News - All Easter Egg References Modern Warfare 3 (2023) Cod4, Warzone 2, Mw3, Cold War
The Modern Warfare 3 campaign has tons of references and Easter eggs to older games. We're talking Cod 4 Modern Warfare 2, the original Modern Warfare 3 ghosts, all of Duty: Black Ops, and Modern Warfare 2019, so let's go over every single one. I'll be a spoiler if you've not finished the campaign yet.
Starting things off with the very first mission is the obvious Easter egg reference to the original Modern Warfare 2. The first mission is called Operation 627, in which you scale the goolag to try and rescue prisoner 627. Now this parallels the IDE identical scenario in the original Modern Warfare 2, where, with soap as Task Force 1, you go into the goolag to try and rescue prisoner 627.
It is the exact same goolag in the exact same place, but things are handled a lot more brutally in 2023. When the OG Modern Warfare 2 prisoner 627 was Captain Price, in the new Modern Warfare 3, there is a parallel where it's not Captain Price that you're rescuing, but it's actually Vladimir Marov.
It's super cool how they flipped expectations. Now, not only does this mission mirror the original Modern Warfare 2 goolag breakout, but there's one quote from Macarrov later in this mission that actually calls back to Black Ops. One, now the last time we heard rain fire was from Victor Resov in Black Ops 1's vuta breakout, he says, This, great fire Pretty cool now.
Throughout Modern Warfare 3's campaign, there were quite a few references to everyone's beloved Verdansk from Modern Warfare 2019. What you might not realize is that in the second mission, Precious Cargo, as Farah Kareim, you're exploring this North Port, which is in Ekhan. However, one of the main buildings that you have to explore can be found multiple times throughout the Dan in MW 2019.
As soon as you enter this building and you're on the lower parts where you can see the garages that are shut off, you immediately get the memories of being inside these sorts of buildings when you played on vians many years ago. Jumping over to the campaign mission Deep Cover, you are playing as Kate Lawell, sneaking around the Arlo base from vians completely undercover, so no gun concealed, just sort of free roaming around some of the background details with the MPCs.
And the vehicles moving around felt very similar to the walkaround of the very first level FNG from Call of Duty 4, wherein you were also free roaming with no weapon, which is something you typically don't do in a Call of Duty game. Further on in that level, Kate Lazell meets up with a new character called Ururi Volov.
This is an obvious reference to the character Yuri from the original Modern Warfare. Now the original Yuri was a very important character in the Modern Warfare timeline, as he was not only a close friend of Vladimir Makarov and served alongside him; he then served with the Loyalists and task force for one.
Now it's heavily implied that this new Yuri character in Modern Warfare 3 is based off the original Yuri as he mentions that Russia and the West face similar threats from within; it's imperative that we collaborate to control them, meaning he's on both sides, but then drops this Easter egg. Quote.
Now this is an iconic Captain Price line from the original Modern Warfare 2 mission: The enemy is my enemy, Marov. You ever hear the old saying, The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Yuri's delivery in Modern Warfare 3 is slightly rewarded but is essentially saying the exact same thing. Now this is an Easter egg I did not expect to see, but in the mission payload near the end, you're storming through a Soviet base and amongst the traditional flags of memorabilia.
There are multiple flags with the logo of Pereus, from Black Ops to Cold War, on them. This is not the first time we've seen the Perseus flag in the new Modern Warfare Universe. This could be our first clue that Makarov is either part of Perseus or Perseus is still active in the modern day, jumping over to the mission passenger.
This is obviously a reference and a spiritual modern-day successor to the iconic No Russian Mission from Modern Warfare 2. That mission had you storming through the airport, with Vladimir Marov terrorizing civilians and passengers. The mission starts in the exact same way with Vladimir Marov at the airport.
The difference here is that this is taking place on board an actual aircraft. Makarov texes all of the asants on board—no Russians—as the signal to start their attack. Now a really fascinating detail in the OG Modern Warfare 2 is that within the No Russian Mission, you were originally supposed to play as a female civilian, and you can see this by no clipping outside of that body where the head is, and this is because you as the player would have the gameplay camera fixed on top of that body where the head would be now in Modern Warfare 3's passenger mission.
That idea has been implemented because you play as a female civilian now at the end of this mission. And his crew escape via jumping out of the airplane door, and this is a reference to the ending of the Mile High Club mission from the original Call of Duty 4. Let's now jump to the mission flasho, where there are various Easter egg references to break down.
The first and most obvious is that we are revisiting the Vidant Stadium, which we saw in Modern Warfare 2019. It has been perfectly recreated, one to one, where you have the underground section and the main section with the stands. It brings back all those good memories from when the stadium was first opened, but during this mission alongside Captain Price, you are joined by Corporal Burns with the cool sign Bravo 63, and he is the exact same SAS soldier from Bravo 6 that you play as during the original Modern Warfare 3 during the mission.
Mind the gap. This is such a subtle detail that I doubt most of you would have noticed, but there is another Easter egg in this mission that you definitely would have missed, and it's right at the very beginning when you drive into the stadium as you drive past a certain ambulance on the right that has a certain Vladimir Marov in it.
