Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 Review: A Dolphin Dive in the Right Direction

The Call of Duty series needed a win this year. Last year’s Black Ops 7 was a clown car of bad decisions, featuring an always-online campaign mode with ridiculous zombie bosses and open-world Warzone. Worse still, the multiplayer mode (the only reason that many people buy the game) was entirely forgettable. Developer Treyarch was tasked with putting out Call of Duty games two years in a row — that crunch was a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, that means Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward had plenty of time to cook up the fourth and final entry in its own series. Thankfully, the studio used that extra runway to its advantage. Modern Warfare 4 may not have returned Call of Duty to the highest highs of the original trilogy that ended in 2009 (and which Infinity Ward rebooted over the last decade), but this is a leap in the right direction for a series that has become increasingly sloppy in recent years.

Players will find plenty of cinematic action in the single-player campaign, and the multiplayer mode has slowed down just a touch, which I think the game largely benefits from.

More importantly, Modern Warfare Zombies has been completely dropped in favor of DMZ, an accessible player-versus-player-versus-AI extraction shooter experience. The experimental swing feels like a lifeline for the series, and DMZ is the standout mode for the game.

The campaign identity crisis is (mostly) resolved

Modern Warfare 4 is a tighter game than Infinity Ward’s previous project, and it’s leagues better than Black Ops 7.

At the same time, it has a complicated campaign to crack open (and not because the plot is hard to follow). Players flit back and forth between the perspective of Captain John Price, longtime protagonist of the series, and South Korean soldier Park Hyun-Jun, a newcomer whose squad is fighting for his homeland. A battle rages against a united coalition of Russian and North Korean ultranationalists, who are blazing a path into other territories.

Russian bad actors have been the primary antagonists of every Modern Warfare game, and it’s actually really cool to see South Korea’s positive representation in a Call of Duty title. But the propaganda is laid on thick — Russia and North Korea are presented as sneering colonialist powers, while the Western world’s soldiers are a shield on every front.

Americans spearhead the fight against imperialism; forget about the Strait of Hormuz and gun down these unambiguously bad guys. The whole plot hinges on a somehow less-subtle Red Dawn-type of scenario, and the gung-ho military politics are absolutely nauseating this time around. Sure, Price is framed as morally gray — he’s working with a cartel to achieve his goals, and there’s boring melodrama where he comes to blows with his former allies — but he’s vindicated in the end because he is the type of Call of Duty leader that prevents global conflict.

Modern Warfare 4 also features an obligatory shockingly graphic mission, which is something of a tradition for the series. In it, you play as a North Korean soldier rounding up and executing the occupants of a small village for hiding a defector. During my playthrough, I earned an achievement for successfully interrogating a villager without beating them down. The whole affair is gratuitous, gross and gamified in a problematic way, exacerbated by the bizarre decision to continue making this kind of mission a mainstay in each game.

It’s a shame that the story is so trite and icky because the tentpole action is really good. The best mission takes place early in the campaign, when Price infiltrates a New York nightclub to search for a Russian oligarch. Bright lights and pulsing music contrast with brutal fistfights and gunplay — it’s like playing through the climax of a John Wick film. From there, the highlights keep coming: There’s a fight in a train yard where the cover moves on rails, a chase scene across Mumbai rooftops, a high-stakes nighttime penthouse raid and a full-out assault on a dictator’s compound.

But the worst mission in the campaign repeats the mistakes of other modern Call of Duty games. When the player’s squad initially counterattacks North Korean airspace, they’re shot down and have to survive behind enemy lines with scavenged gear. It’s an interesting setup that is completely wasted on a Warzone-like, open-world mission with a checklist of more than 50 optional collectibles to seek out.

The few puzzles that exist are mind-numbingly easy — despite my best efforts, I checked out after completing around half of the activities. I focused on the main objective to end the mission as soon as possible, which is just about the worst feeling to have while playing a game.

I don’t know if there’s an edict from up top to put one of these open-world missions in each new game to funnel players into Warzone, but they don’t work at all and are the worst part of any campaign.

Still, the folks that play the campaign will probably have a good time here. Players can explore tons of cool locales, and the enemies are surprisingly difficult this time around. Still, if you care about the loose narrative implications of a Call of Duty campaign, it’s tough to wash the bad taste out of your mouth.

DMZ is better than Warzone and a welcome reprieve from Zombies

DMZ, a fairly accessible extraction shooter game mode, returns with new content for the first time since its “beta” ended in 2023. Players have been mourning what could have been for years, but it seems like the developers at Infinity Ward have been tinkering with it in the background for quite some time.

And their hard work has paid off because I’m confident that DMZ is the standout mode for Modern Warfare 4.

This extraction shooter is perhaps simpler than even ARC Raiders, but that’s part of the appeal. Players drop into North Korea to loot, fight each other and take down key targets throughout the map.

Everything is streamlined and easy to understand, including the loot. During play, you will come across several types of scrap, an assortment of healing items and tons of weapons, so you don’t have to think too hard about what to grab. Just move, shoot and pull out high-value items, then run the loop again.

The enemy AI is surprisingly aggressive and fun to battle against, especially when you run into an overwhelming number of troops. Armored vehicles and helicopters will try to smear you into the dirt. It’s an adrenaline rush, and as far as I’m concerned, Infinity Ward nailed the really important part of DMZ. It’s tough to get the player-versus-AI balance right, but these enemies feel like a real threat.

Other players might also come for your loot, which is what sometimes puts folks off of the extraction genre altogether. But DMZ’s in-depth bounty system provides a foil to player-versus-player gameplay.

Folks who hunt down other players rack up a bounty and appear on the map, so pacifists have a better chance to steer clear while bounty hunters stalk them down. It’s a pretty genius compromise that encourages the player-versus-player enjoyers to butt heads while the player-versus-environment crowd hides away because the tension of a potential run-in with aggressors is never truly alleviated.

I’m concerned that the pared-down simplicity of the gameplay loop could hurt DMZ’s long-term success, but Infinity Ward seems committed to adding new world bosses. That could really shake up how matches play out, even if there’s nothing as over-the-top as Marathon’s Cryo Archive boss.

DMZ isn’t perfect, but I see the groundwork laid for one of the better extraction shooters I’ve played. Depending on how the development team builds on this game mode, I can see it becoming something special (and maybe even a Call of Duty mainstay for years to come).

Multiplayer remains quick, but it’s heavier and grounded

Call me an oldhead, I don’t care: Black Ops 7’s omnimovement system, which allowed players to run, jump and slide around while looking in any direction, was disastrous for Call of Duty game balance.

Treyarch’s update to the formula might work for massive Warzone maps where there’s plenty of open space and a higher time-to-kill for other players, but the smaller multiplayer maps become impossible to breathe on. Call of Duty is, first and foremost, an arcade shooter, but the multiplayer formula still works best when there’s time to recoup and recover, make tactical flanks and call in your scorestreaks.

Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 4 removes the omnimovement system, but it still allows players to sprint, slide and dolphin dive around at appreciably high speeds. The new mantling mechanic adds some traversal options, but everyone feels a little heavier.

The slightly slower six-versus-six matches feel great, and the larger modes are a bit less chaotic. The Modern Warfare games have always skewed closer to classic boots-on-the-ground Call of Duty, and the latest entry doesn’t disappoint in that regard.

Still, the fatal flaws of the modern Call of Duty formula have gone untouched. There remain more than 70 attachments for many weapons. Many modes have maps cut out of larger Warzone areas. The seemingly mandatory 24/7 Shipment playlist is being added soon to prey upon your nostalgia. Progression needs to synergize across a complete Modern Warfare 4 product, so unnecessary bloat exists everywhere you look.

This is a solid modern Call of Duty game, but the overall quality is still a far cry from the series’ heyday. In a post-Warzone world, this is about as good as it gets — but if that formula doesn’t work for you, it might be worth steering clear of Modern Warfare 4.

Tyler is a writer for CNET covering laptops and video games. He’s previously covered mobile devices, home energy products and broadband. He came to CNET straight out of college, where he graduated from Seton Hall with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. When Tyler’s not asking questions or doing research for his next assignment, you can find him in his home state of New Jersey, kicking back with a bagel and watching an action flick or playing a new video game.

You can reach him at tgraham@cnet.com.

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