Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Review
Among Call of Duty's two-decade history, Modern Warfare 3 stands out as a notably underwhelming entry. The lackluster campaign fails to divert attention from the exhausted multiplayer formula. Dated maps from a decade ago, convoluted progression, and poorly executed alterations to mobility and gunplay contribute to MW3's struggle in establishing a distinctive identity.
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00:00So, Modern Warfare 3 is here and in our review of the campaign it was underwhelming and I
00:11think that's a sentiment shared with most of the people that have been reviewing it.
00:14Josh has been reviewing the much larger multiplayer.
00:18Is the multiplayer just as underwhelming as the campaign has been for people?
00:22Yeah, I think the multiplayer has proven to be somewhat underwhelming.
00:28It's sort of undone all of the stuff that the Modern Warfare, the two rebooted games
00:32were trying to do.
00:33They've tried to sort of walk back into this slightly faster, slightly twitchier style
00:40of play that is maybe more nostalgia driven.
00:44Yeah, because one of the lines from your review is stuck paying deference to a past that it
00:50seems to barely understand.
00:51They've tried a couple of different things.
00:53For starters, all of the weapons, attachments, skins from last year's Modern Warfare 2 have
00:59carried forward.
01:00It's not something the series has ever really tried before.
01:03The maps are basically a remastered set of the original Modern Warfare 2 maps from 2009.
01:10You know, if you're like me and have been playing since the beginning and wasted a lot
01:14of time when you should have been studying at university to be playing 2009's Modern
01:19Warfare 2, it all feels very familiar.
01:21Not in a necessarily in a good way, like I know a lot of people have a lot of fond
01:25memories of some of those maps, but it doesn't really work as a 20th anniversary celebration
01:30to me.
01:31I don't want to say it feels rust because I know how tricky development is, particularly
01:36in this environment, but just something doesn't feel right with it.
01:40It's not to the sort of level of polish, attention to detail that really defined particularly
01:45the last couple of years of games where, you know, fine, you might not have liked what
01:49Black Ops Cold War was shooting for, you might not have liked some of the ideas that
01:54Vanguard had, but I think they were all to a pretty high quality level.
01:58Now Microsoft is, you know, in a position to leverage some amount of creative control
02:03over the franchise, whether it needs to take a break, like it's just a year off for the
02:09studios to get realigned, caught back up because it's been a bit of a, particularly since the
02:15pandemic, it's been a bit all over the place.
02:18Whereas, you know, Vanguard, Black Ops Cold War, the studio seemed to struggle a little
02:22bit with keeping up with the schedules.
02:25I think that's evident here as well.
02:27So personally, from here, I would quite like to see them just step back, take a break.
02:35Like some of the maps are basically re-skinned, they're exactly the same.
02:38You can climb in the same place you can climb and you can't climb in the same place you
02:41can't climb.
02:42The kill spots and the choke zones are exactly the same.
02:45The weapons are again, very old.
02:47There's an element where like, we're not saying that they haven't worked really hard
02:50on it, but to a certain extent, they haven't like iterated on the maps and gone, oh, I
02:54love this map.
02:55Oh, they've added a new section.
02:56I wonder how that flips the dynamic.
02:58The guns are very similar.
03:00And again, like you said, there's an element where with each studio, you didn't necessarily
03:02like, you didn't necessarily like what they were doing.
03:04But COD fans did have like, oh, I like the sledgehammer games.
03:08I'll play all of the CODs, but everybody had their studio that they liked.
03:12And this doesn't feel like an identity.
03:14It feels like a patchwork of other stuff.
03:18Those maps were designed for a different type of COD, like Modern Warfare 2 2009 plays very
03:25differently to Modern Warfare, definitely Modern Warfare 2 2022, and still differently
03:31to Modern Warfare 3 2023, even though there may be a bit more thematically similar.
03:37But for example, Rust Terminal and let's say Skid Row, fun, tight maps with tight corners.
03:44The problem is the meta is very different.
03:46So we've got these really, there's 32 new guns.
03:49They're really over-torqued, super powerful to try and help them rise above the MW2 guns
03:54that have been brought forward.
03:55They're really snappy.
03:56They're really fast.
03:57It just, it can create quite messy engagements.
04:00And then if you think about some of the larger maps, Afghan Wasteland in particular, sniper
04:07rifles are back in a big way in MW3 and, you know, they are destructive.
04:12They're pretty easy to wield.
04:14And if you get a shot torso up, it's a one shot.
04:16So these kind of longer sight lines basically create just absolute killing fields.
04:23There was kind of that aspect originally back in 2009, but it's just really pronounced here.
04:27Like I would have personally, I would have preferred, what is that 13 years, 14 years
04:33of learnings and thinking about these maps say, what would we have applied with foresight?
04:38Now we've had all of like a decade of learning of innovating in this shooter space.
04:45Like everyone loves these, or they think everyone loves these maps.
04:48What would we have done differently?
04:50Let's try.
04:51And I think that's really obvious on places like High Rise, where you can still get into
04:55these like absurd positions that kind of, you know, allow you sort of total dominance
05:00over the axis of play.
05:02And it just feels really, it just feels pretty bad.
05:05And especially when you consider player visibility is quite low on the maps, like it's quite
05:10difficult to pick out enemies.
05:12It's also quite difficult to pick out friendly.
05:14So you get this like constant chatter of your character being like, Hey, I'm a friendly,
05:19don't shoot.
05:20And it's like, people just can't work out who's who.
05:22The thing is, it's created this like meta where you're actually probably better off
05:26just laying prone in a corner in a dark skin and just shooting anyone who's stupid enough
05:31to be trying to slide cancel around corners because it's just so difficult to pick anything
05:37out.
05:38And so the game is these like wild swings.
05:41I think I said in my review, like I'm going from, you know, a game on Afghan, I'm getting
05:46like 63 kills and like 16 deaths or something like absolute pure domination that makes me
05:52feel like king of the world.
05:54And then the next game, like I'm barely able to get a kill.
05:57Like, it's just like people running around, like quick scoping me with sniper rifles.
06:01It's just like there's no balance, there's no consistency whatsoever.
06:06So I'm just like bouncing games again.
06:08And after that game, I'm in another lobby where suddenly I'm like spreading 40 kills.
06:12There's just no like, yeah, there's no challenge.
06:14And so it creates this really weird feeling.
06:18There is on the one hand, no challenge because it is wildly different on what you have.
06:23And then on the other hand, there is no reward because a lot of the stuff is stuff you've
06:27already seen.
06:28And due to the messy progression system and customization system that they still haven't
06:31updated, you're like, well, what's the point in grinding towards something or this just
06:35feels pointless.
06:36So it's like, I love COD games.
06:38This one gives me no challenge and no reward.
06:41Maybe this isn't the best use of my money.
06:44It's really unfortunate.
06:45Let's say you've turned away from Warzone.
06:49The new map isn't here yet, but let's say that drops soon and it's still not getting
06:54you back to the gory days of Verdansk, right?
06:57And you just want a first person shooter to run around with, with your friends.
07:03Kind of fast, kind of snappy.
07:07It works for that, right?
07:08Like there's not a lot of traditional first person shooters left.
07:12It's just not all that compelling beyond that.
07:16There's nothing below the surface.
07:18It's all what you see is what you get.
07:21It's pretty much like a stopgap installment and the same goes for the campaign and zombies.
07:26The best way to think about campaign for COD has always been, it's a basically equivalent
07:32of the Bond movies for video games, like big set pieces, round the world, exotic locations,
07:38lots of fun, pretty throwaway, but lots of fun.
07:41Zombies, co-op carnage that has these really compulsive rhythms, that's now been transformed
07:46into this sort of weird extraction shooter model that's kind of picked up where DMZ left
07:53off for Warzone.
07:55And it's just as a package, it doesn't feel quite right.
08:00And you know, there are reports that the whole thing has come together effectively in 12
08:05months.
08:06Obviously, you know, GamesRadar has not been able to independently verify those, but it
08:11certainly feels like something that's come together pretty damn quickly.
08:15So yeah, I think this leaves Call of Duty in a pretty curious position and I hate to
08:21say that because it's my Sunday game.
08:26It's the game that I wake up tired on a Sunday morning, dreading going to work on Monday
08:30and I'm like, I'm going to sit here, I'm going to put some music on and I'm going to play
08:33Call of Duty for like 12 hours.
08:35And I've been doing that for decades.
08:39I love it.
08:40And for this one, I just really don't see me necessarily doing that and that is a shame.
08:44So I'm guessing from everything you've said, you're not going to be giving Call of Duty
08:48Modern Warfare 3 as a package, a high score out of 5.
08:52For me, it comes down to a 2 out of 5 and that is reflective of the fact that while
08:58it is technically proficient, visually quite evocative, it looks good, you know, I haven't
09:04had any real issues in terms of performance.
09:07So like I said, I think if you're looking for something fun to play or something to
09:12play with friends and have some fun for a couple of hours, it's absolutely serviceable.
09:18And let's be frank, there aren't a great deal of alternatives out there that really satisfy
09:24that right now.
09:25However, I don't see this being something that is played over the long haul and I think
09:31if you have any experience with Modern Warfare 2, any experience with Modern Warfare 2 2009,
09:38it's going to feel exceptionally familiar and I just don't see it having the span that
09:44other games have.
09:45It has a real attention deficit issue.