Modern Warfare 3
I’m not sure this was exactly the narrative Activision thought would form when they released the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 campaign as an early access bonus.
Since then, there has been a lot of bad buzz about its length and quality. Playtime averages appear to say that at 3-4 hours, it is likely to be the shortest overall campaign in Call of Duty history, and yes, it’s obviously a series with a number of short campaigns.
But the second problem is that it’s not like it’s a bunch of high quality content pressed together in a small package. It’s also just not a very good campaign, as we see from both player and critic reviews rolling in.
IGN just gave the Modern Warfare 3 campaign a 4/10, which may not feed into Metacritic necessarily (it has no scores there yet) but it sure isn’t great. Here’s an excerpt:
“Modern Warfare 3’s campaign commits the biggest sin possible for a globe-trotting action thriller: it’s boring. What had the promise to be an intriguingly spun web of mystery instead ends up being a dusty cobweb you’d find at the back of your shed, clinging onto 15-year-old garden toys you once had fun with.”
So, the 4/10 is bad, but it’s more about the trendline. The original Modern Warfare trilogy got 9.4, 9.5 and 9 scores from IGN. respectively The new era trilogy got an 8.2, 6, and now a 4. Things are effectively dropping off a cliff. The campaign reportedly lacks any significant Call of Duty single player setpieces, the kind the series is known for, and some half-hearted attempt to replicate the controversy of No Russian that does not work at all.
I have to imagine that all of this has to catch the attention of Microsoft, who did not just spend $69 billion on Activision Blizzard only to have the quality of its signature franchise start nosediving. While yes, it’s true that multiplayer/Warzone are the more important components of a Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3 very much seems like the “$70 DLC” that it is accused of being. Early reporting on what the series had planned this year was simply an expansion of MW2, but it’s very clear that Activision wanted that sequel number and full price, so here we are. But it’s so forced that the game is even categorized on PlayStation as being a MW2 add-on, and lacks a Platinum trophy as a result.
Back in the early days of the Microsoft acquisition talks there was reporting that one plan for the series was that it may start scaling back from being an annualized release, and that the support studios chained to the series may be freed to work on other IPs. But it’s been a long while since we’ve heard anything about that idea, and it’s unclear what Microsoft is thinking now that they finally have the series in hand.
Whatever the case, Call of Duty needs to catch its breath at the very least, that much is clear. There’s also a case to be made that perhaps COD campaigns just aren’t relevant anymore and they could be cut. There’s been some experimentation with that already, but now in this case, it feels like a bad three hour campaign may actively be worse than nothing. We’ll see what happens next year.
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