The Call of Duty series needed a win this year. Last year’s Black Ops 7 was a clown car of bad decisions, with an always online campaign mode with ridiculous zombie bosses and open world warzone. Worse, the multiplayer mode (the only reason many people buy the game) was completely forgettable. Developer Treyarch was tasked with releasing Call of Duty games two years in a row – that crunch was a recipe for disaster.
On the other hand, this means that the Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward had a lot of time to prepare the fourth and final entry in his own series. Fortunately, the studio used the extra runway to its advantage. Modern Warfare 4 may not have returned Call of Duty to the lofty heights of the original trilogy, which ended in 2009 (and which Infinity Ward rebooted in the last decade), but this is a leap in the right direction for a series that has gotten worse and worse in recent years.
Players will find a lot of cinematic action in the single-player campaign, and the multiplayer mode has slowed down just a touch, which I think the game mainly benefits from.
More importantly, Modern Warfare Zombies has been completely ditched for DMZ, an accessible player-versus-player-versus-AI extraction shooter experience. The experimental swing feels like a lifeline for the series, and DMZ is the standout mode for the game.
The campaign identity crisis is (mostly) resolved
Modern Warfare 4 is a tighter game than Infinity Ward’s previous project, and it’s leagues better than Black Ops 7.
At the same time, it has a complicated campaign to open (and not because the plot is difficult to follow). The players flit back and forth between the perspective of Captain John Price, longtime protagonist of the series, and South Korean soldier Park Hyun-Jun, a newcomer whose squad is fighting for his homeland. A battle rages against a united coalition of Russian and North Korean ultranationalists who are blazing a trail into other territories.
Russian bad actors have been the primary antagonists of every Modern Warfare game, and it’s actually really cool to see the positive representation of South Korea in a Call of Duty title. But the propaganda is laid on thick – Russia and North Korea are presented as loving colonialist powers, while the soldiers of the Western world are a shield on every front.
Americans lead the fight against imperialism; forget about the strait of hormuz and gun down these unequivocally bad guys. The entire plot hinges on a somehow less subtle Red Dawn-type scenario, and the gung-ho military politics this time around are absolutely nauseating. Sure, Price is framed as morally gray — he works with a cartel to achieve his goals, and there’s boring melodrama where he gets even with his former allies — but he’s ultimately justified because he’s the type of Call of Duty leader who averts global conflict.
Modern Warfare 4 also has an obligatory shocking graphic mission, which is something of a tradition for the series. In it you play as a North Korean soldier who rounds up and executes the owners of a small village to hide a defector. During my playthrough, I earned an achievement for successfully interrogating a villager without hitting them. The whole affair is free, brutal and gamified in a problematic way, exacerbated by the bizarre decision to continue to make this type of mission a mainstay in every game.
It’s a shame the story is so trite and icky because the tentpole action is really good. The best mission takes place early in the campaign, when Price infiltrates a New York nightclub to search for a Russian oligarch. Bright lights and pulsating music contrast with brutal fistfights and gunplay – it’s like playing through the climax of a John Wick movie. From there, the highlights continue: There’s a fight in a train yard where the cover moves on rails, a chase scene over a Mumbai rooftop, a high-intensity night penthouse raid and a full-on assault on a dictator’s compound.
But the worst mission in the campaign repeats the mistakes of other modern Call of Duty games. When the player’s squad at the beginning North Korean air space counterforce, they are shot down and have to survive behind enemy lines with scavenged equipment. It’s an interesting setup that’s completely wasted on a Warzone-like, open-world mission with a checklist of more than 50 optional collectibles to look after.
The few puzzles that do exist are incredibly easy – despite my best efforts, I checked out after completing about half of the activities. I focused on the main goal of completing the mission as quickly as possible, which is about the worst feeling when playing a game.
I don’t know if there is an edict from above to put one of these open-world missions in every new game to separate players in Warzone, but they don’t work at all and are the worst part of a campaign.
However, people who play the campaign will probably have a good time here. Players can explore tons of cool locales, and the enemies are surprisingly tough this time around. Still, when you care about the loose narrative implications of a Call of Duty campaign, it’s hard to wash the bad taste out of your mouth.
DMZ is better than Warzone and a welcome respite from zombies
DMZ, a fairly accessible extraction shooter game mode, returns with new content for the first time since its “beta” in 2023. Players have been sad for what could be years, but it seems that the developers at Infinity Ward have been showering in the background for a long time.
And their hard work has paid off as I am confident that DMZ will be the standout mode for Modern Warfare 4.
This extraction shooter may be easier than even ARC Raiders, but that’s part of the appeal. Players drop into North Korea to raid, fight each other and take down key targets all over the map.
Everything is streamlined and easy to understand, including the loot. During the game, you’ll come across different types of scrap, an assortment of healing items, and tons of weapons, so you don’t have to think too hard about what to grab. Just move, shoot and pull out high value items, then run the loop again.
The enemy AI is surprisingly aggressive and fun to fight against, especially when you run into an overwhelming number of troops. Armored vehicles and helicopters try to smear you in the dirt. It’s an adrenaline rush, and as far as I’m concerned, Infinity Ward nailed the really important part of DMZ. It’s hard to get the player-versus-AI balance right, but these enemies feel like a real threat.
Other players can also come for your loot, which is what sometimes puts people off the extraction genre altogether. But DMZ’s in-depth bounty system provides a foil for player-versus-player gameplay.
People who hunt other players collect a bounty and appear on the map, so pacifists have a better chance of steering clear while bounty hunters chase them. It’s a pretty brilliant compromise that encourages player-versus-player connoisseurs to butt heads, while player-versus-environment hides people because the tension of a potential accident with aggressors is never really relieved.
I’m worried that the stripped-down simplicity of the gameplay loop could hurt DMZ’s long-term success, but Infinity Ward seems committed to adding new world bosses. That could really shake up how the matches play out, even if it’s nothing as over-the-top as Marathon’s Cryo Archive boss.
DMZ isn’t perfect, but I see the foundation laid for one of the better extraction shooters I’ve played. Depending on how the development team builds on this game mode, I can see it becoming something special (and maybe even a Call of Duty mainstay for years to come).
Multiplayer remains fast, but it is more difficult and grounding
Call me an oldhead, I don’t care: Black Ops 7’s omnimovement system, which allowed players to run, jump and slide around while looking in any direction, was disastrous for Call of Duty game balance.
Treyarch’s update to the formula may work for massive Warzone maps, where there is a lot of open space and a higher time to kill for other players, but the smaller multiplayer maps become impossible to breathe. Call of Duty is primarily an arcade shooter, but the multiplayer formula still works best when it’s time to recover and recover, make tactical flanks and dial in your scorestreaks.
Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 4 removes the omnimovement system, but it still allows players to sprint, slide and dolphin around at significantly high speeds. The new mantle mechanic adds some traversal options, but everyone feels a little heavier.
The slightly slower six-versus-six matches feel great, and the larger modes are a little less chaotic. The Modern Warfare games have hewed closer and closer to the classic boots-on-the-ground Call of Duty, and the latest entry does not disappoint in that regard.
Still, the fatal flaws of the modern Call of Duty formula have been left untouched. There are more than 70 attachments left for many weapons. Many modes have maps carved out of larger Warzone areas. The apparently obligatory 24/7 broadcast playlist will be added soon to satisfy your nostalgia. Progression needs to synergize across a complete Modern Warfare 4 product, so unnecessary bloat exists everywhere you look.
This is a solid modern Call of Duty game, but the overall quality is still far from the series’ heyday. In a post-Warzone world, this is about as good as it gets – but if this formula doesn’t work for you, it’s worth avoiding Modern Warfare 4.
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