‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’ campaign review: Shock for shock’s sake

Eight hours later, with the credits rolling on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s story, the big question I have is: What is this game trying to do? 

There’s the reboot side of developer Infinity Ward’s latest Call of Duty, which works well enough. It’s not trying to reinvent popular ideas around first-person shooters the way its similarly titled 2007 predecessor did. This is more of a reintroduction, inserting a set of familiar names and faces from 10 years ago into our modern world.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the much-hyped portrayal of Captain John Price. He still sports the same no-nonsense attitude and signature handlebar mustache that made him such a memorable character in the first place, but his younger face and bright blue eyes are less grizzled warfighter, and more cut-from-the-mold Hero.

On screen, Price is an action figure that helps make set piece moments feel more lively. Off screen, he’s a disembodied voice whispering orders and intel into your ear. A typical Call of Duty level pairs off your playable character with a sort of guide who moves the story forward and serves as a human focal point for the action. In Modern Warfare, then and now, Price is one of those guides.

The new story treads parallel paths as you take control, separately, of Special Air Service Sergeant Kyle Garrick; and Alex, a CIA operative with a mysterious background. Levels flip back and forth between both men as they set off in search of answers after a terrorist attack rocks downtown London.

The Garrick thread, led by Price, spends much of its time on covert ops and detective work in urban combat settings. The Alex thread, on the other hand, focuses more directly on modern battlefields, taking us to the fictional country (and former Soviet region) of Urzikstan. His own guide, Farah Karim, leads a group of Urzikstani insurgents.

I’ve often described Call of Duty as a military combat-themed roller coaster, and that’s still true today. But the 2019 Modern Warfare‘s vision of that roller coaster, with its hyper-real graphics and ripped-from-the-headlines plot points, forces us all to face an uncomfortable question: Is it a ride that’s still worth taking?

Image: Infinity ward / activision

This is a game that turns waterboarding into a playable scenario and and suicide bombers into an enemy you meet on the battlefield. One level puts you face to face with a terrorist attack on a major city. Another forces you to watch as a terrorist leader murders a man in front of his own child, then shoots the child for good measure.

Moments like these are provocative on a primal level, speaking to the anxieties of a modern world where recent history has shown that violence can break out anywhere, at any time. It’s difficult to sit and watch, let alone play. Imagine the intensity of Modern Warfare 2‘s infamous “No Russian” level spread across an entire, eight-hour campaign.

I don’t like it. Turning the everyday atrocities of today into acts of play isn’t “fun” in the traditional sense, and this particular narrative lacks the substance to justify its more difficult moments. Infinity Ward seemingly wants to tell a story about how soldiers are shaped by circumstance, but the campaign’s propulsive energy depends too much on gratuitous shock-and-awe.

I’m sympathetic to the challenges of telling a meaningful story in the context of a first-person shooting game. It’s not easy to deliver this kind of big, sweeping narrative when you see most of it, literally, through the eyes of just one or two characters. This new Modern Warfare does at least try to deliver stronger characterizations and convey a clearer sense of a plot in motion. 

Turning the everyday atrocities of today into acts of play isn’t “fun.”

The playable main characters are fully voiced, and we even get to see them interacting with other people in more traditionally shot cutscenes. When it’s time to start playing again, the camera tracks in on whomever you’re going to control until you’re seeing the world in first-person again. It’s a neat trick, and a new one for the series, that helps to keep things clear in a fast-moving plot.

It’s not enough to make the tough stuff more palatable, though. Modern Warfare‘s core cast lacks dimension. Occasional flashback levels are ostensibly meant give us a clearer understanding of individual motivations, but they end up leaving us with an incomplete picture. Why? The roller coaster never stops, and action comes before story every time. 

The whole campaign is like that. It’s a fine approach for a video game that frames its action against a fantastical backdrop. But the almost-real world setting in Modern Warfare forces you to really grapple with what you’re doing and why — especially since the video game of it all makes you an active participant in everything that happens. Where’s the entertainment value in gunning down a brown-skinned man wearing a suicide vest?

It’s not a question Modern Warfare ever answers. On one hand, you have a story that blurs the line between freedom fighter and terrorist, forcing you to consider whose side you’re really on. On the other, “suicide bomber” is just one of the many random enemies you’ll face on the battlefield. The tension between those two ideas is left completely unexplored.

That’s why I’m left sitting here, confused, at the end of the campaign. What is this game trying to do? What does the story have to say about — no pun intended — modern warfare? Are the more challenging moments included to make some kind of point? Or is it just shock for shock’s sake?

Past Call of Duty games have often raised questions like these. This one feels different, though, even next to more recent entries that focused more directly on the “War on Terror.” Modern Warfare‘s campaign trades on the same kinds of gratuitous thrills as its predecessors, but the grim reality of 2019’s actual battlefields and terror attacks is a poor fit for the Call of Duty theme park ride.