For the first time in a few years, it seems like Call of Duty has stopped peeking at other shooters’ homework for inspiration. It’s not to say it hasn’t been successful with taking on trending modes and mechanics, like when Treyarch’s Black Ops 4 ditched the campaign and introduced an amazing battle royale mode. This year, though, Infinity Ward pulls from its own history for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. And as a result, it’s delivered excellent gunplay to pair with an intense and effective campaign and a fantastic weapon customization system in multiplayer. Something it didn’t learn, though, is that even a great arsenal can’t make up for poor map design, especially when there’s such a limited selection available at launch. Missteps in multiplayer and Spec Ops are like suppression fire that keep Modern Warfare from taking the high ground of its classic namesake, but everything else suggests that the series is now heading in a promising direction.
“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s scaled-up version of Ground War is a chaotic good time, and Realism quiets things down a bit to present a uniquely delightful challenge. The rest of Modern Warfare’s multiplayer ranges from great additions like Gunfight and its in-depth weapon customization, to mediocre with modes like Spec Ops. Across most of them, unfortunately, mediocre maps make spawn camping a frustrating problem and escaping the ones where you know you’ll have a bad time is more challenging with removed map voting. But there sure is a lot to do in Modern Warfare, and that variety is important to keep things feeling fresh after the occasional unexpected low points.”
You can look at the more detailed videos and review on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – IGN
