That’s right. I said it. I just said that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 boasts the greatest single-player campaign ever made. And I mean every damn word of it.
I’ve been playing Call of Duty since 2004, and I’ve been there for World at War, Black Ops, the original Modern Warfare series, and everything in between. I’ve been around for every conceivable moment in the franchise, and this game boasts the absolute, irrevocably best campaign in more than twenty years of FPS storytelling.
It’s not long, and it’s not perfect, but what’s on offer is unparalleled. It’s the culmination of years of building a narrative featuring a rolling story, and the technical leaps used to deliver it are nothing short of jaw-dropping. It’s diverse, it’s gripping, and it features utterly non-stop thrilling sequences and more twists than you could ever have thought possible.
I’ll try to deliver this Modern Warfare 4 campaign review without any spoilers, but it’ll be tough.
For a Call of Duty Fan, There’s Nothing Better
If you’re a Call of Duty aficionado and you’ve given time to the last three Modern Warfare games, starting with 2019’s reboot, then you’ll lap up every single ounce of what Modern Warfare 4 is offering and be begging for more. That’s an ambiguous term, as by ‘begging for more’, I do also mean ‘wishing it were a longer campaign.’
I completed the campaign (on the easiest difficulty…) in just under six hours. One session. But let’s be honest, that’s what we expect from Call of Duty. I’d also like to stress a few things:
- During a ‘sandbox’ portion of the game, I fast-traveled and speedran my way through it.
- I didn’t chase after any achievements.
- I didn’t poke around or go beyond my explicit, core objectives.
Midway through the game, you’re presented with what is now typical in modern Call of Duty games, and that’s an ‘open-world’ section that provides you with an array of objectives and allows you to travel around, taking them on as you desire. It’s pretty huge in this game, offering side objectives, hidden bits and pieces to explore, and a ‘hub’ that you can frequent to level up your gear and get new stuff.
If you’re pressed for time, you can condense this entire section, which is easily an introduction to the upcoming DMZ launch, into about half an hour to an hour of gameplay.
But anyway, I digress.
If you’re a Call of Duty fan, you’ll appreciate every single second of this story. Without spoiling anything major, almost every single character introduced thus far gets an ending. Not all of them are happy endings (in fact, the vast… vast majority are not…), but they get endings, and that’s hugely satisfying.
The game opens with a brutal and impactful death, and it ends with a heart-breaking one. Throughout the journey, more twists (and more deaths) hit you harder than you can prepare for, all delivered in a short, sharp window.
That’s mostly because the pacing is electric. It almost never slows down. The action is pumping from start to finish, and even the ‘forced stealth’ sections are short-lived.
It does follow the typical Call of Duty formula, though. You’ve got your world-building missions, then something open-ended, then a couple of stealthier missions, a vehicle-based one, and then a boss bit at the end. It’s a globe-trotting adventure that offers multi-faceted approaches to modern combat, offering up a plethora of gadgets, weapons, and ways to fight your enemies.
Unfortunately, and again, without spoiling anything, it does not leave the door open. You’ll see what I mean when you play it yourself, but this campaign wraps up with a definitive note. The energy builds to an impeccable crescendo, the dust settles, and you’re slammed in the teeth with a nostalgia-fuelled, bittersweet emptiness and an intense catharsis.
And trust me when I say ‘nostalgia’, because there are entire sequences that smack of days gone by. Again, you’ll see what I mean when you play. Hint: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) runs deep in the inspiration of this one.
This is the end of seven years of video game storytelling, I think.
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Core Elements
From the moment the Modern Warfare 4 campaign opens, you start getting attached to a mostly new cast of characters. We’re in South Korea, we’re in a convenience store, and we’re debating the power of West Coast hip-hop. It’s a happy-go-lucky scene, until it’s not. The world around us is shattered, and we’re swallowed by a maelstrom of threat and drama.
The campaign’s pacing never really slows down from there.
Urban car chases, creeping through rusting bunkers, dragging traitors from the clutches of their desperate, crying families… This game has it all. The emotion runs deep in Modern Warfare 4, from the choices you’re forced to make to the sheer evolution of the story and how things unravel.
If I have one major complaint, it’s that it all pushes to that resolution very quickly. You have a half-dozen major deaths, the reveal and demise of an all-new villain, the confluence of intersecting narratives, and it all runs from end to end in six hours. North Korea mounts an ambitious invasion of South Korea, leans on a revolutionary, mysterious weapon to turn the tide, and the world looks on as this large-scale conflict causes the eradication of thousands of lives, and then it’s finished.
But while I’m on the topic of complaints, let’s discuss what else bothered me during Modern Warfare 4’s campaign. This is why it’s not scoring perfect marks.
- Especially early on, characters kept dying under the guise of the same animation. Animation issues persisted throughout the game. Later on, I watched four soldiers disembark from an APC, and they immediately performed, in perfect sync, the same sequence of animations.
- New climbing mechanics added to break up some traversal sequences are flimsy and don’t hit the mark especially well. More than once, I fell during an important scene for no real reason.
- The transition from full CGI cutscene to ‘gameplay’ cutscene to gameplay can be jarring. In certain scenes, the characters split between these settings didn’t even look the same.
- Driving mechanics in a Parisian mission were pretty awful. It was the trope where you can hold the throttle as hard as you want, but you’re prohibited from actually speeding up. And there was a lot of rubber-banding here too.
- It admittedly felt like a lot of anti-North Korea propaganda at times…
Let’s discuss that last bit.
In the closing mission of the game (not major spoilers), you’re flying in over a presidential palace in North Korea, raining hellfire from a grenade launcher mounted on the side of a helicopter. By the dozen, North Korean bodies are bursting all over the place; you’re almost impervious to damage at this point, and everyone in your chopper is whooping and hollering at this egregious slaughter.
We’re treated to the classic scenes of North Korean citizens weeping and prostrating over the death of their Supreme Leader, and we literally embark on a mission to identify traitors, defectors, and those withholding contraband. We can bully and beat innocent people and even decide whether to hang someone in front of a crowd in broad daylight.
What’s scary is that it’s all based wholeheartedly on very real-world themes and images. None of this feels new to us, which perhaps makes it more ‘propaganda-y’. It’s digging into a realistic concept wherein the North Koreans are painted as the ultimate villain, determined to rule the world (or at least, Korea) with an iron fist. There’s even a nod to Russia being the second-best bad guy in this one.
But all those issues only dropped a single point from the overall score for this game.
Every other element, from the soundtrack to the gunplay, and from the visuals to the acting, is award-worthy. I cannot stress how gorgeous Infinity Ward makes these games, and they absolutely blow my freaking mind every time with how gorgeous and realistic they are.
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Modern Warfare 4 Life
Modern Warfare holds a precious place in my gaming-related heart, and it has since Call of Duty 4 emerged in 2007. It’s a tried, tested, and instantly recognizable franchise, and for many Call of Duty fans, it represents the absolute zenith of potential in the first-person shooter space.
In Modern Warfare 4, something has been delivered that meets every expectation I had for the franchise. It had some low points lately, and we all know that Modern Warfare II and III did not hit the mark, but Modern Warfare 4 has delivered a masterstroke of creative brilliance.
Infinity Ward has set a benchmark that will be almost impossible to surpass. I was shocked, I was entertained, I was enthralled, and I was made to feel, and in my opinion, if a game can make you feel something, it’s worth every single freaking penny.
And this is rare for me, but I actively plan to replay the campaign. The sandbox mission I mentioned midway through the game offers a separate save file mechanic, allowing you to go back to it at any point and continue exploring the world it presents, which is phenomenal. It transcends typical Call of Duty, and I’m here for every glorious, chaotic second.
The density of the details, how lighting works and is used to convey a tone, how accessible the game is, how the difficulty levels offer a diversified approach, how the characters feel like old friends, and how the combat embodies the unmistakable DNA of Call of Duty… It’s all there.
This is Modern Warfare in its purest form, and it’s an unapologetic representation of everything Infinity Ward and Activision have been striving towards for all these years.
Now I will sit back and wait for the multiplayer portion to come around and dash our opinions to pieces.
Let me know on the Insider Gaming Discord server what you thought about the Modern Warfare 4 campaign.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Modern Warfare 4 is smashing Steam ratings. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Campaign
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Campaign
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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