Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is the Worst Rated in the Series
Releasing last Friday, the latest entry in the Call of Duty franchise has been panned by critics and fans alike as one of the worst renditions Activision has ever put out. Sitting at a weak 56 on Opencritic with only 4% of critics recommending it this year’s Call of Duty is accused of being more derivative and low-effort than ever before. Unfortunately, despite these low scores, it’s unlikely that Activision will suffer any loss at all with this game- considering that the IP is simply too big to fail at this point.
But why has this entry received such distain when the past couple of entries have been widely liked by critics and fans? That comes down to the failure of both the multiplayer and campaign aspects. With the multiplayer, the lack of any real new content has already left this entry feeling dry, and the re-introduction of older original Modern Warfare II maps comes off more as laziness than attempting to appease fans. The campaign, on the other hand, is far worse. With around four hours of Warzone-style gameplay and pretty much no plot, this is the weakest the franchise has ever seen by a long shot.
Image by Activision
IGN, who have notoriously been quite forgiving when it comes to Call of Duty, gave the game a brutal 4/10 in their review. They focused on how the main story is a short, rushed mess with no reason to engage with it at all:
“Underbaked, rehashed, and cobbled together from multiplayer parts, Modern Warfare 3’s single-player campaign is everything a Call of Duty story mode shouldn’t be.”
Gamerheadquarters had a similar outlook on the game- complaining that the game was just a poorly patchworked product from previous entries. They said as much in their 4/10 review:
“Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is the most minimal effort we’ve ever seen from the franchise being essentially the exact same game from the previous year. It really does feel like an expansion pack. They literally took last year’s game, sped it up and shoved maps from fourteen years ago into it.”
Image by Activision
Nothing is new in Modern Warfare III, which we should have seen coming considering the lack of creativity behind its name and marketing. The game should have stayed as a budget DLC for last year’s Modern Warfare II instead of being rushed together and pushed out as an unfinished, poor attempt at a AAA game. It seems that Activision is taking more and more notes from EA, whose yearly series repackages the old game with little to no improvements. Sadly, considering the success of that franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is destined to be one of the best-selling games of the year.
