Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s meat and potatoes is, of course, the multiplayer! After years of wall-running, jumping, and all kinds of crazy fast-paced future warfare, Modern Warfare turns the dial back. This doesn’t feel like Modern Warfare 2 or 3, though. This is still Call of Duty but it’s a much more revised version of Call of Duty.
It’s slower, it’s tactical, it’s thoughtful. Running and gunning is still applicable here but it’s not going to work for long-term success, you need to play it slow. That doesn’t mean be a camper (though many people seem to love doing that this year) but it does mean you need to be more aware of how you’re moving around and playing the game.
All of this helps make Modern Warfare feel like the most satisfying and rewarding Call of Duty in years. Kills often feel well-earned, victories feel triumphant, and killstreaks are euphoric rushes of adrenaline. This is what Call of Duty multiplayer is all about and it feels like the peak of the series in terms of the moment to moment gameplay.
I could gush over the gunplay for ages, it scratches the perfect itch. The mechanical pieces of the guns moving as you fire, reload, and fiddle with the different functions is nothing short of masterful. Most players tend to stick to one or two guns in shooters but I found myself venturing out towards weapon classes I normally wouldn’t touch. Everything feels incredible to use, which is an achievement in its own right. It’s by far the best of the best in terms of how an FPS game can make a player feel handling a weapon.
Part of this comes down to how you build your gun. Thanks to a new feature called Gunsmith, you can really create a unique and personalized weapon both aesthetically and mechanically. Gunsmith breaks down the gun at a microscopic level by letting you customize it from muzzle to stock and everything in between.
It goes far beyond just smacking a silencer and red dot on your gun. These attachments affect everything from how fast you can move, how fast you can aim down the sights, and even change the entire gun. For instance, there’s no M16 in the game but the M4A1 can be customized to build an M16.
You can switch out the M4 barrel to an M16 barrel, toss on a three-round burst, and it’s an all-new weapon. It’s the deepest weapon customization I’ve seen in an AAA FPS and it’s something that needs to be added to all games in the franchise going forward otherwise it’ll feel like a bad leap backward.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare continues to improve by creating a variety of new modes. Ground War offers 64-player battles on large maps, Realism is a whole new spin on hardcore modes, and Cyber Attack is a Rainbow Six-esque mode.
Ground War is probably the most problematic of the three as it doesn’t totally make the proper adjustments to the gameplay flow for these large scale battles. Battlefield works because of the longer TTK, meaning you won’t just get destroyed anytime you encounter a group of two or more enemies.
Call of Duty is too fast to be running out in the open and getting into big battles. It’s too chaotic, messy, and frantic with very little benefits. Ground War ends up feeling like a poor man’s Battlefield, sadly.
Cyber Attack opens up a more tactical and slightly forgiving version of Search and Destroy. You can revive your teammates and turn a 6 v 1 back into a 6 v 6 if you play your cards right. It’s thrilling and fun without making SnD feel obsolete. My biggest issue in the mode is something that plagues the entire game: player callouts.
Your character will often scream out enemy positions and even worse, call out when you’re reviving a teammate. I frequently found myself dying from my own character giving away my position which is obviously painfully annoying.
Modern Warfare is no stranger to painfully annoying issues, truthfully. Claymores are littered around maps like trash on the street and they’re super overpowered. They’re more sensitive than a teenage girl watching The Notebook and come off as deadlier than a nuclear bomb.
Footsteps are also a huge issue in the game with them being louder than the actual gunfire around you. These are just a few issues that can cause major feelings of unbalance and immense frustration. Call of Duty has always had a few laughably standout issues in each game like noobtubes and One Man Army in MW2 but Modern Warfare feels like it has these ridiculous issues in abundance.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare features both the best and worst multiplayer in years. Sometimes it’s wildly satisfying and rewarding, sometimes it’s painfully aggravating and makes you want to put your head through the wall. Over time, it’s very easy to see it ironing out its flaws with patches and balancing.
At the moment, you might find yourself in a toxic relationship with Modern Warfare’s multiplayer where you play it until you get pissed off, then you remember how much fun you were having for a bit there, log back on, realize nothing has changed and things may have actually somehow gotten worse.
The Verdict:
When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is operating at its peak, it’s performing at a level the series or genre hasn’t seen in over a decade. When Infinity Ward lets their many flaws show, it’s painfully disheartening and only makes the potential for greatness feel that much richer. Perhaps this blinding contrast in their strengths and weaknesses will allow the team to come back and execute a sequel that will hit all of its marks without fail.
