By Ameer Ammar
Modern Warfare 4 has the best COD campaign since MW2019. It is an excellent story that stands as some of the franchise's best ever work. After the misses of BO7/MW3, It felt like this franchise may never reach the heights it did in the early years with its storytelling, but I am happy to report that MW4's campaign is a stellar conclusion to the rebooted Modern Warfare saga.
STORY
Modern Warfare 4 takes place three years after the ending of MW3, with Captain Price going rogue after taking out Shepard. The campaign follows Price as he "crosses the line" and faces off against his very own Task Force 141 in order to achieve his goal of taking out the Archer, played by Mads Mikkelsen. 
The other half of the plot centers around a North Korean invasion of South Korea, playing as Private Park as the invasion unfolds, alongside various other perspectives around this conflict.
I absolutely loved MW4's story. It is an enthralling, breakneck-paced tale. It brings together all my favourite characters with Price/Ghost/Gaz and pits them against each other in some of this franchise's best-written moments. Any fears I had of the plot potentially cheapening out and quickly resolving this long-hyped conflict are entirely gone. The Archer is easily the best villain that COD has had in many years, he has clear motivations, an actual background, a reason to hate our characters, and is played incredibly by the always awesome Mads Mikkelsen.
Captain Price, Ghost, and Gaz have always been beloved for good reason, and MW4 manages to give these characters their most emotional story so far. There's a deep sense of loss in these characters since they lost Soap in MW3, Price acts more like the Punisher, and in general, it feels like this family has been entirely broken by the events of the trilogy. In comparison to the old original MW trilogy, this MW4 campaign almost feels like an extended epilogue. Where Soap's death in the original MW3 was near the ending, the characters here get a full game to grapple with the reality of what has happened.
The second half of the campaign, the one focused on the Korean conflict, is less plot-heavy and instead far more focused on the conflict itself. It very much is focused on spectacle and is where those huge battle moments that COD campaigns are known for happen. It does have its moments, however, and I found the cast of marines to be lovable by the end.
MW4's biggest upgrade over the last few COD campaigns is that it actually feels consequential— none of that "we are too scared to kill any major character because we wanna bring them back in the post-launch seasons!" issue that’s been plaguing the storytelling for years now. Instead, things feel truly final here. Important deaths absolutely do happen, and it very much feels like the writers do not hold back one bit on making sure all arcs are properly paid off here in the campaign alone. Without relying on the post-launch cutscenes to actually wrap it up.
Overall, this is easily COD's strongest story in years. It avoids all the pitfalls of the duds that were MW3/BO7, it avoids BO6's issue of having a weak villain and failing to wrap up its own story in the campaign, overall resulting in MW4's campaign being easily the best COD campaign since MW2019 and maybe even surpassing that one. Infinity Ward have truly cooked writing-wise here.
GAMEPLAY
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4's campaign plays like a COD campaign, so there isn't anything groundbreaking in its core gameplay design. What it does, however, offer is a whole load of unique gameplay scenarios. One mission you quite literally are thrown into a John Wick-style nightclub with just a pistol to take on an army of thugs. Another mission has you fighting through trench warfare. The levels in general are quite open and do avoid that feeling of being too linear that older COD games had.
They did add a melee combat in this game, complete with a parry system. It's pretty fun and a nice change of pace from the usual COD gameplay. The finishers especially are animated very well and give the fights a great feel.
There's one mission that tries the open-world style once again, that was attempted in MW3/BO6/BO7 and honestly, this ended up being my least favorite part of the game. While the rest of the campaign is at breakneck speed, this one mission really does slow things down, and it’s the one 20-minute stretch of game that I felt MW4 lets up and gets far too slow for my own taste. I would prefer if this franchise stops experimenting with open-world missions. It feels like they always let down what most of us play COD campaigns for, which is intricately crafted setpieces.
And speaking of those setpieces, they are in huge abundance in MW4. After how disappointing and empty MW3 felt, MW4 has constant setpieces, car chases, massive destruction sequences, and large battles. Infinity Ward has done a fantastic job making this campaign feel as big as it does. It has a couple of moments of silliness, but it’s COD so that’s expected. I'd honestly love to be more specific on which setpieces stood out to me, but I want to avoid spoilers. All I will say is that everything involving Price was my favorite.
Overall, the gameplay is about what you expect from COD but the major setpieces do make this campaign stand out in a major way. No level is as memorable as the Zombies level from BO6, but pretty much all levels are fun to get through and consistently offer big setpieces.
GRAPHICS
COD has honestly looked the same for a while since MW2019. MW4 is a very beautiful game, and it is quite a step up from BO7 and MW3 but it’s not radically better than, say, MW2019. The main improvement is in-game facial animations, which are getting to a point where they rival the CGI cutscenes. Explosion effects look way better as well, but overall, COD has looked fantastic for quite a long while. So there isn't anything too major here to write home about.
MW4 performed perfectly on my PS5 Pro. It runs at a locked 60FPS, with zero noticeable drops. It also looks absolutely gorgeous and high-res. COD games have been well optimized for a long while, so no real surprise here.
FINAL VERDICT
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4's campaign is genuinely fantastic. It is the best COD campaign since MW2019. It avoids the many pitfalls of the last few COD campaigns by having well-designed levels, extremely strong writing that stands as one of the best-written stories in the franchise, and is just a great ending to this rebooted Modern Warfare series.
It is also a vast improvement over last year's BO7 and especially MW3, I did not think they could possibly salvage this story after MW3 dropped the ball, but Infinity Ward absolutely delivered this year.
Modern Warfare 4 CAMPAIGN - 9/10 - FANTASTIC