News - Call Of Duty: Warzone 2i (2023) Campaign Review
And just like those campaigns, the resulting experience feels uninspired and massively outdated. The reason Call of Duty's campaigns have been so successful over most of their lifetimes is that they made heavy use of scripting to drive a narrative experience. Players would feel like they were participating in massive battles across iconic backdrops; AI soldiers would run alongside you as you stormed beaches and defended monuments; and each mission would try and mix things up, introducing unique mechanics like the AC-130 or long-range sniping in missions like all ghilled up to help keep the action feeling fresh by scrapping all of the scripting and obvious action movie references.
What you're left with are the remnants of an FPS stealth game with about a tenth of the depth and complexity that make games of that genre interesting. What's more, you're not even rewarded for playing the game stealthily; there's no achievement or reward for remaining undetected. So you might as well just grab as much armor as you can and blast enemies away, as the cutscenes are the same regardless of how you choose to play.
Another big reason why these open combat missions don't really work is that Call of Duty's suite of gameplay mechanics really don't lend themselves well to unscripted open-ended stealth; the controls are pretty much identical to those used in last year's Modern Warfare 2, with things like the ability to mantle and hang from ledges, in addition to all the mechanics introduced in 2019's Modern Warfare, like active sprinting mounting and field upgrade items.
Though new to Modern Warfare 3, the tack stance allows players to turn their gun at an angle and fire without having to aim down the currently equipped scope. This. I feel, is a very nice addition, as it allows players the freedom to use more cumbersome scopes like thermal or magnified sights while still maintaining the close-quarters efficiency of a smaller site.
The weapon spray and bullet spread are wider, meaning it's not going to be nearly as effective as aiming down, say, a red dot site. But it's also not quite as loose as hip firing either; what's more, the T stance can also be used while sliding, which should definitely come in handy in fast-paced multiplayer matches.
As for its use in the campaign, I found the feature to be quite useful in some circumstances. As the game really likes to slap those thermal and NVG scopes onto the default guns quite often, activating it with the default control scheme is a bit clumsy as you need to first click on ads and then tap down on the d-pad to toggle the status, which can also be difficult to keep track of when under fire in close quarters.
Other than that. Modern Warfare 3's gameplay systems haven't really been changed all that much from Modern Warfare 2, which is why it's so bizarre that 90% of the campaign is built around sneaking and stealthily dispatching enemies. Outside of crouching or going prone, there's not really any stealth mechanic in these games.
There's a takedown maneuver when you get close, but even this is limited as there's no option to take an enemy hostage, hide their body, or even initiate this takedown from any unique position, like from the water or above a high ledge. Occasionally, you can find bottles to throw as a distraction.
But these don't even seem to work right, and you're better off just shooting groups of enemies as fast as possible instead, which brings us to the other glaring issue here, the enemy AI. The detection AI in this game feels remarkably basic, with an inconsistent cone of vision and limited hearing capabilities and pretty much no coordination between one another.
If an enemy in a group suspects something, they won't talk to their nearby allies or coordinate a search; they'll just break away from the group and search themselves. When an enemy is suspicious, the UI prompt will glow yellow, warning the player to break the line of sight. If the player fails to do so, then the enemy's UI will turn red and the enemy will reach for their gun, giving the player less than a second to neutralize them before they shoot and alert the entire base.
Annoyingly, even though this is inconsistent, there are times, especially in this more narrative-driven mission, where the enemies would just automatically go on alert despite not a single loud firearm having been discharged. In open combat missions, getting caught isn't necessarily the end of the world.
The enemies will run around shooting for a little bit, but they can easily lose track of you if you run and stay hidden for long enough, and they will eventually return to a slightly more cautious patrol pattern. Mission objectives have never been impacted by these alerts either, so it's not really worth restarting or loading from a checkpoint unless you really just want to try and complete the mission as stealthily as possible.
Sometimes the missions will even force you into combat, making efforts to remain stealthy pointless as well. There were other times where I remained stealthy the entire time, but the game's dialogue trigger seemed to think differently, causing Price to change his tone to a panicked chout while Lo constantly reprimanded me over the coms.
Thankfully, there are a few more traditional missions mixed in that help keep the experience just barely afloat. One mission that takes place in a snowy Siberian forest feels like a proper Call of Duty mission, complete with a flashy opening setup, some coordinated stealth maneuvering, and a large battle at a frozen port.
Though even this feels basic when compared to similar types of missions we've experienced in the past, and despite having to play through the campaign twice this weekend due to a recording issue. I still can't recall any genuinely interesting gameplay moments or identify any one mission that I'd actually want to replay for fun.
Finally, let's talk about the game's actual visual presentation. From the onset. Modern Warfare 3 maintains its impressive visual prowess, which we saw on full display with 2019's modern warfare, with fantastic character renderings in the cutscenes, some nice specular lighting in gameplay, great use of atmospheric effects, and some nice animation designs.
Nothing here is necessarily new from last year's Modern Warfare 2, at least nothing that stood out a great deal. But it certainly has its moments, and from a performance perspective, the game ran beautifully from start to finish, even with Nvidia's DLS disabled at native 4K. I didn't even find there to be too many bugs or glitches this time around, which is definitely an achievement all on its own, especially considering how insanely buggy last year's release was at launch.
The game did crash once or twice, usually when trying to load the next mission, but this likely had more to do with the recording software I was using than the game itself. The only real issues stemmed from the game's shoddy AI design, which, as I mentioned previously, makes the stealth sequences incredibly inconsistent and annoying.
PREVIOUS Page
