We’re finally into the silly season of E3 as more and more teasers come out for the biggest upcoming games of this year. One of these is the Call of Duty franchise. We’ve had over a dozen mainstream Call of Duty games coming out every year thanks to three separate developers alternating the entries between them. While the Call of Duty brand has started to dwindle a bit over the past few years as the fans reminisce the good old times of the original Modern Warfare, the franchise itself is far from done. The last entry in the franchise was Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 which had a futuristic spin to it. It was also the first Call of Duty game to actually have a proper Battle Royale game mode in the form of Blackout. Since Treyarch develops Black Ops, this year was Infinity Ward’s turn for a Call of Duty game.
Infinity Ward is the original developer of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series which was arguably the golden age for the Call of Duty franchise. One of the main reasons for the massive success of the Modern Warfare series was its single player campaign which had memorable characters and a great storyline. Call of Duty has been gradually moving away from that formula over the years with the last year’s Black Ops 4 not even having a single player campaign. The fans have not been particularly happy with the change and have been rallying for a return of the classic single player story mode. Well, it looks like our wishes have finally come true as Infinity Ward has announced the latest entry in the Call of Duty Franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Now, you might ask, we’ve already had a Modern Warfare game in the past so why is the new Modern Warfare game not called Modern Warfare 4? Well, it is because the game is not actually a sequel to Modern Warfare 3 but is rather a reboot of the original franchise. Here’s the full trailer for the reveal.
Returning to the Roots
With Modern Warfare, Call of Duty is taking a step back from all of its recent futuristic shenanigans and is going back to what made the franchise so popular. Call of Duty Modern Warfare will have a fully-fledged single player story campaign that would focus on the modern day realistic warfare. The Modern Warfare games are known for their gritty, realistic, dark and sometimes controversial storylines and this would be no different. The main storyline of the game is split into two parts with the first one putting you into the boots of a special forces soldier while later on you’ll be able to play as a rebel fighter in the Middle East. This will diversify the gameplay and level design of the game to heights which we haven’t seen before from a Call of Duty game.
The horizons of the storyline in Modern Warfare will also be much broader. Thanks to the advancement in tech over the years, we’ll be able to see the bigger picture in the story rather than focusing on things through the perspective of a single person. Modern Warfare will thus include things like public struggles, political mind games and just a generally much deeper plot as compared to previous games. Other than that, Modern Warfare will also have some familiar faces returning to the franchise with the most notable one being Captain Price. Even though he is voiced by a new actor, it is still great to have such an iconic character returning to the series. Modern Warfare’s story will revolve around the Russian relations with the Middle East and terrorist organizations.
The Multiplayer
As far as the multiplayer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is concerned, Infinity Ward did not give out too many details as it is still preparing for a big reveal at E3. However, we did get a rough idea of what it is going to be like. Modern Warfare will connect the single player campaign with the multiplayer. For example, the perks, killstreaks and weapons you unlock while playing through the single player campaign will then move on to the multiplayer mode. Call of Duty Modern Warfare, thankfully, will also not feature any form of Season Pass and post release maps and events will be available to all the players for free. We have not had a confirmation on whether Modern Warfare has a battle royale mode though. It would be interesting to see Infinity Ward’s take on the popular genre.
In another win for the fans, Infinity Ward announced that Call of Duty Modern Warfare’s multiplayer mode will feature full cross platform play. This means that players on PS4, Xbox One, and PC will be able to match up and play together. One thing that does remain from the previous franchises is the timed-exclusivity for the DLCs on PS4 meaning that most DLCs will drop on the PS4 first.
Release Date
The original Call of Duty Modern Warfare came out way back in 2007, over a decade ago and instantly became one of the biggest games of all time. We even got a remastered version of the Modern Warfare for the current-gen consoles in 2016 however the reboot is an entirely new and separate game.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare comes out on October 25th for PS4, PC and the Xbox One. We also expect to know more about the game at E3 during a press conference on June 11.
Call of Duty Mobile is also currently in beta and has a fair amount of hype around it. With Modern Warfare also coming out in October, this could potentially prove to be one of the biggest years for Call of Duty franchise and could propel it into the industry lead once again. I don’t remember being this excited for a Call of Duty game since Black Ops 2 came out many years ago. It would be interesting to see how much the original idea of Modern Warfare has evolved over the years. If it is anything like the original games, Activision can have my money.