Is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 actually good?

Now that the beta is over with and the release looming, we’ve had plenty of time to play, and get excited about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, but is it actually good? Well, that’s a loaded question, and it’s not quite a black-and-white yes or no… but yes, it’s actually rather good. Now, don’t get us wrong, COD 2023 has its downsides, and we’ll talk about the issues with MWIII, but overwhelmingly, it’s actually quite a fun game, and we think it’s something that we, as fans have been crying out for over the past few iterations of the FPS Series.

Sledgehammer games lead the development of COD 2023 (MWIII) – and you wouldn’t believe that it’s the first time Sledgehammer has led the development of a Call of Duty game – because it plays, and works really well. We know that the past few Call of Duty games has been quite turbulent, and quite honestly, a few of the most recent COD games have sucked pretty hard, but we’re excited about MWIII, it’s an ambitious take from Sledgehammer games, and we can’t wait to get our hands on the full game.

The past few Call of Duty’s – were they good?

Starting with Cold War, the COD that introduced Call of Duty Warzone – the game was fun, it introduced fantastic movement mechanics into the world of Call of Duty that we’ve never seen before. The introduction of Warzone with Cold War very quickly became a top 3 game for thousands of players, us included – but it wasn’t perfect. Cold War was broken for most of its life, and the maps were bad, like, really bad. Cold War maps were too big, broke away from the battle-tested 3-lane Call of Duty approach, and really muddied the water. The reviews for Call of Duty Cold War were mixed, but it can’t be denied that the game kickstarted a new era for the FPS series.

After Cold War, we saw vanguard, and fans were not happy. Reviews for Vanguard were negative – we wanted something modern-day, not another COD based in the past. It played well, and the guns were mostly balanced, but once again the maps in Vanguard were tragically bad, the worst we’ve seen in a long time. Broken spawns and poor direction made playing Vanguard infuriating at best, and downright unplayable at worst. The general idea is that Call of Duty Vanguard was a bad game.

Shortly after the release of Vanguard, Warzone was updated to reduce movement mechanics and introduced the Vanguard guns, which were broken – seriously broken. Vanguard guns in Warzone were extremely overpowered, had little recoil and introduced the meta culture which saw the developers chasing their tails to patch guns with nerfs and buffs to even the playing field in Warzone. It didn’t work.

Call of Duty MWII was a step in the right direction, it brought us back to a modern-day Call of Duty, with well-balanced guns and maps that were much better, if a little too big – they worked, and the guns were fun to play with. The downside of MWII is that movement mechanics were completely ruined, and the skill gap in the game was reduced massively, in an attempt to introduce casual players to not only MWII, but Warzone 2 as well.

What makes Call of Duty good?

Ask 10 different people what makes COD good, and sure you’ll get a few matching points, but no one answer will be the same. Some people love the competitive nature of Call of Duty, and some love casual approach to hopping on and playing. A good chunk of people will tell you that Zombies is the best thing in Call of Duty, and others will say that Warzone is their favourite aspect of the FPS game.

I can’t speak for everyone when I answer this, and it’s a dilemma that the developers face with every new release of Call of Duty – “How can we make this game good?”. Of course, there are some bog-standard aspects that make a good Call of Duty game, but there are so many more things that people just can’t agree on that makes it near impossible to have the game appeal to everyone.

What we think makes a good Call of Duty game:

1. Good map design. Before around 2018, Call of Duty maps more often than not were designed around 3 main corridors of combat, which gave the game a clear path to action, but also allowed players to be tactical when it came to objective-based modes like Search & Destroy – allowing players to choose between heading straight to the action or attempting to flank their opponents and get the drop on unsuspending enemies. The newer Call of Duty map design has branched away from this model, opting for a more open-world approach to map design – and for the most part, COD players aren’t fans of the new design. It’s like they tried to take what COD did best, throw it away and attempt to emulate games like Battlefield who shine in large open combat arenas. COD MWIII Maps, as we know are taken straight from the original MW2, bringing back that classic gameplay loop with fan-favourite maps.

2. Skill-based matchmaking. The general idea is that Skill-based matchmaking is great for casual players because the servers in Call of Duty use SBMM to pair you with players of the same pace. In theory, this sounds great, but in practice, it makes every game a challenge to perform well – and if you do, the SBMM algorithm dumps you into a lobby well above your pay grade. Is SBMM good? Yeah, it can be, but it takes the replayability of the game away, making COD feel more like a continuous grind.

3. Balanced weapons. Obviously having balanced guns in an FPS game like Call of Duty is a must-have. COD often does a good job of balancing their guns, but in MWII guns were certainly not balanced well. The meta culture saw shotguns erupt into popularity in COD MWII, making the meta a hard-to-break one for the developers. From what we’ve seen, guns in MWIII are actually pretty balanced right now, albeit if the Striker is a little powerful, each gun plays well within its category. MWIII SMGs work well at short-medium ranges, and ARs work well at medium-long ranges. All in all, Modern Warfare III has done a good job of weapon balancing.

4. Good Progression. Solid Progression is a must in a game that has to last you 1-2 years, actually, the most recent CODs have done a fantastic job with the season-based approach. We expect COD MWIII progression to be no different, with Modern Warfare III introducing a battlepass and seasons to keep things fresh and exciting. However, it’s known for the battlepass to introduce new store items which are intentionally overpowered before the developers eventually nerf them. This intentional buffing of store-based blueprints is a pretty scummy tactic to generate easy revenue, and we hope it’s not a pattern we continue to see moving into MWIII. In Vanguard, we saw the first season of the battlepass was extremely delayed. We hope that MWIII provides an immediate stream of content to keep us engaged with the game, outside of Warzone.

Is Call of Duty MWIII Good?

Like we said, answering the question of is Modern Warfare III good is hard, because our taste will be different to yours. We are looking at the game with the flavour of someone who has played COD for 5-8 years loves the competitive aspect of Call of Duty. We’ve summed up our thoughts:

1. MWIII brings back minimap pings = good. Sledgehammer have reintroduced red dot minimap pings when shooting, and this is a huge positive for Modern Warfare III. It incentivises players to pay attention to the map, and offers a good reason to use a surpresser instead of a recoil-stopping barrel, making the dynamic range of guns much larger to set different playstyles in MWIII.

2. MWIII Movement is fast. Fast Movement mechanics in Modern Warfare III have got us excited to get back into the game and learn the system to move fast and avoid targets. Strategic movement to get around your enemy and avoid their bullets is back in COD 2023, and we can imagine that it will significantly raise the skill-gap. We’re excited to see good players get rewarded in MWIII.

3. MWIII Guns are balanced quite well. Yes, the Striker is by far the best option to use right now, but we expect that to change with the launch of MWIII, and for the guns to see some more fine-tuning. Overall though, gunplay in MWIII is fast, crisp and well thought-out by the developers, and their attention to weapon balancing in MWIII Multiplayer shines through. A+ here.

4. 3-lane map design is back in MWIII. Classic Call of Duty map design is back thanks to Sledgehammer Games choosing to bring back the original maps from COD MW2. The 3-lane approach to map making is a winning strategy that sticks close to the formula that COD players love, and the MW2 maps are no different.

5. MWIII Introduces new exciting modes. Call of Duty Modern Warfare III looks like it will introduce some really fun new modes. One of those new modes is that of Cut Throat, which takes the classic Gun fight mode and invites a 3rd team, bringing a fresh new mechanic to the mode that has quickly became a fan favourite, MWIII’s new rendition of Gun fight with Cut Throat is exciting and creates a new dynamic on the maps, and we’re excited to properly get to grips with the mode.

What makes COD Modern Warfare 3 good?

Reading the above, you’ll quickly see that we really enjoy COD 2023, and we truly belive that it has the potential to become one of, if not the best in the series over recent years. The Approach taken to MWIII by Sledgehammer Games is clear. Bring back old, loved maps and gameplay mechanics, and so far they have done a stellar job of combining the favourite features of recent – and not so recent – COD games, to create what we believe to become the next fan-favourite instalment in the series.

This is not to say the game is perfect though, MWIII definitely has some negatives and weak areas that still need work, and we’ll cover those further along in our review of the game.

Will COD MWIII Zombies be good?

Really, so far we don’t know all that much about MWIII Zombies, and why they even chose to drop Zombies into the Modern Warfare universe – for the first time in the history of the game’s universe. Our best bet is that the collection of developers really do want to create a game that caters to all of the players, from MP, campaign, and Warzone all the way to zombies players who would’ve otherwise been neglected for the 2nd year in a row.

MWIII zombies has kicked up some mixed reactions due to the fact that it’s a time-based mode, with a timer of 60 minutes which can be extended if you choose to commit to a special event within the game. A lot of Zombies players enjoy a 2, even three-hour session, and the time limit has a left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth of some Zombies fans.

Who is working on MWIII Zombies?

As usual, father of zombies and obvious specialist, Treyarch are leading the development of the Zombies portion of MWIII, and while we have complete faith that the gameplay will be good, we aren’t sold on the time limit. We would definitely rather an infinite or round-based mode instead.

Why does MWIII Zombies have a time limit?

We don’t know. We think it’s due to progression, and the fact that each lobby will be PvE, which means you’ll be playing alongside other real players. It looks like they don’t want lobbies to get stale, or for teams to feel the need to back out if a game drags on for too long – but really, wqe have no idea why there is a time limit. There’s been speculation that they will introduce a round-based mode, but that is not yet confirmed.

The downsides of Call of Duty MWIII

Like we said, MWIII is good, but there are downsides, negatives and areas we think need to be improved upon. The biggest problem with COD MWIII right now is enemy visibility. There’s also an issue with shots not connecting, also known as hit-reg that we’ve noticed on specific maps, strangely.

MWIII Visibility is bad

The Visibility in MWIII right now is bad. It’s hard to decipher who’s friendly and who’s an enemy at first glance, which makes you inadvertently shoot at your teammates, this seems harmless enough but once you remember you up on ping on the mini-map, it can become quite sinister. Modern Warfare III visibility was fine in the early builds of the game, which displayed an outline around enemies, but for some reason it was removed, thus ruining visibility.

Hit-reg in MWIII is iffy

On some maps, especially favela, we’ve noticed that some shots simply don’t hit – this is almost confirmed to be a hit-reg problem, and for a triple-A shooter like MWIII, Hit-reg problems are unacceptable. Battlefield 2042 was plagued with hit-reg problems, and it nearly ruined the playerbase after an already turbulent launch.

Verdict

We hope you found some value in our MWIII Review. We think the game is good, and it has a promising future. We’re excited to see what MWIII has to offer, especially the Zombies aspect of the game. Is Modern Warfare 3 actually good? Well, yeah, it is!