Modern Warfare III is not free from criticism

Sloppy campaign, too heavy and too long download, bombing notes… Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Officially available on Friday, November 10, but it’s already facing fan wrath.

Barely available, already under fire. The battle started early for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IIIOn sale on Friday, November 10. It has to be said that early access to the single-player campaign rolled out last week didn’t just make people happy.

Critics quickly began heaping on the new work celebrating 20 years of the Activision franchise, with some finding it too short, others pointless and soulless. Many players even went so far as to submit negative reviews to downgrade the game even before the multiplayer and zombies modes were released on Friday… by playing the wrong game.

because this Modern Warfare III It is a reboot, 12 years later, of modern warfare 3, One of the three best-selling titles in the saga. If the Sledgehammer Games studio made a name for itself by being widely involved in the first work, it had complete control over the last game. But with half the time that the other studios participating in the annual cycle, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, provide for design.

Half the time to design the game

Because since 2009, Activision has decided to invite different developers to guarantee the release every year. Infinity Ward, the game’s creator, saw the arrival of Treyarch in the mid-2000s, and then Sledgehammer. A well-oiled rotation system, but it has been undermined since 2020. Responsible for Vanguard (2021), the California studio only had a year and a half to complete its reconsideration Modern Warfare IIIwhich arrives in the aftermath Modern Warfare II (2022)designed by Infinity Ward in three years.

For Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, this explains the cold and even disastrous reception to the game by early players who were able to pre-order it and enjoy the single-player campaign. It is also necessary that this first point is the one that crystallizes the tensions and suggests a game of undoubtedly failed design.

“A fact that could be contributing to a wave of bad reviews about the game’s story, according to people close to the development process,” he writes, who told him that the “shortened production schedule proved stressful for the development team.”

Activision’s flagship franchise fulfills the requirement of the publisher, which Microsoft recently acquired for nearly $69 billion along with Blizzard and King, of wanting to stay on top of annual sales with a new title every fall. Sometimes this comes at the expense of creativity and originality, as observers have often noted. For Jason Schreier, the rapid development of MW III It is the result of a gap in the schedule to be filled due to delays in the new version of Call of duty Tentatively planned for 2023.

“Mostly zero”

The Sledgehammer teams initially thought it was working as an extension of the previous episode, which took place in Mexico and featured Task Force 141 facing off against its enemy Makarov. It had become a game in its own right, and Activision wanted it to be “excellent,” beyond the initial warnings given to developers who only learned last year that they would be making a direct sequel. They therefore had to resume development and complete it within 16 months.

The result is clear: comments on the single-player campaign in the specialist press have not been kind, with Kotaku describing it as a “mostly zero” campaign, Gamekult speaking of its “feeling (and) recycling”, and IGN calling it “the worst single-player experience”. In franchise. And JVCom is no longer so kind and sums it up as a single-player campaign that “misses its mark”, with frustrating pacing issues. Multiplayer guests are inconsistent, which puts the experience in the category of disappointment.

While COD has long earned its reputation in the history of single-player campaigning, it’s probably multiplayer that can save this. Modern Warfare III. A recipe that changes little, but has enjoyed unparalleled success, turning the franchise into an unparalleled ATM.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC.