Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 final review – solid package deployed

Rallying the Korean troops (Activision) Activision’s shooter bounces back with a potent campaign and compelling DMZ mode, but does the multiplayer land with the same impact? Call Of Duty games, after over 20 years of annual instalments, have reached an equilibrium in terms of expectations. The highly polished gunplay is the biggest draw, but it’s supported by a vast multiplayer suite, maps which range from forgettable to classics, rotating spin-off modes like Zombies, and in recent years inexcusable AI art that makes a mockery of the otherwise high production values. The biggest inconsistency is the campaign. These have ranged from genre-defining classics in 2007’s original Modern Warfare to tedious co-op experiments, dramatic spy thrillers, and in the case of Black Ops 4, nothing at all. The debate of whether Call Of Duty games need a campaign has been exhausted but, while they don’t have the longevity of the multiplayer, they have always helped define an entry’s success or failure. In the case of last year’s Black Ops 7, the abysmal campaign cast a shadow over its extensive, if tired, multiplayer package – a sentiment highlighted by poor sales compared to Battlefield 6 and an awkward apology from Activision, as they promised to do better. A year later, and we’ve arrived at Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and while there’s no competition from EA’s shooter this year, we do wonder how differently things would have played out if this entry had come out in 2025. Campaign review On the campaign alone, Modern Warfare 4 is leagues above last year’s mess – something we were surprised by after the lacklustre level that was shown off in the beta. Oddly, that’s the worst mission in the game, which makes you wonder why it was used to try and drum up anticipation. Want GTA 6 news? Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for the latest GTA 6 news, reviews of new games you should play and exclusive analysis of the biggest stories of the week. The only explanation we can muster is that, story wise, it’s the least consequential. Modern Warfare 4 continues the story of sub-franchise regular Captain John Price, who has gone rogue after assassinating General Shepherd in Modern Warfare 3. He’s pulled into an uneasy alliance with the Mexican cartel, as he looks to hunt down a mysterious target called The Archer who has been pulling the strings to instigate Russia’s occupation of the Middle East. These Western antics are against the backdrop of a war between North and South Korea, centred around new rookie protagonist Park Hyun Jun. The campaign oscillates between Price and Park – and other characters – across 16 missions of varying length. The combination works surprisingly well, satisfying those invested in Price’s exploits, delivering the globe-trotting scope the series is known for, and anchoring it with a distinct Korean flavour unique to this entry. Much better than Black Ops 7 (Activision) Modern Warfare 4 isn’t going to win any awards for its action B-movie narrative, but there’s a propulsive urgency here that other entries have lacked. Activision has said this is a conclusion of sorts to the Modern Warfare saga, and there’s a sense of finality as Price faces his former Task Force 141 squadmates in tense shootouts and chaotic fisticuffs. The villains are memorable this time around too, between Mads Mikkelsen’s performance as The Archer and the power-hungry Korean commander Ri Ju-Young (played by Prisca Kim), even if they are two-dimensional bad guys of the week. The campaign locks into a breathless pace right from the off. In the first mission, Park’s squad are casually shopping for supplies in a local Korean supermarket in Hajin City (interestingly, all the Korean locations are fictional – possibly to avoid controversy), when a missile barrage rains down from the sky. From there, you’re catapulted across chase sequences with Price in a New York nightclub, explosive Paris shootouts from the back of a car, and a bleak mission set in North Korea where you’re rounding up civilians in a village to fish out a defector. None of it is especially novel, especially if you’ve played a lot of Call Of Duty campaigns over the years, but it is well executed and varied in its ideas. Our favourite mission puts you in the shoes of the reluctant, newly appointed Supreme Leader of North Korea, as soldiers invade his palace and you have to break out with his security team. Eventually, he’s forced to fend for himself, as you scurry around patrolling soldiers, guided by comms, with a limited arsenal. There’s a riff on the open world style mission last seen in Black Ops 6 too, where you’re given three objectives to complete in any order on an expansive plain. Smartly, if you don’t fancy making your own way across the map, to loot for better weapons and take out enemy patrols for extra supplies to upgrade your hideout’s armoury, you can trim down the experience through a fast travel option straight to the objectives. So, if you’re not interested in slowing down the pace with open-ended exploration, you have the choice to beeline through it. Modern Warfare 4’s campaign does lose steam towards its conclusion, with the ending coming off as rushed, but it’s still a good showcase of why it’s still a worthwhile addition within the larger package. It’s far from the best in the series – when it actually felt like it was taking bold risks in its mission design – but it’s a worthy follow-up to the quality seen in Black Ops 6, when Call Of Duty rediscovered some creative spark. DMZ review If the campaign is better than expected, then DMZ might be Modern Warfare 4’s secret weapon. The extraction mode debuted with 2022’s Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone and it was mildly riffled on with the relaxed PvE Endgame mode in Black Ops 7, but it’s been refined and expanded here to compete with modern rivals like Arc Raiders and Marathon. Modern Warfare 4’s DMZ mode doesn’t have the distinctly tense atmosphere or visuals of those PvPvE extraction games, but the classic Call Of Duty gunplay and smart progression systems make it a compelling alternative. It all takes place on the giant map of Hajin, which combines sprawling forests, residential towns, toxic nuclear reactors, and North Korean prisons. The scale of it is huge and you’ll struggle to see it all even after a few matches, but it’s well populated with enemy patrols, secret stashes, and dynamic operations – which are missions you only discover when roaming the battlefield. These range from escorting a VIP and securing a package to other minor operations, but they’re a compelling wrench in DMZ’s rhythm, which reward you for sticking around, and exploring more, instead of immediately extracting once you’ve completed your pre-assigned objectives. DMZ has plenty of these preset goals, ranging from basic chapter orders – where you’re asked to raid containers in a specific location, extract certain items, and other rudimentary tasks – and more elaborate, multi-stage story missions. There are a limited number of these (six at launch) but they’re very fun, and rewarding, with the right squadmates. In one of the first story missions, we had to break into a casino, reach the penthouse, deactivate the security doors concealing a vault at the bottom of the building, drill it open, steal the cash inside, and make our escape, all while enemy AI forces – and other human squads – get in your way. It’s tense, chaotic, and leads to some unique close scrapes you won’t find in the rest of Call Of Duty’s multiplayer suite. However, it does rely on some collaboration with your teammates which, in our experience, wasn’t exactly plentiful in comparison to other extraction shooters. You can play DMZ solo, but when it comes to the story missions, pairing up with two other players feels like a necessity. The decently sized ‘trait’ skill tree, however, is broad in offering perks that would benefit both solo players – like reduced revive speeds or damage from explosives – and team players who want to drag teammates faster across the field, or release smoke grenades when downed. There’s a surprising amount to unlock and upgrade, laid out in the Forward Operating Base hub area you can freely roam around between matches. Extraction shooters have often had trouble with accessibility, and there’s still some clunkiness here in the myriad of menu overlays, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this turns into many people’s gateway into the genre. Modern Warfare 4 goes back to basics (Activision) Multiplayer review On the traditional multiplayer side, Modern Warfare 4 shows its most obvious weaknesses. The basics are all here, from Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Search And Destroy to large scale modes like Ground War, but the pool of maps are more inconsistent than usual. Call Of Duty games typically have a mix of map sizes, to emphasise different strategies, but there’s a stronger push towards tight-knit chaos in Modern Warfare 4. The Mumbai-set Transit 213 and Korean cityscape Silkworm are the worst offenders, where the run ‘n’ gun rhythm is compromised by erratic spawn placements and mindless hamster wheel designs – to the point where it never feels like you can land more than a couple of kills without inevitable death from behind. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue if the stronger maps outweighed them, but even the best ones – like Rooftops, Lotus, Sentry, and Mumbai – don’t quite reach the heights of what’s come before. You can still jump into Modern Warfare 4’s multiplayer and get a satisfying Call Of Duty fix, but there are very few maps that instill much enthusiasm. It’s a shame because Modern Warfare 4’s gunplay is a welcome return to the fundamentals. There is no omnimovement or wall running, as seen in Black Ops 7, but the core traversal mechanics have undergone a snappy refinement. This is best shown in the Proving Grounds mobility courses, where you dash, slide, vault, and shimmy up poles with a greater degree of fluidity while shooting targets and dodging lasers. There are some unnecessary gimmicks, like the ability to shoot while hanging off an edge, which is rarely ever useful, but Modern Warfare 4’s choice to side-step a lot of the advancements of recent Call Of Duty games gives this entry a strong throwback identity. Omnimovement was a great addition in Black Ops 6, but there’s an argument that it shifted emphasis on mobility over gunplay, so the opposite here is a refreshing reversion. Modern Warfare 4’s multiplayer isn’t entirely beholden to the past and it does sport a handful of new modes. The best is Hijack, where teams jostle over a data spike you have to plant at the enemy base. It’s similar to Capture The Flag, only where you can throw the data spike to other players if they’re in a more advantageous position or if you find yourself in trouble. It isn’t breaking new ground, but it’s a good remix of a familiar concept, which works well with Call Of Duty’s stop-and-pop nature. The others are less memorable, either because they crib from others – like the Counter-Strike inspired Collateralm where one team tries to plant a bomb in round-based fights – or because they’re not distinctive enough, like Inflation, where you have to accumulate cash from kills. The latter is still fun, but it functions like a hybrid of Plunder and Bounty from prior games, so it feels like a disposable throwaway to fill up the numbers. The standout addition within multiplayer is Kill Block, a modular arena which changes its layers (with references to past Call Of Duty titles) across three interchangeable slabs between rounds. This arena is tied to Gunfight, a round-based mode with no respawns where every player is handed the same randomised loadout. The random nature of Gunfight meshes well with Kill Block’s rotating levels, although it needs more slabs to bump up the variety. Nevertheless, it’s the mode we’ve gone back to most during multiplayer sessions, especially as it relies on individual skill with a pre-selected weapon, over the exhausting climb for upgrades and weapon modifications in your own custom loadouts. Call Of Duty has been locked into a regular swing for years, and while Modern Warfare 4 doesn’t present much meaningful evolution, it’s an effective, well-rounded entry which hits more than it misses. As the first Call Of Duty untethered from the PlayStation 4 generation, this is a solid display of the franchise’s enduring strengths – even if there’s the lingering sense that, if it wants to maintain its dominance, a revolutionary step forward needs to arrive sooner rather than later. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 review summary In Short: A refined culmination for Call Of Duty’s Modern Warfare series, with an addictive DMZ mode and a slick campaign, but it’s let down by a poor selection of multiplayer maps. Pros: A well paced campaign stacked with memorable set pieces. DMZ is the best extraction mode in Call Of Duty. Kill Block is an inventive idea, even if it needs more variety. Gunplay and movement takes a refreshing back to basics approach. Cons: It’s largely still the same Call Of Duty as ever, with few meaningful improvements. Multiplayer maps, on the whole, are poorly designed compared to past entries. Some new modes feel redundant. Score: 7/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PCPrice: £69.99Publisher: ActivisionDeveloper: Infinity WardRelease Date: 23rd October 2026Age Rating: 16 The end of Modern Warfare (Activision) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. 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