’s missions in particular feeling ripped right out of a Wick knockoff, including the legally mandated “gunfight in a cool nightclub” sequence.
The thing is, even if some of these moments aren’t the most original, they’re incredibly well-made and nail the vibes and feel they are going for. Working my way through a club and its back rooms with just a pistol felt fantastic in Modern Warfare 4 because guns hit harder now, characters move around the world more dynamically and realistically, and levels are designed with a lot of care for ramping up the action to a crescendo.
A later fight happens in a train yard where trains and locomotives are slowly moving in various directions, and you can freely hop in and out of them, climb under or over them, or even ride on top of them while pushing forward and taking out enemies. After that, you’re part of a large-scale ground invasion complete with trenches and tanks. And then you take part in a stealth mission using night vision and silencers. Later, you drive a tank through a war zone, and after that you swap on the fly between different soldiers as they hold back a massive army of troops from three different positions.
Modern Warfare 4 understands that the appeal of a big-budget shooter like this isn’t in repetitive, boring hallway fights or pure outlandish nonsense, but instead in offering players a smorgasbord of well-made set pieces and diverse levels, making it hard to put the game down as you constantly want to