Is the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Campaign ‘Bad’? Here’s Our Review

Whether it’s rappelling into a prison cellblock, popping off headshots in the mountains, or slinking through an underground missile silo looking for nukes, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has a knack of throwing you into unexpected and exciting military scenarios. Its Michael Bay-esque approach to campaigns, full of set-pieces, environmental destruction, and slickly choreographed action, is what made them so beloved in the first place, and Modern Warfare 3 has all those, so why the hate?

For those who may not know, gaming publication IGN gave the campaign a 4 out of 10 score, which was somewhat surprising for the not-perfect but solid franchise, marking one of the lowest scores it has ever received. Subsequently, as is the case with most things on the internet, many other YouTubers and publications followed suit, calling the game terrible prior to it even releasing; but is it it really that bad?

Off the bat, the Modern Warfare 3 campaign isn’t the best the franchise has seen, but it is far from the worst. If anything, it actually lives up to the standards set by the previous two Modern Warfare games, but admittedly, doesn’t hit some of the memorable highs that those did.

The main reason for this is the introduction of ‘Open Combat’ missions, which are more sandbox-type missions peppered throughout the 4-5 hour runtime. These play out like small multiplayer-type scenarios with bots (having AI teammates is a missed opportunity too), where you’ll have to disarm 3 bombs on the map, hunt down containers, or destroy helicopters, all of which can be done in whatever order you want given that you parachute in. The missions are fun and do give you some player choice as to how you want to approach missions, but the truth is that they’re just not as good as the scripted, more linear set-piece chapters.

They’re not ‘bad’, they just don’t have the secret sauce of CoD campaigns: the spectacle. The missions don’t need to be big and bombastic, as even the lowkey sniper missions are sublime, it’s just the production value, set-up, and choreography of these missions that make them so great — they’re all full of memorable moments that help differentiate them from one game to the next. The Open Combat missions just seem to break that immersion, despite being a fun change-up of the formula.

There are 6 of them, and if those were swapped out with some good set-piece missions, the likelihood is that there would’ve been some even greater trademark CoD moments included in the game. Thankfully, the ones that are there are really solid, with some interesting settings, eye-popping sequences, and some great gunplay to boot.

If you love the whole nuclear espionage and private military battles with your action thriller content, you’ll enjoy the Sum of All Fears-level threat that Modern Warfare 3 delivers. My bet is that MW3 will be the Infinite Warfare of the current generation: a lot of unnecessary hate and scepticism, then becomes a cult-like entry in years to come, where people will re-discover its solid and enjoyable campaign.