Call of Duty Modern Warfare III Vault Edition is the edition that this review will be based on. This version of the game gives you both current and previous-gen versions of the game, one season of the premium Black Cell Battle Pass Tier, as well as 20 tier skips for the Battle Pass. It also includes some exclusive weapon blueprints and operator skins that you can’t get with any other version.
The story of Call of Duty Modern Warfare III sees the return of Taskforce 141 as they try to save the world once again. Soap, Price, and Ghost, along with their fellow task-force members work to track down the elusive Makarov. A well-known terrorist is planning to unleash a third world war and it’s up to Taskforce 141 to stop him.
Where the game differs from its original release and the previous title in the sub-series is in both its single-player campaign and the content provided in the multiplayer modes. The campaign features both linear missions which the series is known for but also a new type of mission called open combat. There are fourteen missions in the campaign with a good balance between both mission types. Linear missions are what you would expect, a set of mission objectives and a set way to complete those objectives.
Open combat missions give a bit more freedom in the way they are approached. You can choose your load-out at the start of the mission and are then given your objectives. How you choose to complete them is up to you. You can sneak around and take out your enemies using stealth, go in guns blazing, or you can take a vehicle on the map and mow down your enemies. There are also weapons cases around the map that let you pick up some pretty powerful artillery in the event you don’t want to use what you brought in or what your enemies are carrying isn’t quite enough to get the job done.
Single-player missions can feel a bit longer than they really should be and the number of missions seems like a lot but once you get through them all, it seems like there should have been at least a few more. More missions with them being slightly shorter would have been ideal. The FMV sequences in the game look really good for the first half of the game and then take a turn in the second half. Rather than looking like an epic interactive film, they become a stuttering mess. It is not game-breaking, but you can tell that the game isn’t optimized enough to give the sequence a smooth flow. Almost like they took their time in the first half and then rushed the second half. This is a shame because this was one of the best parts of the campaign aside from the open combat missions and was entertaining to watch. The second half of the game’s FMV sequences are ones that I felt compelled to skip due to how horrible they looked but wanted to keep up with the story and half the time, they weren’t able to be skipped.
Multiplayer in Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is where the game truly shines and where the most development time was spent I feel like. Almost like the single-player campaign was an afterthought or just tossed in, but is still a great experience and compliment to the multiplayer side of the game.
The multiplayer side of the game consists of two modes which are Multiplayer and Zombies. Multiplayer is broken up into several different modes which I will go over first.
You have Ground War, Invasion, Private Match, Cutthroat, War Mode, Gunfight, Meat 24/7, 12v12 Moshpit, Quick Play and Hardcore Quick Play.
Ground War is a point-to-point capture the zone gameplay that takes place on a huge map. Two teams are pitted against each other using weapons and vehicles to capture four different zones and the winning team is the one that captures and holds all three zones or gets the most points by the end of the time limit with the points awarded for having the most zones captured over the longest amount of time. Invasion is a large-scale Team Deathmatch that pits two teams of twenty players against each other to fight on a giant map with the winning team scoring the most kills by the end of the round. Private Match lets you create or join a private match and gives you full control over the game mode and parameters on which that mode is played.
Cutthroat is a fast-paced game mode where three teams go head to head on a given map. The objective of the mode is to either be the last team standing or the first team to secure the flag at the end of the round. War Mode is a large-scale game mode that has six teams on a large map called Operation Spearhead. You’re given a set of objectives and with each objective that is completed, you’re able to push the battle line and win.
Gunfight is similar to Cutthroat with the differences being that you are given a random set of weapons and the squads are two teams of two. Meat 24//7 is a mode that has you playing either Kill Confirmed, Domination, Hardpoint, or Team Deathmatch with the only map being a new map called Meat. 12V12 Moshpit offers the same game modes as Meat 14/7 but with the maps being restricted to medium to large in size and the teams being 12 on 12 as the name suggests.
Quick Play lets you jump straight into a matchmaking session with the option to filter by game type. You can choose from Team Deathmatch, Free-For-All, Domination, Search and Destroy, Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, and Control.
Team Deathmatch is as it sounds with the game being anywhere from 2 on 2 to 6 on 6., the score limit is set at 100 and given a time limit of 12 minutes. Free-For-All is every soldier for themselves, with the score limit set to 30 and a match time of 10 minutes. Domination is similar to Team Deathmatch with the differences being the score limit set to 200, match time being unlimited, and the objective being to capture or defend objectives as a team. Search and Destroy has teams alternating between detonating and defusing a bomb with no respawns. Each round is 2 minutes long and with a 6-round limit, and the party size is the same as Team DeathMatch.
Kill Confirmed, though having the same party size as Team Deathmatch, has each match lasting 10 minutes, the score limit is set to 65, and the only way to score a point is to recover the dog tag of your enemy. You are also able to secure your teammates’ dog tags to prevent the opposing team from scoring a point. Hardpoint has teams capturing the Hardpoint and holding it against the opposing team. The first team to reach the score limit of 250, within the 5-minute round, wins. Control has you taking turns attacking and defending objectives with squads being up to 3 on 3, with the round limit being two rounds, and each round lasting only 1.5 minutes.
Hardcore Quickplay offers the same modes as regular Quickplay but sets you at a lower health percentage, slows the rate at which your health regenerates, and allows fellow teammates to damage you when they fire at you, with these limitations differing slightly depending on the game mode you are choosing to play. For those that caught it, yes this is just a renaming of Tier 1 from COD MWII; but still glad to see it make a return.
The Zombies mode is everyone’s favorite mode to play in Call of Duty coupled with the open world of Call of Duty Warzone. Modern Warfare Zombies (MWZ) has the same core elements as Warzone with it being an open-world map with contracts but also has a few additional mechanics. Those additional mechanics are Zombies and other creatures lurking around, and three threat levels on the map. These threat levels are level I, II, and III. With each level, the enemies are harder and the rewards you get from completing contracts are higher. A welcome change from a game mode like Battle Royale in Warzone which is what this mode basically is, is other players in the game can’t kill you. In fact, you’re all coming together to take on the nightmarish creatures that have spawned around the hellish landscape. Players show as blue on the map instead of the traditional red, can’t kill each other with gunfire, and can join one another at any point to help complete a contract or take down an enemy horde. In addition to zombies, you have mercenaries which are soldiers that roam the map in the higher level areas that can take you down quite quickly if you happen to come up on a camp or a convey without realizing it.
The only thing I haven’t touched on that I feel needs to be addressed is the armory system. The way gun upgrades are obtained is through normal level progression but also some are locked behind daily challenges. This holds true for some perks and upgrades as well. Though it has gotten better since it first launched. At first, you had to complete a daily challenge to unlock the ability to unlock a weapon or attachment. Once you completed the challenge that unlocked your ability to get say the MCW gun, you had to complete another daily challenge before it actually unlocked and let you use it.
As of now, weapons, attachments, and upgrades are unlocked through normal weapon levelling with some still locked behind daily challenge completions. This was a much-needed and welcome change to the original system that was present at launch.
When it comes to graphics and performance…well for those that caught my review for COD MWII, there isn’t much I can say that wasn’t said in that review; with a few exceptions. One exception being that the game runs smoother than its predecessor. Enemy movement, camera movement, everything feels faster and much smoother than it did in the previous entry which was a nice surprise. Especially considering this game was originally only going to be an expansion to COD MWII instead of a stand-alone release. The second being that FMV sequences look much more realistic with everything from the textures to the actual sequences themselves. For the first half of the game, it feels like you’re watching a movie instead of playing a video game. In the second half of the game though, the FMV sequences took a dive and as previously mentioned, they seem to stutter and be rather jittery. It is almost like they rushed to get them done rather than put the work in to optimize them and clean them up.
Sound is another area where I feel like there wasn’t enough of a drastic improvement from its predecessor to really go over too much. What I will say though is that the game appears to have more ambient sounds where there wasn’t much in the way of that for COD MWII. Couple that with NPCs and enemies talking among themselves, and it makes for a more realistic feel to the game which is appreciated.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is hands down the best in the series so far and the fact that they left things open for another entry makes me excited to see what the next installment will be. The game had a very rocky launch and still has its fair share of bugs here and there even today, but the game is a fantastic entry in the Modern Warfare series. I would definitely suggest checking this game out!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.