Story Spoilers for a 3-month old game follow.
COD and Me
I’ve enjoyed all of the Call of Duty campaigns that I’ve played through. Though, admittedly I’ve sat out for a few in the current-gen console releases. The Original Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, as well as Black Ops and Black Ops II were a neat experience, as were the WW1 & WW2 predecessors.
I still frequently enjoy playing split-screen multiplayer against bots in Black Ops and I used to really enjoy meeting up for squad-based action with coworkers and their ridiculously talented teenager kids. I unfortunately don’t have the pleasure of working with those folks anymore and their teenagers are in college now. So….. yeah, I’m pretty stale.
With increasing focus over the last half-decade towards multiplayer experience juxtaposed against a phoned-in single player experience, I’m happy to see that they spent the resources and gave this Call of Duty a first-class campaign experience.
Campaign
The campaign story-writers did an excellent job of borrowing from (and remixing) elements from recent military history to make the campaign relatable.
A nebulous proxy war with Russia involving Islamic freedom fighters & WMD intrigue? Check!
Old guy with creepily similar name to recent events, big forehead & dirty motives? Check!
Omar Sulaman, Bad Guy du jour
Good guy with bad mustache and familiar sounding voice? Check!
Alex (Mason?) – Aka “Echo 3-1” - I’m redesignating him as: Friendzone
Campaign Mission Breakdown
Fog of War
You are a CIA operator in pursuit of chemical weapons. Military jargon ensues. Characters are introduced. Stuff happens.
Piccadilly
You are in a carload of fellow plain clothes military operators with small arms. Civilians everywhere. How can that go sideways? Shades of the July 7, 2005 London bombings but with some key differences.
Embedded
You are a CIA operator embedded with a group of freedom fighters in the fictional nation of Urzikstan. Conceal carry, amateur masonry and pyrotechnics are on tap for this adventure.
Proxy War
Fight alongside Urzikstan’s freedom fighters as you attempt to neutralize the base of forward operations for a (rogue?) Russian general. Non conventional weapons at your disposal include R/C planes with C4 and molotov cocktails.
Clean house
Follow our favorite SAS operative as you infiltrate a 3 story home occupied by terrorists. Lots of on-rails breach and clear action using suppressed weapons and night vision.
Hunting Party
Meet up with a marine division, make tactical use of a mobile heavy-armor. (Think: Honey Badger from previous installments of the franchise but with more umpf.) Seriously cool and technical infiltration of a hospital with complex cover and unexpected shooting lines. Super creepy friend or foe judgement calls, culminating in a seriously dug in MG nest. I really like this chapter. COD at its best.
The Embassy
The first part of the embassy mission are a combination of the 1979 Hostage Crisis in Tehran, the 1984 Embassy Annex Bombing in Beirut and some fiction sprinkled in for flavor. The second half of the embassy mission is proof someone at Infinity Ward watched 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi and/or read the book it was based on. After evacuating the embassy to a nearby compound, you defend from the rooftops through multiple waves of assault. They have the numbers. They have technicals. They have mortars. You have flares, better guns & training, high-ground that would make obi-wan proud and best of all: drone support, which makes for stark differences from how it went down in the real-life events from which this was inspired.
Highway of Death
You get a sweet new gun with an even sweeter scope. 600 yard shots, you get to deal with distance and wind.. A solid sub-coriolis sniper mission from a poor & exposed position.
Hometown
I could have done without this stage. Origin story from a primary character, you play as a child through the hellscape of an ethnic-cleansing committed by genocidal Russian soldiers under orders from a particularly asshole-ish general.
The Wolf’s Den
This starts as Zero Dark Thirty and ends as the underground staircase from National Treasure.
Captive
Meant to provide character development and motives, this stage instead serves as a first person perspective of torture followed by an unlikely battle with strange technicalities. They convinced me to like this character (and I do) but I don’t like this stage.
Old Comrades
Very much a Matrix-style Agents vs Neo chase scene to capture (alive) as hostile through an improbably large supporting suppression force. I believe I also saw this scene in Hitman’s Bodyguard or Self/Less on Netflix. It has a chase vs fight dynamic that is complicated by limited ammunition and the presence of friendlies along with a “he got away” timer to keep you from digging in for any particular portion of the engagement. It has an uncomfortable conclusion for you black hat gamers who chose to play through it.
Going Dark
A pretty cool night stealth search & rescue mission with a solid technical dynamic of using the environment to increase cover. I liked this stage alot.
Into the Furnace
As far as boss battles go, this.. is one. Lots of shooty-shooty-bang-bang. You start with reasonable armor and aerial support against an uphill, dug-in adversary. You infiltrate a multi-level industrial complex with plenty of cover and unexpected targeting lines. There are drones, sniper rifles, rpg’s, a mini gun, a big Russian dude laughing at you from beneath improbable amounts of armor. There are bad guy monologues and (maybe) some character sacrifices to be made. That’s a big maybe.
Post-Credits
Post Credits scene provide nods to long-term fans of the franchise, hinting to the return of some familiar names and providing a smooth segue into the Special Ops (Co-op missions)
Should I let my kid play this?
Depends on the kid, I guess. It is ESRB rated for 17+ for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes & Use of Drugs. I don’t recall any drug use or sexuality in the game. It is violent and does bring into question some topics like torture, murder of civilians (including children) and these topics can be a bit much for some kids. I let my 14 year old daughter play through parts of it with me and we discussed some of the topics along the way. I didn’t let my 10 year old anywhere near it. YMMV.
Closing Thoughts on the Storyline
The two flashback missions involving Farah Karim are a little jarring in terms of continuity and frustrating in terms of playability. At the end of the first, her and her brother are captured by Barkov and then later you wake up 20 years older, imprisoned by Barkov. Yet, in the intervening time Karim has become a full commander in her militia. So, when did they get let loose as kids? Barkov captured them again as young adults? Why does Barkov look like Lou Diamond Phillips? He doesn’t seem Russian at all Get this man a fuzzy hat or a bear to ride on. Something.
Aside from confusion around General Lou Diamond Phillipski, I thought the story was mostly good. It was also a treat to see Nick Tarabay rendered digitally. I liked his work in The Expanse.
Having grown up playing Red Alert, I’m finding myself uncomfortable with the Zeitgeist that our antagonists always have to be tied to Russia in some way. Can we please just stop antagonizing the other superpowers? Thanks.
Multiplayer
You’ll note the title of this article specifically references Campaign. Lately, my ability to enjoy a multiplayer experience has felt frustrated by the combination of 40-year old twitch reflexes, a wifi-connected PS4 and playing on a larger-than-optimal for competitive-play, TV. I really need “drunk mode”, “old guy”, “big tv”, “distracted room” matchmaking. Get on that, Infinity Ward.
While, I don’t see those matchmaking customizers coming anytime soon, this installment of Call of Duty Modern Warfare Multiplayer brings the ability to play matches between PS4, PC & XbOne owners via something called Cross Play. Destined to answer once and for all the question of which is better: Keyboard & Mouse or Gamepad, I think this is a really neat and hopeful turn in multiplayer dynamics. Other games have done it with mixed success but I’m glad to see Infinity Ward take a stab at it.
Build it and they Will Come
A great multiplayer platform is one that is open enough for unexpected things to happen but closed enough so that it doesn’t get out of hand. You’d like players to discover new combinations of perks, loadouts, kill-streaks and score-streaks to be able to create stand-out moments that get everyone pumped and are share-worthy.
In the same accord, you don’t want the entire game to migrate under the map through boundary-clipping bugs or certain load outs that create repeatable lopsided advantages.
Such glitches have riddled Call of Duty games and other (more?) popular battle royale-style multiplayer games.
For games with this sort of visibility, studios usually do an admirable job of patching them quickly. It’ll be interesting to see if Crossplay makes that easier (or harder) given the particular implementations of PSN, xBox Live & PC Net gaming.
So far, what little I’ve played of the COD multiplayer has me wishing for those days when we’d squad up with coworkers a few nights, each week. Between the solid campaign and a strong multiplayer it seems like Infinity Ward has a winner on their hands with 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.