Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023 video game)

• 1. Introduction

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  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III reached its audience first as a phone number. In August 2023, Activision shared the number on social media. Players who agreed to a few terms began receiving anonymous messages, such as "we need someone like you, with experience in Al Mazrah." The number also gave strange replies when someone texted it the word "zombies."

  Behind the stunt stood a 2023 first-person shooter from Sledgehammer Games, published by Activision. It was the twentieth installment of the Call of Duty series and the third entry in the rebooted Modern Warfare sub-series, following Modern Warfare II in 2022. It went on sale on the 10th of November 2023.

  The game's origins are stranger than its marketing. Reports said it began as something much smaller than a full release. Its campaign was criticized, yet players still bought it in large numbers. This documentary asks how that happened, what the game offered, and why opinions split so sharply.

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• 2. An Expansion Becomes a Game

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  Modern Warfare III was the fifth mainline Call of Duty title for Sledgehammer Games. The studio had co-created 2011's Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward. It then developed Advanced Warfare in 2014, WWII in 2017 and Vanguard in 2021.

  After Vanguard, the studio reportedly began early work on a sequel to Advanced Warfare. Activision shelved that project before it got far into production. Instead, the studio was assigned an expansion pack for the upcoming Modern Warfare II. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reported that the expansion was meant to include a smaller single-player campaign set in Mexico, plus new multiplayer material.

  By Summer 2022, Activision chose to reboot the project entirely. Sledgehammer was now to make a direct, fully fledged sequel to Modern Warfare II. It would feature a rebooted version of Vladimir Makarov, the villain of the original Modern Warfare trilogy. Developers reportedly had roughly sixteen months, a schedule similar to the one they faced on Vanguard. Treyarch, the lead developer of the Black Ops sub-series, was asked to build a Zombies mode. That made this the first Modern Warfare title to include one.

  A second report from Schreier described the strain. Some Sledgehammer developers said they had not been told at first that the project would become a full release, which led to crunch. Certain developers were also frustrated that Infinity Ward executives stepped in repeatedly to make significant, sometimes unwanted changes.

  Aaron Halon, the head of Sledgehammer Games, publicly denied the reporting. He said plans for the game began "long before we wrapped up our previous game." He called the project "a labor of love" that had been "years in the making." The two accounts leave open how much warning the studio really had.

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• 3. Hunting Makarov

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  Russian private military company Konni Group opens the campaign with a raid on the Zordaya Prison Complex in Verdansk, Kastovia, in November 2023. Its operatives free their commander, Vladimir Makarov, voiced by Julian Kostov. Makarov is an ultranationalist terrorist who had been sentenced to life after SAS operatives John "Soap" MacTavish and John Price captured him following a terrorist attack at Verdansk Stadium in April 2019.

  Between story beats, the campaign mixes linear missions with open-world ones called "Open Combat Missions." In these, players choose their own approach to an objective, from open firefights to stealth and ambush. An on-screen map and a tactical map show objectives and caches of weapons and gear. Enemies search for players who slip out of sight and call in reinforcements as their numbers fall.

  Hours after the prison break, Konni assaults a port in Urzikstan. The Urzikstan Liberation Force, led by Farah Karim and ex-CIA officer Alex Keller, planned to obtain ballistic missiles there. Their seller was the American private military company Shadow Company, commanded by Phillip Graves, who had faked his death after meeting Task Force 141 in Las Almas, Mexico. Konni steals the missiles, though Farah manages to place trackers on them.

  Price then leads Task Force 141 to an abandoned nuclear power plant, hoping to keep Konni from securing nuclear material. The plant instead holds chemical materials hidden by General Roman Barkov, and Makarov intends to refine them into a chemical weapon. Konni escapes and detonates some of the material, and the resulting gas nearly kills Price.

  Makarov next has a Kastovian airliner destroyed. He forces a vest bomb onto a former ULF fighter who is aboard. To prevent tensions between East and West from escalating, Farah and Alex quickly remove any evidence of ULF involvement at the crash site in Urzikstan.

  Price reluctantly accepts help from Graves and from General Herschel Shepherd. Shepherd had been forced into hiding and wants to return to the United States. Soap and Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley interrogate Makarov's financier, Milena Romanova. Her information sends Price and Sergeant Kyle "Gaz" Garrick to Saint Petersburg and then to a convoy crossing Siberia.

  Price is shocked to find Shepherd in the convoy, captured by Makarov. He offers an ultimatum: share everything about Makarov's plans and agree to testify before the United States Congress, or freeze to death in Siberia. Shepherd agrees. He reveals that Makarov plans to destroy the Gora Dam and flood Verdansk.

  Soap and Ghost lead a task force to protect the dam, while Farah, Alex, Price and Kyle assault a Konni base in Urzikstan. Afterward, Shepherd and Graves testify to Congress and effectively turn on each other under questioning. Task Force 141 meanwhile returns to London.

  There the group learns that Makarov has obtained a flash drive that could give him control of the United Kingdom's train network. He intends to destroy the Channel Tunnel. Price leads an assault with a counter-terrorism unit to free hostages. He and Soap find a dirty bomb in the tunnel and try to defuse it, but Makarov ambushes them.

  Makarov tries to execute Price, and Soap stops him. Makarov shoots Soap in the head and escapes before Ghost and Kyle arrive to help Price defuse the bomb. The three later scatter Soap's ashes off a cliff in Scotland. In a mid-credits scene, Price infiltrates Shepherd's office and assassinates him for his actions in Mexico.

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• 4. Sixteen Old Maps

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  All sixteen maps from 2009's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are playable in Modern Warfare III multiplayer. Players can vote on maps in a matchmade lobby, a feature that some recent titles lacked. Player health is also increased, which lengthens the "time-to-kill" in each fight.

  The "red dot" minimap returns after missing from Modern Warfare II and 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. It shows enemies on the radar whenever they fire a weapon without a suppressor. Players can also cancel sliding animations, a technique known as the "slide cancel."

  Classic modes such as "Kill Confirmed" and "Hardpoint" return. A new mode called "Cutthroat" pits three teams of three players against each other. The 32v32 "Ground War" mode comes with dedicated maps. "War" mode returns from Call of Duty: WWII in 2017.

  The game also uses moderation powered by artificial intelligence. It listens to in-game interactions and immediately reports behavior it judges overly toxic.

  At least twelve new 6v6 maps were confirmed for after launch. Fan-favorite Modern Warfare II maps were also slated to arrive every season.

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• 5. Zombies Without Rounds

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  Treyarch built the Zombies mode in collaboration with Sledgehammer Games, and it breaks with tradition. Older Zombies modes were round-based survival. This one is an open-world player versus environment experience, structured like the DMZ mode in Call of Duty: Warzone.

  Up to 24 players take part, in separate squads, on a large map that doubles as the new Warzone battle royale map. Teams fight zombies and AI-controlled human enemies to complete objectives. They collect loot and sell it at buy stations, or extract it by exfiltration. Instead of rounds, the map is divided into "zones" with varying threat levels.

  After 45 minutes of in-match time, an "Aether Storm" begins to spread across the map. Players then have 15 minutes to exfil with their loot. Weapon wallbuys, Perk-a-Cola drinks and the Mystery Box return from earlier Zombies modes. Players can extract "acquisitions," items stored for later matches, and "schematics," which let them craft items with a cooldown limit.

  The mode carries its own story, told through quests. In 2021, arms dealer Victor Zakhaev and ex-NZDF operative Jack Fletcher raid a hotel in Zaravan, Urzikstan. They recover two vials of "Aetherium," a substance of extradimensional origin. When police intercept them, Zakhaev throws one vial. The blast stuns the officers and turns the dead into zombies.

  Weeks later, Operation Deadbolt begins. This CIA contingency plan sends Soap and a strike team to keep anything from escaping the Zaravan exclusion zone. They are dispatched by Kate Laswell and Selma Greene. Sergei Ravenov, a former Spetsnaz captain allied with the classified CIA task force "Requiem," joins them.

  Deadbolt then receives a message from Dr. Ava Jansen, one of Zakhaev's scientists, who asks to be extracted. She claims she alone can stop Zakhaev's weapons-grade Aetherium. Greene accepts, and the team helps her build an Aetherium Neutralizer. To upgrade it, they raid a Zakhaev outpost and kill its commander, "Legacy" Baranov, who holds research data from the late Requiem lead Oskar Strauss.

  At Zakhaev's refining plant, a gigantic worm creature named Orcus attacks. Jansen activates the Neutralizer, which kills Orcus and destabilizes Zakhaev's vial. A vortex opens, and an entity appears before Jansen, demanding entry. She faints, and when she opens her eyes they show a brief dark purple glow.

  Jansen later researches Requiem's "Project Janus." Her search leads to Samantha Maxis, a former BND agent who trapped herself in the "Dark Aether" dimension in 1985 to contain a powerful entity called "the Forsaken." The entity from Zaravan lures Jansen into the Dark Aether, and Ravenov leads the team in to rescue her.

  There Ravenov shows her a recording from 1996 of Requiem scientist Elizabeth Grey. It reveals that Jansen is Maxis' biological daughter, born through surrogacy using DNA from Maxis and Ravenov. The entity is a dark reflection of Jansen, born at the same moment. Angry that Ravenov hid this, Jansen storms off.

  Jansen eventually returns to the Dark Aether to confront the entity a final time. The strike team defends her while she performs rituals to sever their connection, and together they destroy it. With its last moment, it warns that "the Shadowsmiths" are coming for her.

  Three months later, Jansen travels to Liberty Falls, a small West Virginian town where a Dark Aether incursion occurred in February 1991. While she talks with Ravenov by phone in her hotel room, a distorted voice calls her name. A hand emerges from a mirror and pulls her through a portal.

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• 6. Leaks and Launch

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  Around the 17th of July 2023, material from an internal alpha build escaped. It showed the "red dot" minimap, War mode and new perks. On the 24th of July, the game's key art leaked through a Monster Energy promotion, showing Captain Price behind the Modern Warfare III logo. Several new weapons were datamined around the same time.

  Activision confirmed the key art was real. It issued copyright takedowns and acknowledged the leak on Twitter with sarcastic tweets.

  On the 7th of August 2023, a teaser trailer confirmed the title. Texting Activision's phone number the name of a Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer map, such as "Rust," also produced unusual responses. A day later, Activision announced that Modern Warfare II operators, weapons and cosmetic items would carry over, and it published a blog post explaining how.

  On the 17th of August, a full reveal took place inside a Call of Duty: Warzone event and ended with a reveal trailer. Pre-orders opened that day. Buyers could play the campaign up to a week early and gained new operator skins and access to an open beta for multiplayer. A showcase event and a public beta followed in October.

  The game launched on the 10th of November 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. As with Modern Warfare II, the campaign went into early access for all digital pre-orders, starting on the 2nd of November.

  In July 2024, the game became available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. In October 2024, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members could also stream it through Xbox Cloud Gaming.

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• 7. Score and Crossovers

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  Walter Mair composed the score, after Sarah Schachner left the rebooted Modern Warfare sub-series. Schachner's departure followed challenges in her working dynamic with Infinity Ward's audio director. Mair had previously worked on Call of Duty: Mobile.

  Jack Wall, who often partners with Treyarch on the Black Ops sub-series, wrote a separate score for Zombies. Steve Ouimette, who had worked on Modern Warfare II season 2's soundtrack, composed additional music. The soundtrack reached digital platforms on launch day. Rapper 21 Savage also released a promotional song, "Call Me Revenge," featuring singer d4vd.

  After launch, the game followed the Call of Duty pattern of free seasonal updates alongside an in-game store selling cosmetic bundles through microtransactions. Activision partnered with other media franchises to put licensed characters into multiplayer and Zombies.

  Film and television guests included Paul Atreides and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from Dune: Part Two, and A-Train and Firecracker from Amazon Prime Video's The Boys. AMC's The Walking Dead supplied Rick Grimes, Michonne and Daryl Dixon. Horror favorites arrived too: Michael Myers from the Halloween franchise, Art the Clown from the Terrifier films, and Sam from Trick 'r Treat.

  The roster also made room for the comedy duo Cheech & Chong, basketball player Devin Booker, and WWE wrestlers Rhea Ripley, Cody Rhodes and Rey Mysterio. Eric Draven, The Crow from the 2024 film, joined as well. Themed cosmetic packs followed for Warhammer 40,000, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Gundam, Fallout, and the 2024 film Smile 2.

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• 8. Mixed Reception

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  IGN gave the campaign 4 out of 10 and described it as "bizarrely cobbling together pieces of the Warzone mode into actively bad sandbox missions." That verdict matched the tone of pre-release reviews, where critics called the campaign shallow, short and rushed.

  After release, Metacritic listed the game as having "mixed or average reviews." On the aggregator OpenCritic, 13% of critics recommended it. It is the lowest-rated mainline Call of Duty installment on Metacritic.

  Bleacher Report called the campaign "disappointing" but described the technical aspects as "top notch." The Guardian and Windows Central each gave the game 4 out of 5 stars and singled out multiplayer for praise. Windows Central wrote that it "perfectly executes blending old maps with modern gameplay."

  Sales told a more favorable story. In both the United Kingdom and the United States, the game topped the sales charts for November 2023. Even so, figures were reported to be about 38% below Modern Warfare II's during the first three weeks of launch.

  It was the second best-selling game of 2023 in the United States, behind Hogwarts Legacy. In Japan, the PlayStation 5 version was the fourth best-selling retail game in its first week, with 22,132 physical copies sold.

  Awards records place the game in several categories in 2024 and 2025. They include Online Game of the Year at the 27th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and Audio Achievement, Multiplayer and Technical Achievement at the 20th British Academy Games Awards. The Ivor Novello Awards listed it for Best Original Video Game Score. In 2025, the Game Audio Network Guild Awards listed it for Audio of the Year and for Claudia Doumit's performance as Farah.

  A sequel, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, is scheduled for release in 2026.

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