Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 review – a Price worth paying

Call of Duty is at a crossroads, and Modern Warfare 4 is the turning point. Infinity Ward does what this series likes to do best: take things back to basics (again). We’re back to a straightforward, blockbuster campaign, familiar multiplayer, and a slice of experimentation with DMZ. Is it lazy play-the-hits territory, or is this a much-needed victory lap to set the series back on track? For the most part, thankfully, it’s very much the latter.

Let’s start with the campaign. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 picks up after the devastating events of its predecessor, with Vladimir Makarov essentially winning and tearing Task Force 141 apart in the process. With the death of Soap MacTavish weighing heavily on Captain John Price, the landscape of war has changed significantly since we last saw him. The lines between right and wrong barely exist, as Price feels hell-bent on avenging his fallen comrade and bringing a world of pain to anyone who stands in his way. It’s a premise that immediately gets straight to the chase.

Meanwhile, North Korea stages an invasion of the South, and Private Park Hyun-Jun finds himself caught right in the middle of it. Backed by Sierra-1 squad, Park’s side of the campaign eventually collides with Price’s world. It’s admittedly the least compelling part of the campaign, with much of it attempting to recapture the series’ past. Here, Infinity Ward really tries to play the greatest hits. Remember ‘Wolverines!’ from Modern Warfare 2? Remember ‘Scorched Earth’ from Modern Warfare 3?

Park’s journey comes across more like a rehash of better missions from the past than anything fresh. It’s a shame, as this portion of the campaign often recalls the sheer horrors and bleakness of 2008’s World at War. It’s the grittiest Call of Duty has been in quite some time, with genuinely distressing moments of human brutality. It’s easy to forget that these games at least try to say something between the explosions and cinematic grandeur. However, Park’s story falls victim to the biggest sin these games keep committing: shoving open-world missions into the campaign.

They just don’t work, and in Modern Warfare 4, they annihilate the game’s pacing. The tenth mission, ‘Stranded’, brings all momentum to a screeching halt, acting as a lite tutorial for DMZ – which already has its own tutorial – over the course of 90 minutes. Thankfully, seemingly in an act of mercy, Infinity Ward lets us skip the exploration aspects and get stuck into the primary objectives. The whole thing comes across as padding to extend the game’s runtime. I’m not expecting a 20-hour campaign from Call of Duty.

Modern Warfare 4’s campaign shines when it focuses purely on Captain Price. Barry Sloane is a revelation in the role, bringing some of the best character work the series has to offer to life. He’s less of a caricature of a typical cinematic SAS soldier from the older games and more of a bleeding, vulnerable vessel for vengeance. On Price’s side of the story, there’s a fantastic sense of danger. No one is safe, and Infinity Ward makes that clear with some shocking twists early on.

The game treats main characters like sacrificial lambs, showing just how twisted things have become. The second mission, ‘Out In The Cold’, stands as a franchise high that knocked me for six. Soaked in neon, snow, and blood, it’s a wicked concoction ripped straight from the frames of John Wick.

Infinity Ward doesn’t just wear its big-screen influences proudly, either. Shades of Ronin, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and Unforgiven run throughout Price’s dark descent. From invigorating shootouts across the streets of Paris to a bombastic team-up in the pits of a military base, the campaign delivers a rapturous sense of stakes. I only wish the game’s conclusion didn’t feel so abrupt. It plays more like an epilogue than a potent third act.

Beyond the campaign, multiplayer is what most of you are returning for. Modern Warfare 4’s online suite delivers exactly what you’d expect. You’ve got your usual haunts of Team Deathmatch, Domination, Search and Destroy, and Free for All. Mixed in with those are Inflation, Kill Block, Frontline, and Hijack. Inflation plays similarly to Kill Confirmed, replacing dog tags with bags of cash and awarding victory to the team with the most money. Frontline imposes a 100-elimination limit, while Hijack offers your typical control-centric mode, much like Headquarters.

Out of the bunch, Kill Block is easily the most interesting. Here, Infinity Ward mixes new and older maps from the FPS series’ past into a modular, ever-changing battlefield. Using the framework of 10v10 Gunfight, the mode changes your loadout every couple of rounds while transforming the map layout, too. It’s a genuine blast that retains Gunfight’s high-pressure competition while adding a welcome spin. I’ll be curious to see which maps join this playlist in the future. Of course, you also have your progression and create-a-class systems to dig into.

Progression offers plenty to sink your teeth into, too. The traditional 55-level ranking system returns, with weapons, equipment, perks, Field Upgrades, and Killstreaks gradually unlocking as you play. However, the revamped Prestige system offers the biggest shake-up. For the first time, you can choose between Classic Prestige, which resets your unlocks in exchange for a 20% XP boost, a Permanent Unlock Token, and additional cosmetic rewards, or Regular Prestige, which lets you start the climb again without sacrificing your hard-earned equipment. It’s a welcome bit of flexibility that caters to both the old-school crowd who enjoy starting from scratch and those who’d rather keep hold of their favourite loadouts.

There’s also a hefty dose of nostalgia baked into the ten Prestige tiers, with each one drawing inspiration from a different Call of Duty era, from the original 2003 game through to Modern Warfare 4 itself. That means familiar titles such as Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, and Infinite Warfare all get their moment in the spotlight through themed weapon blueprints, Operator skins, emblems, and other cosmetics. Beyond that, Prestige Master extends the grind all the way to level 1,000, giving the most dedicated players another long-term target.

Gunplay sits leagues above last year’s entry, Black Ops 7. With Omnimovement now a thing of the past, it’s back to storming through maps with pure firepower and wits. The TTK takes some getting used to, as it feels nowhere near as fast as it did during the first MW4 beta weekend. Once you get accustomed to it, dispatching players on Shipment 24/7 highlights the punch you’ve come to love from the series. For me, the most direct test of any Modern Warfare game comes down to whether it can nail two basic weapons: the M4 or AK-47. Renamed the Kastov 47, the latter hits like a hammer with the right setup. Speaking of setups, the create-a-class system keeps things streamlined, too.

Weapons get five attachments, while you can unlock Apex iterations through ranking up or completing certain challenges. These are effectively zanier variants of each gun, which might bundle in a gnarly underbarrel launcher to drive a hole in your enemies. I can’t see myself becoming too infatuated with these, but if you want something extra to grind for, the option is there. But let’s talk about the real highlight. MW4 DMZ is absolutely outstanding.

I really, really didn’t expect it to be this good. I thought DMZ in 2022’s Modern Warfare 2 felt extremely half-baked. It had flashes of promise, but nothing that made me want to keep coming back. That’s not the case here. Infinity Ward has completely overhauled DMZ, so much so that it could stand as its own game rather than just an additional mode. If you never played it the first time around, DMZ is an extraction shooter that plays out across Hajin, a brand-new large-scale map that’s coming to Warzone on Friday, November 6, 2026.

DMZ splits its action between story missions, Dynamic Ops, and free roam. In free roam, you can spawn in without a goal, looting and shooting as you please. Dynamic Ops add more purpose, tasking you with quests across the region. These can range from infiltrating a military base to gain valuable intel to sabotaging enemy equipment in the field. The objective merely acts as a guideline, as it’s the emergent action that makes DMZ sing. Any extraction shooter worth its salt gives you the tools to make your own fun and tell your own stories.

I think DMZ does this extremely well, particularly through its unexpectedly awesome story missions. While they effectively act as a tutorial for the mode, the variety is wicked. Sieging casino vaults, escorting sedated VIPs out of hospitals, raiding underground military bunkers. I’ve had a blast tackling these missions with friends, creating moments that feel ripped straight out of the campaign alongside disastrously funny blunders. DMZ emphasises the threat by refusing to tell you who’s an NPC and who’s another player.

There’s plenty of PvE firefights to get stuck into, but you’ll eventually encounter soldiers who move just a little too strangely. Before you know it, there’s a bullet in your skull, and your loot is gone. That uncertainty ensures I always stay on my toes. It doesn’t always have to end in bloodshed, though. DMZ lets you call a truce and form reluctant, ARC Raiders-style alliances in the heat of the moment. I will say that I’ve encountered other players a little infrequently so far, but Infinity Ward has already started working to make PvP encounters happen more often.

When you’re not in Hajin, you can chill in your base of operations. This essentially recreates the Headquarters hub from Call of Duty: World War II, and I’m all for it. It’s great to have a sense of tangibility, watching my base evolve as my character ranks up and gains access to better gear. What I didn’t expect, though, was how attached I’d become to my operator. DMZ features a decent skill tree where you can pool points to unlock various buffs and traits. However, if you die in a match, you can’t bring that character back instantly. You need to spend money to retrieve them, as your skill points belong to that operator. Can’t afford it? Time to start building your operator from scratch.

Gear comes and goes in extraction shooters. This decision adds real weight to DMZ, forcing you to decide whether the grind justifies taking a fresh operator into the field. As a result, I’ve become invested in farming money and keeping my chosen soldier fit for the fight ahead. DMZ stands as the biggest surprise Modern Warfare 4 has to offer, and with some good post-launch support, it could keep us coming back for a long time.

On Nintendo Switch 2, it also marks a big moment for Call of Duty. It’s the first entry to land on a Nintendo platform in over a decade. It does come with some caveats. The campaign and DMZ are locked at 30fps, as is Warzone when that launches soon. MW4 multiplayer runs at 60fps, though. I would prefer a higher framerate in DMZ and Warzone, considering their highly competitive nature, where every frame and second is the difference between life and death. However, I will say that the Switch 2 holds its own, outputting a stable performance that makes it easier to get used to.

With DLSS enabled, it’s undoubtedly one of the best-looking games on the handheld, setting a benchmark for other shooters to follow on the platform. As the start of a new era for the series with Nintendo, it only has me excited for what’s possible with next year’s entry.

Modern Warfare 4 is a largely strong conclusion to the subseries. Infinity Ward understands what makes this series tick. The campaign occasionally trips over its own attempts to revisit the past, but Captain Price’s story delivers some of the franchise’s finest moments.

Multiplayer brings back the familiar thrills with some welcome new ideas, and the revamped progression system gives players plenty of reasons to stick around. But DMZ steals the show. It’s an outstanding extraction shooter that turns Modern Warfare 4 into something much bigger than another annual Call of Duty release.