Modern Warfare 4 Is One Of Call Of Duty's Most Compelling Games Yet

Published Oct 27, 2026, 8:45 AM EDT Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 gives us a gripping Korean War campaign and satisfying gunplay, but its multiplayer tone holds it back. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Review - A Brilliant Cold War Redux I was leaving a convenience store in downtown Seoul when the roof violently caved in. One second I was chitchatting with my fellow soldiers; the next, an artillery shell ripped through the asphalt, sending a wave of glass and sheer auditory violence crashing over me. The camera shook with terrifying, cinematic elegance, framing the opening salvo of a conflict sixty-odd years in the making. In that split-second opening of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, I was completely hooked. Mainstream video games have spent decades obsessing over World War 2 European towns or ambiguous Middle Eastern deserts, but MW4 boldly tackles a scenario rarely given this scale: the reigniting of the Korean War. The original 1950 conflict, after all, never truly ended. It just paused under a seventy-year armistice. By lighting that powder keg, MW4 is one of the most culturally striking and intensely cinematic campaigns in the franchise's history, even if its multiplayer side gets bogged down by a juvenile tonal whiplash. Campaign: High-Stakes Cinema, Korean War Intensity Immediately following that explosive Seoul intro, the game flexes its narrative muscle by jumping back five days earlier. It’s an old cinematic trick, but it lands here. The narrative pacing feels sophisticated and deliberate. The seamless transition from first-person gameplay into third-person cutscenes is buttery smooth, too, as it pulls you out just enough to appreciate the scale before shoving you right back into the dirt. Though, a quick note to the developers: in the year of our Lord, please let us pause our cutscenes. A girl needs to sip her matcha without missing vital plot points. The Korea arc is, without hyperbole, the absolute highlight of the entire single-player campaign. Modern Warfare is best when it embraces large-scale, attritional warfare. MW4 brings that macro-level devastation back in full force. The environments are sprawling and reactive. Throw a grenade down a crowded street, and the environment responds with horrifying reality. You’ll see parked cars lift off their shocks and debris scatter across the pavement with unsettling realism. At one point, a swerving car crashed through a bundle of traffic right as I pressed forward, which forced an instant pivot that felt unscripted. Its Modern Warfare 4’s story that really elevates these set pieces. Despite my initial skepticism toward how the North Korean narrative would be handled, the writers pull off a remarkably grounded story. The arc featuring a North Korean defector provides a touching emotional anchor amidst the military hardware. In fact, the Korean storyline is so compelling that every time the campaign shuffled me off to other global storylines, I found myself tapping my foot, itching to get back. That surprisingly great narrative isn’t always paired with flawless combat. Enemy AI occasionally breaks the immersion, and there were times where soldier pathfinding would degrade into a weird, gliding motion across the terrain. Every so often, an enemy would simply stare blankly at me from five feet away, declining to shoot altogether. This is an especially bizarre contrast to the bullet-sponge enemies who absorb a full magazine. These are minor technical hiccups that rarely ruin what is otherwise a great war story. Multiplayer: Flawless Gunplay, Dubious Vibe If the campaign is a gritty drama, the multiplayer mode is its rowdy, energy-drink-fueled younger sibling. From a mechanical view, the shooting in MW4 is still the gold standard of the FPS genre. The weapons are loud, heavy, and delightfully punchy. The feedback loop is pristine and enemies telegraph damage very well. Whether holding down points in Domination or sprinting through Team Deathmatch, the action is fast-paced and fun. The class customization options are varied, even if I personally stick to reliable Assault 95 percent of the time. If it ain’t broke, don't fix it. The map design has some cool thematic choices even when the layouts themselves aren’t particularly memorable. My favorite map, set in an urban slum, takes place in the middle of a Holi Festival of Colors. It adds a rare, joyous splash of culture to an otherwise muted aesthetic. It’s great. Even if a few environmental art pieces have a whiff of AI generation. If any franchise on earth can afford to pay actual human artists, it's Call of Duty. Where multiplayer stumbles for me is in its tone. Call of Duty has spent recent years cultivating a brand of juvenile, edgelord humor that is in stark contrast to its campaign's sobering take on armed conflict. Accidental team-shots are met with your operator barking "Watch it, dipsh*t!", which feels more middle-school playground than elite operator. Calling in a tactical nuke triggers an animation where your character dramatically flips off the entire map before detonation as they fly away to “safety”. (Honey, you're a few feet away from a multi-megaton nuclear blast. You're going to have terminal radiation sickness, so I don't know why you're acting like you just won a prize.) The franchise peaks when it respects the gravity and danger of modern warfare. The campaign strikes this balance beautifully, but the multiplayer frequently trades that more high-stakes tension for teenage bravado. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is a triumphant, high-octane game held back only by a few quirks and a multiplayer mode that needs to grow up. The Korean campaign arc alone is worth the price of admission. Combined with gunplay that feels better than ever, MW4 earns a glowing recommendation. Just ready yourself for the edgelord operator callouts when in multiplayer. Released October 23, 2026 Developer(s) Infinity Ward Publisher(s) Activision Multiplayer Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op Prequel(s) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022), Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III Genre(s) First-Person Shooter, Action Pros & Cons Amazing campaign story Best-in-class mechanics and physics Edgelord tone in multiplayer persists A few technical quirks