The plight of Captain Overpriced: a review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's story campaign, one of the worst in the series

By: Vladyslav Nuzhnov | 13.11.2023, 11:45

Under no circumstances should you buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III for the sake of the story. While the last CoD story campaigns were pretty good, and some were even good, this one can be called a complete failure. Initially, it was supposed to be an add-on for Modern Warfare II, but someone came up with the "brilliant" idea to make it a full-fledged game. Also, according to Jason Schreyer, MW III took only 16 months to develop, although it usually takes three years to make one part, so I don't even want to blame the developers; this is a question for the publisher. The biggest problem with the new Call of Duty is that it has departed from its model - a corridor ride with cinematic scenes. No one demands a super-serious or twisted plot from this franchise. It's just about making a blockbuster that keeps you entertained. However, here they decided to turn some of the missions into Warzone with bots, and this is the worst decision that could have been made. This gameplay is so uninteresting that you want to get through the game as quickly as possible and forget it. And even some interesting corridor missions don't really help the situation, because common sense and logic often leave this story. The gg editorial team went on another Activision adventure and will share their impressions of the Modern Warfare III storyline campaign.

1 reason to buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III for the story:

  • Friends invite you to play together in zombie mode

4 reasons not to buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III for the story:

  • It's just DLC for $70
  • Uninteresting open missions, in which the CoD feature is lost
  • A caricatured antagonist
  • Few cinematic and directed scenes

Quick transition:

The plot: the Spanish shame

At first, the game misleads you. It all starts with an atmospheric mission where a special unit enters a gulag created in the form of a round tower to free a special hostage. There are some interesting moments, for example, when the lights go out and you carefully descend on a cable. And now it seems to you that everything will not be as bad as they say, but this feeling will not last long. The team finds the right cell and frees Vladimir Makarov, one of the best antagonists in the history of Call of Duty. However, that was in the days of the original Modern Warfare, and this Makarov only causes irritation and laughter, but more on that later.

The first mission in the game where you have to infiltrate the Gulag

Makarov escapes from the Gulag, he has his own PMC Konni Group, and now he will try to restore the greatness of the "real Russia" with it. At the same time, he is still trying to unleash a war between the Western and Eastern worlds. And Task Force 141, led by Captain Price, will try to stop his plans. It sounds like a good story, right? But it's not interesting to watch, because instead of immersing the player in these events, we are told halfway through the game: "run around in the open and entertain yourself". And when this happens, you just don't care about anything anymore, because this is not the Call of Duty you were expecting.

Some of the missions are simply embarrassing. Especially in the episode when you have to infiltrate the Russian base. I said at the beginning that no one expects a super-serious plot from CoD, but at least some logic must be maintained, because such tasks make you laugh and feel sad at the same time.

I can only praise the mission where there was a terrorist attack at the stadium. The best episode in the entire game, during which you feel both anxious and want to stop it all. The last part of the game, with some exceptions, was also good, and if the whole game was like that, there would be much less questions about it.

Closer to the middle of the game, we have a mission with a terrorist attack at the stadium, which is one of the best. It is a pity that there are very few of them in the game

And for me, this is even more disappointing, because I'm not a fan of multiplayer games, but I've tried to follow the Call of Duty story campaigns, and I know that there is a certain category of players who buy CoD for the story. So this time around, just save your $70 and better set aside half an hour to watch a retelling of the story on YouTube. In the meantime, we can only hope that Microsoft will start to influence Activision and we will see a good Call of Duty story again, like it used to be.

Characters: die of boredom antagonist

In the original Modern Warfare, Makarov was really scary. You were uncomfortable around him. This version of Makarov is a caricatured Russian. His phrases, gestures, and behaviour make you laugh, and then this laughter turns into irritation because you are sick of such an antagonist. I still don't understand why he speaks Russian with an accent and English without. If he's Russian, it should be the other way round, shouldn't it? As a person who speaks Russian, I simply did not understand some of his phrases and read the subtitles. So the character who was supposed to be the game's calling card was a disappointment.

Vladimir Makarov tries to be pretentious, but in reality he is just boring

The secondary characters are not memorable at all. They just exist. There are no questions only about OTG 141. Captain Price, Gaz, Soup and Ghost are almost the only ones you're happy to see in the film and enjoy listening to. These four remain a small ray of light in this darkness of shame and disappointment.

It's a shame that Captain Price and his crew are in such a terrible place.

Gameplay: a celebration of monotony

Let's start with the innovations, which, however, were not needed. There are only 15 missions in the game, some of them are Weapon Free. This is an analogue of Warzone, but it is not real people against you, but bots. The essence of the battle royale is that you have the opportunity to become the best among 100 other players from all over the world. When you win, you feel like a real champion. But how should I feel when I spent 20 minutes clearing a map full of bots? Only disappointed. It seemed like an open area, choose your own tactics and go as you want. But it doesn't quite work. The game seems to recommend going through everything quietly, because if you are spotted, the enemies will call for help and you will be attacked by a crowd that is difficult to deal with.

There is almost no variety in such missions. Even if you come up with a plan, it's not a given that it will work. Therefore, the best way to get through is to get a weapon with a silencer and move quietly towards the target. An example of a Weapon Free mission is shown in the video below:

No one wants a Call of Duty like this. No need to turn the story into a Warzone with bots. Did the people who tested this before the release even like what they were playing? If I want to play Warzone, then I will launch Warzone. However, I turned on the story campaign to see the epic, explosions, spy missions, interesting innovations and cinematics with good direction. These are the strengths of Call of Duty, so why not develop them further? Why reinvent the wheel? You just don't want to play it.

Fortunately, the game has several "classic" missions that can offer at least something interesting. I remember the first mission, the mission with the stadium terrorist attack and the last two missions the most. There are staged moments, moments when everything explodes around you, and situations that are just interesting to watch.

A video demonstrating one good staged moment

As for the shooting and other gameplay elements, people who have played the previous parts of the Modern Warfare relaunch understand perfectly well how everything works. It works fine. It's nice to shoot, there are some good gadgets, and there's nothing else to add.

It's good that they didn't touch this: how did they work on optimisation, visuals, and sound in the game?

Let's talk about the good stuff. I played the game on PlayStation 5, and there were practically no problems with optimisation. MW III kept a stable 60 fps all the time. The game also never crashed, and I didn't encounter any visual bugs either. Only in one cutscene did the sound disappear when the characters were talking, and I heard the dialogue after the scene ended, when the gameplay started. As a result, the two audio tracks merged into one, and I had to restart from the checkpoint. However, overall, the game works very well.

A typical Verdun dish is the analogue "Kulebiak"

Visuals with a variety of locations

Visually, as well as gameplay-wise, the game takes its cues from the previous part. But, fortunately, the graphics in Modern Warfare II were at a good level, so this has been preserved in the new part. I especially liked the variety of locations: Gulag, stadium, Tundra, amusement park, mountains, luxurious seaside mansions, and military bases. Each location has many objects, some of which you begin to examine. For example, inscriptions on the walls in a house or showcases at a stadium. They also worked well with the lighting. So the game is a pleasure to look at, and sometimes during a boring mission, some positive emotions appeared due to beautiful landscapes or various details and objects.

A variety of locations in the game

Soundtrack from MW II and rap songs

There is also little new in this aspect. Everything that has sounded before sounds the same in MW III. It sounded good in the previous part, they decided not to touch it, and it sounds good in the new part. And against the background of innovations that spoil the impression, I'm even glad that they decided not to touch the visual and sound aspects, but simply transferred them. But I would like to give special praise to the track "Call Me Revenge", which was written by 21 Savage and d4vd specifically for the game. The latter sounds in the final credits, and for me it was at least some compensation for what I had to experience during the passage.

What I didn't like

The thing I don't like the most is that Modern Warfare III, which was planned as an expansion pack, was made into a full-fledged game. Because I constantly feel that it was supposed to be just DLC. But they are trying to present it as a full-fledged sequel, which it cannot be. The first two parts of the new Modern Warfare were good, but this one feels like a grey spot that you want to wash away. I don't want projects like this to appear in the industry, I don't want them to be passed off as something they're not, and I don't want people to waste their time and money on it.

An "elite" residential complex is in play. As "elite" as MW III itself

Five things you need to know about the story campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

  • Modern Warfare III is the third part of the MW relaunch
  • The main antagonist is almost unmemorable
  • Some of the missions are made in the style of "Warzone with bots", which only harms the game
  • MW III managed to keep good optimisation, visuals, and audio
  • The only thing that somehow saves the game is OTG 141 and some of the directed missions
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (Campaign)
Genre. FPS Shooter
Platforms. PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Number of players Single-player
Developer Sledgehammer Games
Publisher Activision
Time to complete 3-4 hours
Release date 10 November 2023

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