Game Review — I love and loathe the mixed bag that is Modern Warfare 4

TL;DR

Pros:

• Gunplay feels amazing with the removal of random weapon spread

• Animation and visual quality is superb

• Campaign has a compelling story, good voice acting and solid mission design

• Multiplayer maps are good overall, with Silkworm being a standout

• Every weapon in the game feels like a viable option

• DMZ is a decent third mode

Cons:

• Requires a persistent internet connection

• Installation was a pain

• Skill-based matchmaking NEEDS TO BE REMOVED

• Major issues with lag and connection

• DMZ can be unforgiving, thanks to players camping exfil points

• Apex attachments are mostly gimmicky rather than genuinely useful

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Score: 5/7 — one of the better entries in years, but still a long way from the golden age.

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Reviewed on PlayStation 5; available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2.

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Price: Rs20,000 (physical copy); $69.99 (digital)

All GIFs and screenshots captured by author

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A few months ago, I expressed my hesitation about whether or not I would be willing to buy this year’s Call of Duty after playing the open beta. While gunplay improved massively, the maps were solid, and it felt like a good CoD game again, these were offset by a very, very badly implemented skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) system, “innovations” with little practical benefit, and poor network code and lag issues.

Now the full game is here, and we can really determine whether this is a return to form or another slap in the face like last year’s Black Ops 7 (BO7, or “Black Slop 7”).

Modern Warfare 4 (MW4) is neither: it’s a step in the right direction, but repeats the mistakes that sent the franchise into a downward spiral to begin with.

This really is the definition of a mixed bag, but is it worth your money?

Rs20,000 of inconvenience

Before we go anywhere, I really need to address the issues I came across while installing the game.

CoD has this really odd system when it comes to installation on console: your disc has none of the game on it and simply acts as confirmation that you own the game. You have to download and install the CoD launcher first, then Multiplayer, Campaign and DMZ as individual content packs.

Aside from the fact that these downloads take a while, you can’t access anything else while one part of the game is downloading. I installed Multiplayer and played a couple of hours before downloading DMZ.

When the latter began installing, I couldn’t access multiplayer to pass the time. The entire game was locked off.

Campaign: It held the line

CoD campaigns are a big deal for me, and last year’s campaign was easily the worst in the entire franchise. The bar was literally on the ground and developers Treyarch were still unable to step over it.

My expectations for MW4 were pretty much nonexistent, and when the trailer came out, I thought it looked cool, but that was about it.

Series creator Infinity Ward took the reins and gave us a story in an underutilised setting: a present-day conflict in the Korean Peninsula.

The North invades the South in a strong enough introduction — a patrol in a South Korean city with your squad is upended by hypersonic missiles.

What follows is a desperate scramble to hold off North Korean forces as Private Park, a grunt in the Republic of Korea (ROK) Marines. This modern interpretation of the Korean War is truly superb in its grounded and gritty tone, and showing it through the eyes of a Korean rather than an American made it much more immersive.

Park’s squad has very good chemistry, with dialogue feeling organic in both its writing and delivery. Similarly, North Korean officer Ko Jin-Hyuk and Commander Ri Ju-Young, one of the antagonists, stood out because of their expressive performances and Ko’s character arc.

Actors Lanny Joon and Prisca Kim deserve a round of applause, even if in Ri’s case the writing was a bit cartoonish and a stereotype of what the West thinks North Korea is really like.

Meanwhile, series mainstay Captain Price is chasing after someone called “The Archer”, who is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. Again, superb acting, even though I’d have liked more screen time from the latter.

This B plot occurs several days before the invasion, showing the buildup before converging with the Korean campaign, Pulp Fiction-style. There are even bits where you take control of North Korean soldiers to flesh out the game’s world, albeit reinforcing the stereotype.

In terms of gameplay, the campaign succeeds where MW3 and BO7 dropped the ball; it delivers a coherent story and well-designed missions and levels. You aren’t dumped in a gigantic, empty level that bores you to death; levels are linear and serve a purpose, such as a John Wick-esque nightclub gunfight, a beach landing on the Korean Peninsula and searching for defectors in a North Korean village. These immerse the player and provide a focused experience.

The one time you do end up in a giant, open level, effort has been put in. The mission ‘Stranded’ puts you in the North Korean wilderness scavenging supplies, gear and weapons to strike three facilities. Though the level is massive, it’s populated with enough enemies to not feel empty, and enough activities to keep you meaningfully occupied. It can, however, get monotonous if you’re trying to complete everything and find every secret.

Multiplayer: Fun, but frustrating

This is the component I’ve spent the most time with so far, and it’s largely standard fare when it comes to CoD: fast, reflex-driven action on small maps with two teams of six. For the most part, I’m genuinely enjoying it.

Maps, characters and guns have a very high level of detail, and the animations, particularly weapon handling, continue to lead the industry. The open beta in August showcased some of this already, but it’s still no less impressive.

Aesthetically, the maps vary quite a fair bit and are generally appealing, with one or two exceptions. ‘Sentry’ is a snowed-in military facility with grey walls and a very muted colour palette. It’s a decent map to play in, but it looks boring. On the other side of the spectrum, ‘Silkworm’, set in a South Korean city, is vibrant and has more visually diverse locations like internet cafes and convenience stores.

I’ve wracked my brain and can’t think of a map I didn’t like. They’re all well-crafted, funnelling the action into certain areas while being easy to learn. However, my complaints about formulaic map design still stand — they all have three clearly defined lanes, only one storey of height and few routes for flanking, limiting how you can play the game.

Gunplay feels rock solid, with weapon bloom — the randomness in the spread of your bullets — completely removed, and the sound design really helps them sound and feel beefy. Unlike other games in the franchise, each weapon in the arsenal feels like a viable option, especially the pistols.

Some weapons are used more widely than others, but for the most part, I’ve noticed that everything is being used by the player base.

However, the Apex attachments introduced in the game fall flat. A few of them, like ammo conversions, can be truly useful, but the vast majority serve little to no use in your loadout. You’ll use them once for a laugh, and then just get back to business with standard weaponry.

Now, we have to address the elephant in the room: skill-based matchmaking, or SBMM.

For those unfamiliar, it is a system of matching players based on individual performance rather than internet connection and it creates a twofold problem: because connection is not prioritised, issues like lag emerge; and since it finds players based on your performance, if you play well, it’ll match you with guys playing like it’s the finals of the CoD world championships.

It’s an extremely controversial feature that completely sucks the fun out of not just CoD, but multiplayer games in general. I shouldn’t be punished for getting a high score by being pitted against either professional players or the chronically unemployed.

One good match will be followed up by another with players of a far higher skill level who have mastered every trick in the book.

I just want to unwind with my friends after work, not put up with lag or players sweating over their keyboards and controllers, playing hard.

Removing SBMM completely would make the game so much better and address a lot of community backlash. I’d go a step further and say it should be banned under international law.

DMZ: In and out, 20-minute adventure

DMZ is an extraction mode and the third main component of the MW4 package, returning after its introduction in 2022’s MW2 reboot. You enter the zone, complete missions, grab gear and leave via one of several exfiltration points. However, the stakes are high: death or disconnection means all of the stuff you picked up is gone. All of it.

It’s a tense experience, pitting you against AI-controlled enemies and other players in a race to get high-tier loot, weapons, gear and other equipment to help you survive. To its credit, there is a lot of stuff to do in the DMZ, with story missions, dynamic operations — small side missions to make some money and earn some gear — and other activities like hunting lieutenants and taking down minibosses roaming the map.

The main map, Hajin, is massive and atmospheric, with abandoned buildings, North Korean iconography everywhere, varying architecture and plenty of elements to explore. There’s even a dynamic weather system in place, with a sunny day turning into a rainstorm in real time. It’s a departure from the other modes seen in CoD, which I’m a fan of, even if it’s very unforgiving, especially against enemy players.

However, there are issues here. The time-to-kill compared to multiplayer is minuscule, with an enemy player shredding through your armour almost instantly. Since I mostly dealt with AI bots who are slow to react, it leaves me ill-prepared for a player moving like a rocket-propelled kangaroo. Call it a skill issue if you want; it’s just plain irritating.

I would love a bots-only option here, so that I don’t have to worry about someone waiting for me to exfiltrate, then stealing my stuff after catching me by surprise.

Again, connection issues plague this mode; a couple of nights ago, I completed a very cool mission where you have to extract a North Korean general from a hospital — pushing him in the world’s most heavily armoured hospital bed to a helicopter — only for the game to disconnect before I could exfiltrate, sending all of my hard-earned, high-level loot to the abyss.

There is no word in any language to describe how angry I was. There must be some workaround to this problem.

I’m torn on MW4; it brings back a lot of what made the franchise so beloved to begin with: a fast-paced, addictive multiplayer and an engaging single-player campaign.

It’s a major improvement, while also paying homage to the original Modern Warfare trilogy. However, there are many problems with this entry, which make it frustrating to deal with, from matchmaking to poor servers.

Despite this, I’ve found myself going back to it regardless. As a package, I loved my time with this, faults and all, and I play almost every night.

This is not a return to form; it’s nowhere near close to the original trilogy, but it is a step in the right direction, albeit one with a twisted ankle.