Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

• 1. Introduction

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  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million copies in the United States and United Kingdom within its first 24 hours. Those sales brought in $400 million. At the time, that made it the largest entertainment launch ever recorded. The shooter reached stores on the 8th of November 2011 as the third and final part of the original Modern Warfare trilogy. It was also the eighth Call of Duty release overall. Yet it was built under unusual strain. The creative team behind its two predecessors had broken apart, and a leak exposed the project months before its reveal. How did a studio in turmoil finish the story of Captain Price and his rivals? What did the developers change about the way people fight online? And why do critics who praised the game at the time so often rank it below the entries that came before?

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• 2. A Fractured Studio

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  Jason West and Vince Zampella, the co-founders of Infinity Ward, left the company to form Respawn Entertainment before work on Modern Warfare 3 began. A legal dispute with Activision had ended with the pair being fired. Several dozen Infinity Ward employees followed them out, and other staff were fired or departed after the duo's exit. Activision responded by bringing in Sledgehammer Games, while Raven Software also developed the multiplayer mode. The game was reportedly in development just two weeks after Modern Warfare 2 was released.

  During a third-quarter 2010 earnings call, Activision confirmed that the eighth Call of Duty was being built by Sledgehammer and Raven for release in "the back half of 2011". That project turned out to be Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 3, with the newer studios helping on multiplayer.

  The team worked from an enhanced version of the engine behind Modern Warfare 2. It was called the MW3 Engine and unofficially IW 5.0, and it brought better streaming and audio. Sledgehammer set two ambitious goals for its first outing in the series. It wanted a game free of bugs and Metacritic review scores above 95 percent. It also made Modern Warfare 3 the first in the Modern Warfare line with built-in support for color-blind players.

  The finished game reached Windows, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the Wii. A Mac version for OS X followed on the 20th of May 2014. The studio n-Space developed a Nintendo DS version, and Treyarch developed the Wii port. In Japan, Square Enix published a separate subtitled and dubbed edition. Before any of it was officially shown, though, a leak was about to expose the whole project.

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• 3. Leak and Hype

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  On the 13th of May 2011, the website Kotaku revealed that Modern Warfare 3 existed, after a large leak. The material reportedly came from several sources who may or may not have worked at Activision and Infinity Ward. It was thorough, covering weapons, levels and modes, and it confirmed a direct sequel to Modern Warfare 2.

  That contradicted a rumor that had circulated since early January 2011. The story claimed the next game would be a prequel with the fan favorite Ghost in the lead role. The Official UK PlayStation Magazine had strengthened it in issue 055, citing "insider whispers".

  Robert Bowling answered on Twitter. He wrote: "A lot of hype & a lot of leaked info on MW3, some still accurate, some not. To avoid spoiling the experience, I'd wait for the real reveal." Just hours after the leaked assets appeared, four teaser trailers went up on the official Call of Duty YouTube page. They were titled "America", "England", "France" and "Germany", and each pointed to a location in the campaign.

  The first gameplay trailer arrived on the 23rd of May 2011, ahead of its premiere during the NBA Western Conference Finals. At E3 on the 6th of June, Robert Bowling and Glen Schofield presented the first live gameplay demo. Eight days later, Jimmy Fallon and Simon Pegg played the new Survival mode live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

  The name itself nearly caused trouble. The domain ModernWarfare3.com was already taken by an anti-Call of Duty website that redirected visitors to Electronic Arts' Battlefield 3. Activision filed a US$2,600 complaint with the National Arbitration Forum and won on the 8th of September 2011.

  Brand partnerships reached far beyond game shops. Jeep sold a Modern Warfare 3 edition of the Wrangler Rubicon starting in November 2011. Mountain Dew's Game Fuel and Doritos carried codes for double experience points, and those promotions ran from the 10th of October to the 31st of December 2011. Turtle Beach headsets, GUNNAR sunglasses and Logitech peripherals followed. Jonah Hill, Sam Worthington and the basketball player Dwight Howard starred in commercials.

  Activision also staged Call of Duty: XP in Los Angeles on the 2nd and the 3rd of September 2011. Attendees played the new multiplayer for the first time and went home with a free Hardened Edition, a package that would soon go on sale to everyone.

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• 4. Task Force 141

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  The campaign opens in August 2016 at a safe house in Himachal Pradesh, where Captain Price and Soap MacTavish come under attack from the forces of Vladimir Makarov. Nikolai, their Russian loyalist ally, pulls them out. At Price's request, he also calls a former Spetsnaz operator named Yuri, who shares their grudge against Makarov. Tony Curran voices Yuri, Kevin McKidd voices Soap, and Billy Murray voices Price.

  The player rarely stays in one pair of boots. The story is divided into three Acts and shifts between characters, including Delta Force Staff Sergeant Derek "Frost" Westbrook, SAS Sergeant Marcus Burns and the Russian agent Andrei Harkov. During the Battle of Paris, the player even works as an AC-130 TV operator. Soap is playable only in the opening sequence. Price takes control in the final mission and is the only playable character in the trilogy who speaks.

  In New York City, a Delta Force squad called Team Metal defends against Russian troops. After destroying a radio jammer at the New York Stock Exchange Building, the squad helps Navy SEALs hijack an Oscar II-class submarine. Its missiles destroy the Russian Navy in New York Bay, and Russia withdraws from the East Coast. Idris Elba, William Fichtner and Timothy Olyphant voice the squadmates Truck, Sandman and Grinch.

  Three months later, the Russian president Boris Vorshevsky flies to Hamburg for peace talks, and Makarov's forces hijack his plane. Makarov demands the nuclear launch codes and threatens the president's daughter, Alena. Chemical bombs then detonate in London and across Europe. Russia, now under Makarov's control, invades Europe almost unopposed.

  The hunt for Makarov runs through Sierra Leone, Somalia and Paris. Task Force 141 captures the Somali warlord Waraabe, and Price executes him after the interrogation. Waraabe's information leads to the bomb maker Viktor "Volk" Khristenko, and Team Metal captures Volk in Paris with help from GIGN. Volk reveals that Makarov is meeting his advisors in Prague. There, Price's old ally Kamarov is killed and Soap is mortally wounded. Before dying, Soap tells Price that Makarov knows Yuri.

  An enraged Price confronts Yuri at gunpoint. Yuri explains that he had been an Ultranationalist and stood beside Makarov in Pripyat during the attempted assassination of Zakhaev in 1996. He turned against Makarov after watching him personally detonate a nuclear bomb in the Middle East in 2011. Yuri also tried to stop the airport massacre, but Makarov shot him and left him for dead.

  Team Metal later sacrifices itself at a diamond mine in Siberia. That holds off Makarov's forces long enough for Vorshevsky, Alena and Task Force 141 to escape as the mine collapses. Relations between Russia and the United States normalize, and Makarov goes into hiding.

  In January 2017, Nikolai, Price and Yuri track Makarov to a hotel in Dubai. Yuri wounds Makarov, who kills him in return. Price then wraps a steel cable around Makarov's neck and drops him through a skylight. He lights a cigar as first responders approach.

  Like its predecessor, the game includes an interactive terror attack on civilians. The player may skip it because of the graphic portrayal, which includes harm to children.

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• 5. Rebuilt Multiplayer

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  Killstreaks became Pointstreaks in Modern Warfare 3, and kills were no longer the only way to earn them. Planting a bomb or capturing a flag in Capture The Flag now adds to a player's streak. The rewards are grouped into three strike packages named Assault, Support and Specialist. The change was designed to make early rewards harder to reach.

  The Assault package works like the old Killstreak system from Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops. A player must keep earning points without dying, and death resets the count to zero. The Specialist package hands out perks after every second consecutive kill, and dying wipes them. The Support package works differently, because it tracks total points across the whole match, however often the player dies. Switching to a custom class with a different reward type resets all points to zero. Players also pick their Pointstreak rewards at the moment they earn them, rather than between rounds.

  The ranking system dropped its currency for unlocks. A player's primary weapon now levels up alongside the player and earns "Proficiency" perks. Attachments allows two attachments on a weapon. Kick reduces recoil while aiming down the sight, and Focus reduces flinching under fire. Only one Proficiency can sit on a primary weapon. Hybrid Scopes, such as a holographic sight with a red dot magnifier, let players switch between magnified and normal views.

  A new "Prestige Shop" opens after a player prestiges for the first time. Tokens earned by prestiging buy exclusive extras such as double XP and an additional custom weapon class. A player can prestige 20 times.

  Some Modern Warfare 2 features did not return. Several perks accused of being overpowered were removed, along with the "dolphin diving" move from standing to prone, which caused balancing problems. The game used Treyarch's hot fix system to patch bugs and glitches. The Windows version supports dedicated servers, and the game offers local and online split-screen, except on the Wii.

  Two new modes joined the lineup. In Kill Confirmed, a kill only counts once the attacker collects the dog tag floating from the fallen enemy, and the enemy team can pick it up to deny the point. In Team Defender, the first player killed in a match drops a flag. The team holding it earns double points for kills.

  Private matches gained a set of ready-made modes. Infected lets the infected recruit enemies by killing them. Drop Zone rewards holding a zone for points and care packages. Team Juggernaut places an AI Juggernaut beside each team. Gun Game asks players to score a kill with every gun in the game. One in the Chamber gives each player a pistol with one bullet and three lives. Players can also design their own modes, with custom settings such as player count and time limit.

  Of all the additions, Kill Confirmed proved the most durable. It became a mainstay of the series.

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• 6. Survival and Elite

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  Survival let one or two players hold off waves of enemies, each wave tougher than the last. The idea resembled the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of Duty: World at War, with one key difference. Enemies did not appear at fixed spawn points. They showed up at tactical positions based on where the player stood. The mode was available on every multiplayer map in the game.

  Players earned in-game cash by killing or assisting in killing enemies, then spent it on weapons, upgrades, ammo, air and ground support, and equipment. Experience points, also earned through kills, unlocked further items. On each wave, optional objectives ranged from scoring multi-kills to taking no damage.

  Survival sat inside Special Ops, the challenge-mission mode that returned from Modern Warfare 2. This version offered up to 48 stars, down from 69 in its predecessor. Some weapons were exclusive to Special Ops and unavailable in multiplayer. The developers described the mode as comparable to Nazi Zombies and to the Horde mode in Gears of War.

  Call of Duty: Elite, developed by Beachhead Studios, served the multiplayer side of Modern Warfare 3 and of Black Ops. It was first shown at E3 2011. Activision announced it on the 31st of May 2011 as a social service where players could track and compare statistics, create videos and reach premium offerings. The free tier offered lifetime statistics and social networking integration.

  Premium members were promised 20 pieces of downloadable material over nine months. The official Elite calendar later raised that figure to 22. The material was split into four Collections, each holding two or three packs, and it covered extra multiplayer maps, Special Ops missions and Face-Off maps. A special contract between Microsoft and Activision gave Xbox 360 players everything about a month before PlayStation 3 players. The first Collection arrived on Xbox 360 on the 24th of January and on PlayStation 3 on the 28th of February. Nine monthly releases followed in total, ending in September on Xbox 360 and in October on PlayStation 3. Elite was never offered on PC, so PC players received only the Collections.

  On the 9th of May 2012, Activision announced Face-Off, a mode built around smaller maps and fast matches in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 formats. Two free Face-Off maps reached all Xbox Live Gold subscribers on the 15th of May 2012. Elite itself was shut down by Activision on the 28th of February 2014, and it never supported Call of Duty: Ghosts.

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• 7. Record Launch

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  Two weeks before release, half of the PC version appeared online after it was stolen from a warehouse in Fresno, California. Investigators working for Activision searched torrent sites and visited people across the United States who had downloaded a copy. They told them to delete it or face a US$5,000 fine.

  Physical copies also slipped out early. By late October, reports surfaced of gameplay videos recorded from early-sold discs. On the 3rd of November 2011, copies were being sold in the United States and appearing on eBay and Craigslist. A mistake by a shipping company was blamed, and Activision contacted K-Mart to resolve it. In Créteil, south Paris, on the 6th of November 2011, a French report described two masked people who used tear gas on a truck's drivers and drove off with the load. The shipment was said to be worth 400,000 euros, and a separate report put the cargo at 6000 copies.

  The game came in two retail versions on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, called Standard and Hardened. Standard was the only version on Windows. The Hardened Edition added a disc with unique art, a one-year Elite membership with "special founder status", a collectible Steelbook case and a field journal of more than 100 pages. Robert Bowling confirmed there would be no Prestige Edition. Earlier ones had included a remote-controlled car for Black Ops and, for Modern Warfare 2, night vision goggles with a life-sized plastic head. A limited Xbox 360 bundle with a 320 GB hard disk, two custom controllers and the game was announced on the 3rd of September 2011.

  More than 1.5 million people queued at 13,000 shops at midnight, according to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg. He described a day when "the record number of pre-orders from Modern Warfare 3 drove the largest day-one shipments in our history, and in the industry's history."

  The launch also extended a pattern. Black Ops grossed $360 million on its first day in 2010, and Modern Warfare 2 brought in $310 million in 2009. Modern Warfare 3 grossed more than $775 million globally in five days, beating the $650 million set by Black Ops and the $550 million of Modern Warfare 2. Activision said it passed $1 billion in 16 days, faster than the 19 days Avatar needed. By November 2013, IGN confirmed 26.5 million copies sold, the most of any game in the series.

  In the United Kingdom, the game topped the chart in its first week even after sales fell 87 percent by the 21st of November 2011. It held first place for four weeks. In Japan, the PlayStation 3 version led the chart with 180,372 copies, while the Xbox 360 version sold around 30,000. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim finally replaced it at the top of the British chart in its fifth week.

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• 8. Reception and Legacy

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  The Daily Telegraph gave the Xbox 360 version five stars out of five and said the game exceeded the brand hype. Gaming Evolution scored the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions 9.0 out of 10. IGN also gave the Xbox 360 version 9.0, praising the multiplayer and campaign but calling the story forgettable. Metacritic rated the game "generally positive" overall.

  GameSpot was more reserved, writing that the game "iterates rather than innovates" while still finding it engrossing. Eurogamer gave it 8 out of 10 and criticized an "outmoded single-player campaign". The Wii version fared worst, with Metacritic listing it as "mixed or average" and IGN giving it 4.5 out of 10 for weak graphics and a poor friend code system.

  At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, the game won Best Shooter and was nominated for Best Multiplayer Game. At the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences named it Action Game of the Year. It also received nominations for Connectivity, Online Gameplay and Sound Design.

  Later assessments were kinder to its commercial dominance than to its ambition. Many critics agree that it failed to match the standards of its two predecessors, and some fault its lack of innovation. The campaign is credited with finishing the trilogy satisfyingly but without reaching its earlier highs. Chris Freiberg of Den of Geek wrote that the earlier campaigns held "some of the most memorable moments in FPS history", while the final showdown with Makarov's forces is "all over the place narratively".

  Reaction to the multiplayer has been split. Some see a strong refinement of what came before, and others an average experience without the fun of earlier games. The writers at Digital Trends argued that it lacked the passion of its predecessors and that fans were tired of the series by 2011.

  The title has since collided with a newer namesake. Before its official release, the 2023 game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was hit with review bombing that dragged its Metacritic user score as low as 3.5. IGN attributed much of it to players confusing the two titles, and Metacritic was removing the reviews.

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