Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Single-Player Campaign Runs it Back to the Highs of the Series

A fair warning to fans of the Emmy Award-winning first season of the Netflix show Beef who will fire up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s single-player campaign in the coming days and weeks: it’s going to be difficult - but also funny - to make peace with seeing Steven Yeun’s slacker younger brother (Young Mazino) and Ali Wong’s flaccid husband (Joseph Lee) become soldiers tasked with one suicide mission after another in order to save South Korea from an invasion by North Korea.

Unlike Mads Mikkelsen’s Archer, who fits right in the actor’s wheelhouse for portraying charismatic villains that thread the needle between believable and parody, Mazino and Lee, along with the rest of their squad, need to sell you on their brotherhood and the hell that they endure. It’s not unlike the brotherhood that Captain John Price had with Task Force 141 before they got put through the wringer of a solid 2019 reboot followed by two lackluster entries that left fans wondering if they should even care about Price’s quest for vengeance by any means necessary.

Modern Warfare 4’s single-player campaign brings the series back to what veterans of the franchise and lapsed gamers who play a new Call of Duty every three or four years are familiar with: explosive set pieces set in places new and old with gameplay that feels so natural that hopping back on board feels like no time has been lost. While the familiarity (along with some slightly new material) might leave some gamers wanting for something they haven’t seen or experienced before, Modern Warfare 4 is proof that Infinity Ward can still put together a fireworks show with an unmatched level of production and technical polish.

What is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4?

Modern Warfare 4 is the fourth game in the rebooted Modern Warfare series that began in 2019. It is scheduled to release on October 23, 2026, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch 2 (no, seriously), and PC. The game comes in both physical and digital versions for $69.99. People who purchased the $99.99 Vault Edition of the game were able to start playing the single-player campaign via early access starting on October 16.

For the gamers who check in on Call of Duty from time to time, this is not the fourth game in the original trilogy that ran from 2007 to 2011. The reboot brings back a lot of the familiar faces like Price, Soap, Ghost, and series antagonist Vladimir Makarov, but in a totally different setting that feels more grounded, unlike the all-out World War III scenario from the first go-around.

While 2019 Modern Warfare was a solid next-generation kickoff for Price and the 141 crew, 2022’s Modern Warfare 2 and 2023’s Modern Warfare 3 were a step back from a narrative perspective as Infinity Ward (MW2) and Sledgehammer (MW3) chased the shooter trends of the time. The stories were half-baked and seemingly shoehorned in just so the back of the box could say that it does have a single-player campaign.

What to Expect in Modern Warfare 4

The four years between Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 4 gave Infinity Ward enough time to course-correct the single-player campaign. The disjointed story and shockingly short length of Modern Warfare 3 are replaced by a robust roller coaster ride that is loaded with memorable set pieces and detail-rich locations that leave no doubt where the money the franchise earns on a yearly basis went. The global conflict that bounces back and forth in both location and time (from New York five days before the North Korean invasion to behind enemy lines in the present) weaves the loose connective tissue between Captain Price’s solo quest and Private Park’s run in a way that never leaves people missing one or the other.

Nostalgia kicks in frequently in Modern Warfare 4 as Infinity Ward brings back the classic tropes that fans will be able to point out from the moment the cutscene ends. The movement and the gunplay are as familiar and reliable as the top-tier entries in the franchise. A bombastic cold open is not something unique to Call of Duty, but the mission that tries to recreate the shock of “No Russian” is a high that both the fans and the franchise have been trying to chase ever since. Storming the beach of Normandy is a harrowing moment in history that has been recreated by all forms of entertainment so much that it has almost lost all meaning, so setting it in South Korea is an interesting inversion that needs to be experienced if only for the amazing sound design.

Stealth missions are every bit the frustrating chore that they always are, and the hand-to-hand combat bits have a tendency to devolve into button mashing just to move on to the next thing. With the exception of a very few and very select number of characters, getting attached to anybody in Call of Duty is a foolish game, and Modern Warfare 4 addresses the flaws of the previous two entries in ways that should not come as a surprise.

Like a best-of compilation album that throws in new tracks, Modern Warfare 4 intersperses slightly new material in between the hits. Price’s early missions drop you into New York for a chase that would not feel out of place in a Jason Bourne or John Wick joint, and a car chase across an exquisitely designed Paris that will have you wishing you could stop and plot out the route it takes on a real map. And the one break from the linear path sends Park and the rest of the gang into a no-way-out scenario in the middle of North Korea where you have to gather resources and complete a trio of missions with plenty of side quests on a large map. As a not-so-secret tutorial for the game’s upcoming extraction DMZ mode, it’s a welcome change of pace. And as if to acknowledge the people who play the Call of Duty single-player campaign for the fireworks show, you can skip the traversal parts and just finish the required missions before getting on with the rest of the game.

The Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Modern Warfare 4 mitigates the damage done by Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3. It gives those who were curious enough to experience the entire Price story a fitting conclusion that ends the current run while resetting the clock should they decide to reboot their reboot. The level of polish in the controls and the systems makes the janky moments especially glaring, but the hope is not that the newer ideas are abandoned. They need to be iterated upon until it’s good enough for the preeminent series within Call of Duty.

This review is based on the single-player campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Code was provided by Activision.

Juan Martinez

From video game journalism to veteran of the sneaker blog era to podcasting about well, everything, Juan is smiling through it all and can't believe this is his life. His current hot take is that people are really underrating the Psyduck trading card market. Email: juan@soleretriever.com Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Threads : @ezyville