We have reached a time limit the place one could be nostalgic for the PS3 era, and Activision is banking on that with all its may to promote Name of Obligation: Fashionable Warfare 3. Moderately than a brand new line-up of multiplayer maps, this yr’s entry is an odd amalgamation of the previous, as the entire weapons and playable characters from 2022’s Name of Obligation: Fashionable Warfare 2 have been ported over for play on basic places from, nicely, 2009’s Name of Obligation: Fashionable Warfare 2. The same old single participant marketing campaign and an open-world spin on Zombies are what Fashionable Warfare 3 can name its personal, however when remastered maps from a 14-year-old sport is the very best you have to provide, possibly it truly is finest to simply take a yr off.
Closely purported to have began life as a DLC pack for final yr’s instalment, by no means has a standalone Name of Obligation sport felt extra like a contractual settlement all events remorse signing. The marketing campaign stitches collectively Open Fight Missions that really feel like adverts for Warzone, the multiplayer is bloated past perception with little in the way in which of authentic content material, and Zombies comes throughout as a drained trick failing to justify its existence.
Whereas it is troublesome to model it the worst Name of Obligation sport ever, Fashionable Warfare 3 is actually within the operating. The disappointing marketing campaign does a lot of the heavy lifting to incomes that undesirable accolade, with ranges principally devoid of the bombastic set-pieces you anticipate from the collection. Of their place are Open Fight Missions: eventualities that play out extra like a typical Warzone match the place you procure a lot of your tools on web site. You may have to supply higher gear, weapons, and routes via the extent, and take a look at over once more if you happen to fail — and that is a possible risk since checkpoints are at a irritating premium.
These missions work pretty nicely once they’re clearly geared in the direction of a selected playstyle (equivalent to stealth), permitting you to fine-tune your method and discover higher weapons on your subsequent try. Nonetheless, they largely really feel like inferior stand-ins for the kind of ranges you’d anticipate out of a Name of Obligation marketing campaign. There are not any dramatic set-pieces or hand-crafted shoot-outs, simply docile encounters and aims that really feel like Contracts from the franchise’s Battle Royale providing.
At the least when the marketing campaign does flash the absurd finances backing it in-between these Open Fight Missions, it begins to really feel like the only participant ranges of outdated. The trademark sniper and AC-130 encounters return, they usually’re set between different considerably respectable eventualities that spell out Makarov’s return within the story. All of it quantities to a marketing campaign that is possibly not fairly as unhealthy as what you have been listening to, but it surely’s nonetheless the worst it has been for a while.
On some degree, you may say the identical concerning the multiplayer. Nearly fully devoid of recent content material, Fashionable Warfare 3 is made up of 16 remastered maps from Fashionable Warfare 2 of the PS3 period and the entire weapons and skins from final yr’s sport. Apart from some new weapons and community-pleasing gameplay updates, the title’s on-line battles are all made up of recycled content material. On the gunplay facet, this has led to a preposterous quantity of bloat.
In relation to getting ready a loadout, you’ve got an totally ridiculous 114 weapons to select from — 77 weapons introduced over from Fashionable Warfare 2 (2022) and 35 new ones together with a bonus two melee choices. Then, whenever you lastly discover a weapon you may like, you have to scroll via enormous lists of attachments to package it out with probably the most minuscule advantages and negatives. This course of is widespread in all Name of Obligation video games these days, however whenever you’ve successfully obtained two video games’ price of content material bundled collectively together with a full yr of post-launch help, it is so overwhelming that you just’d want an internet information to know the place to even start.
The identical goes for the quantity of characters (identified in-game as Operators) you possibly can play as, although lots of them require buying with actual cash. Once more, all the things has been introduced ahead from final yr’s instalment, so we have already obtained Lilith from Diablo 4 and real-life rapper 21 Savage gunning down troops from the marketing campaign. As an alternative of introducing the extra unrealistic skins just a few months down the road, Name of Obligation: Fashionable Warfare 3 already appears like a pantomime on day one.
Really participating in multiplayer matches performs out precisely as you’d anticipate, with the same old modes to select from and numerous ranks to progress via into the Status choices. The long-lasting maps of Fashionable Warfare 2 (2009) are the primary promoting level, they usually not less than maintain up practically 15 years later.
Revisiting the likes of Terminal, Highrise, and Afghan remains to be a pleasure two generations of techniques on, particularly whenever you’ve a lot nostalgia for one of many titles that outlined on-line gaming because it turned half and parcel of the console expertise. A number of the maps aren’t fairly as acquainted — significantly those who had been added in a while in map packs — however you will rapidly floor your self as their basic layouts come flooding again after rounding a selected nook or stumbling upon a sure a part of the map.
Nonetheless, what’s the sport’s spotlight will also be seen as its greatest weak spot: there’s not a shred of recent content material. Whereas completely new maps will arrive as a part of seasonal updates post-launch, it is manifestly apparent how Fashionable Warfare 3 was initially pitched as DLC on this regard. A full suite of remastered maps would have labored nicely as an enlargement, however as a standalone launch, it fails to supply the breadth of recent content material you’d anticipate out of a Name of Obligation expertise.
Zombies hardly fares significantly better, this time set in an open world that lacks the depth of the cramped, smaller-scale eventualities seen in years previous. A number of groups of three work to finish aims, accrue forex, and finally extract from the big map. Primarily an undead twist on modes from earlier instalments, it feels tacked on and undercooked. And if the marketing campaign felt like an advert for Warzone, the Zombies mode fairly actually is one: the map is the idea for the following Battle Royale setting launching subsequent month. A really cynical admission that demonstrates simply how cobbled collectively Fashionable Warfare 3 actually is.
Conclusion
“We’d like a brand new Name of Obligation sport each single yr,” the Activision executives bellowed, and out popped Name of Obligation: Fashionable Warfare 3 after the event occasions caught up with them. A really anaemic launch, there’s by no means been a surer signal to press pause on the collection. 14-year-old content material is the very best factor about this yr’s entry and if that is not sufficient of an indictment of the place Name of Obligation is at in 2023, we do not know what’s. A franchise in severe want of an entire reboot, Fashionable Warfare 3 needs to be the straw that breaks the camel’s again.