Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Review

I’ve been playing the Modern Warfare 4 campaign since early access opened, and I’ll give it to you straight: it’s insanely good to me. Nine out of ten — and understand what that number is, because it matters. The only part of this game that exists right now is the story. Multiplayer isn’t open. DMZ doesn’t fully launch until Friday. So this score is a campaign score, earned by the campaign alone — and the campaign alone is good enough to earn it. That has not been true of this series in a while.

Start with the simplest thing, because it hits you before anything else does: it looks so good. This is a campaign built to be looked at — a full-scale invasion on one side of the world and a shadow war on the other, and the presentation carries both. There are shooters you play and shooters you watch yourself play, and this one is the second kind. When I say I’m glad Call of Duty is back to being good, the look of the thing is a real part of that. The series feels expensive again — like the biggest shooter on the planet remembered it’s the biggest shooter on the planet.

Then there’s what Infinity Ward chose to build. The story runs two wars on a collision course. In Korea, you play Private Park Hyun Jun, a South Korean recruit fighting with his squad as North Korea invades the peninsula — a conventional war, fought on the ground, by a soldier who didn’t choose any of it. On the other front, Captain Price is a fugitive: he assassinated General Shepherd, Task Force 141 is disbanded, and the men he led are the ones hunting him. Looming over both fronts is Mads Mikkelsen as the Archer. It’s the most ambitious structure a Modern Warfare campaign has attempted, and for a story-first player it makes the difference you can feel — one front gives you the war, the other gives you the man the war broke, and the game keeps asking which one you’re actually fighting for.

Now the honest context for that 9, because a score without the context is just a number. The last two Call of Duties, I just couldn’t stand. I went into this one expecting to bounce off it the same way — that’s where my head was at with this series. Instead I’m sitting here before launch day telling you the campaign won me back by itself, before a single multiplayer match has been played. That’s the whole argument for the score: a series that had lost me completely earned a 9 out of 10 with the part of the package most games treat as an afterthought. Call of Duty is back to being good — not on promise, not on nostalgia. On the strength of a story I’ve actually played.

Why not a 10? Because two-thirds of the game hasn’t launched yet, and I don’t hand out perfect scores to games I haven’t finished judging. DMZ early access opens today, the full launch lands Friday, October 23, and this review gets updated when I’ve played what’s left. Two practical notes before you buy: it’s not on Game Pass at launch, so this one is a $69.99 purchase — and if you care about the ending, be careful out there, because early access means it’s already circulating. The campaign set the bar at 9. Starting Friday, the rest of the game has to clear it.