Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is the 2023 entry in Activision’s military shooter series, developed primarily by Sledgehammer Games with support from Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Raven Software, Beenox, High Moon Studios, and others. Released on November 10, 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, it directly follows 2022’s Modern Warfare II and continues the rebooted Modern Warfare storyline that began in 2019.

Its campaign centers on Vladimir Makarov, the ultranationalist antagonist teased at the end of Modern Warfare II. The opening mission, “Operation 627,” shows Konni forces breaking him out of the Zordaya Prison Complex in Verdansk, reintroducing a location strongly associated with Call of Duty: Warzone. Task Force 141, led by Captain John Price and including Ghost, Gaz, and Soap MacTavish, works with allies such as Farah Karim and Alex Keller to stop Makarov’s false-flag operations, chemical weapon plans, and attempts to ignite war between Russia and the West. The story is especially notable for killing Soap, a major Modern Warfare character, during the finale, and for its post-credits scene in which Price confronts and kills General Shepherd.

Modern Warfare III also introduced “Open Combat Missions,” campaign levels built with wider spaces, supply crates, vehicles, and multiple routes instead of only linear set pieces. This design was marketed as giving players more choice, though the campaign became one of the game’s most criticized elements because many reviewers found it short and unevenly paced.

The multiplayer component leaned heavily on series history: at launch, all sixteen original launch maps from 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 returned as rebuilt arenas, including Rust, Terminal, Afghan, Favela, Highrise, Karachi, Quarry, Scrapyard, Skidrow, Sub Base, Underpass, and Wasteland. The game restored features many players had requested after Modern Warfare II, including red dots on the minimap when unsuppressed weapons fire, map voting, slide canceling, and a higher 150-health time-to-kill.

Modern Warfare III was also the first Modern Warfare title to include Zombies. Treyarch helped build Modern Warfare Zombies, an open-world PvE extraction mode set in Urzikstan, where Operation Deadbolt fights undead outbreaks linked to Victor Zakhaev and the Dark Aether storyline. In December 2023, Season 1 connected the game to Call of Duty: Warzone with the new Urzikstan map.