The reboot of the Modern Warfare franchise in 2019 was a breath of fresh (if ironic) air into Call of Duty and after a few less exciting games from the other primary CoD developers Infinity Ward is back with Modern Warfare 2. The last time we had a Modern Warfare 2 it was a very exciting and bombastic follow up to Call of Duty 4 in 2009, and with the early access to the new game’s campaign we can see at least if the single player of the new MW2 will live up to its predecessor.
The Modern Warfare of 2019 had a campaign with some great moments punctuated with some of the difficulties of combat in an urban environment that so many other video games ignore, but it got a little repetitive by overusing those good ideas and ended up just being “okay” in my opinion. There’s only rooms you can clear and turrets you can flank before things get a little long in the tooth. After so many modern FPS games already, not to mention specially four Modern Warfare shooters, it’s hard to keep finding new things to do that keep the experience fresh, and Modern Warfare 2‘s campaign seems to unfortunately follow its predecessor with overusing its new ideas and borrowing more from the games that came before.
The strangest thing about the new Modern Warfare 2‘s campaign is how often it seems to overstay its welcome, which is weird for a campaign that’s only about six hours. There are at least four times during the game where a gameplay sequence lasts about thirty percent longer than you might expect, such as a car chase that seems to never end or a sniper sequence that calls back to the iconic “All Ghillied Up” level from CoD4 but just repeats the same set pieces two or three times rather than the variety we experienced in 2007. There’s also a questionable choice to introduce crafting elements in a relatively unique level late in the game that not only goes on for too long but also returns in Modern Warfare 2‘s extremely clunky finale, but most people are assuming this was forced into the campaign to prepare people for a crafting mechanic that may be in Warzone 2 next month.
This mix of new mechanics and overused old ones makes the whole campaign feel uneven, especially with strange tonal shifts where the irregular, quick quips that characters made in the previous entries are instead transformed into long strings of banter that generally feels out of place. Returning CoD4 main character Soap is one of the main perpetrators of this, with seemingly endless jokes about Irish slang and butting heads with Ghost for some reason, but Gaz has had some “character development” as well where he’s just overly chatty with Price during missions. Another factor that makes the game feel less put-together than other Modern Warfares is the lack of alternative character POVs, as throughout Modern Warfare 2 you’re (almost) always playing as either Soap or Gaz. One of the best things about the first Modern Warfare trilogy was the switch from the stealthy, stabby SAS to the boisterous attack helicopters of the US Army between chapters, but with the “death” of Alex/Echo 3-1 (despite being alive in Warzone which I guess makes him CoD‘s Phil Coulson) from the previous game we’ve lost essentially all connection with the US side of the military and now have to make due with most levels starting stealthy and only going shooty after you go loud during the mission. Admittedly the stealthy has always been the best part of the Modern Warfare titles but when every level starts essentially the same it all sorts of blends together.
Speaking of all blending together, even the story beats outside of what you actually do in the gameplay are rather repetitive. The villains play the “you have no legal grounds to hold me” card multiple times throughout the campaign and are let go because of it, in stark and actually hilarious contrast to the earlier games where our heroes would just execute and torture bad guys without regards for the consequences. Friendly NPCs will be shot many times during the story but they’ll also repeatedly hand wave it away by talking about how “the plate caught it.” Most frustrating of all is that the plot is essentially the same framework as the last game: at the end of the first mission you discover a terrorist threat with a super weapon, it turns out the route to the super weapons leads through a country with a rough criminal element oppressing the people, you team up with freedom fighters in the country to solve the problem, your leadership won’t finish the job the “right way” so you go off the grid with said freedom fighters to do the job yourself, and the game ends with references to the old games and a plot hook that may lead into either Warzone 2 or the rumored campaign DLC next year. Again in stark contrast to the last game that bore its name, Modern Warfare 2 goes with a safe, by the numbers approach to its story rather than something as off the wall as World War 3, and the worst part about it all is that if you HAVE played the previous Modern Warfare 2 then you’ll see the story’s “twist” change in stakes coming a mile away.
The funniest thing about this “early access” campaign is the numerous technical glitches I encountered, which can both be hand-waved as launching without a day one patch but were still a pain to work through. The most common of these was just an irregular crash, usually when I was doing multiple button presses during scripted sections, which would freeze the game and force a restart. Repeatedly, though not often, enemies would be stuck floating on things (generally vehicles) or glitch out in other strange ways. The worst offender was what the game presented as an optional stealth section that I skipped entirely by running around the enemies before they got out of their cars, which seemingly broke the game entirely. I tried to progress to the next area but the usual “voice in your ear” disappeared and never started again until I returned to the area and killed the eight (armored) soldiers that were wearing for me. I’m sure at least some of these will be fixed either on launch or soon after, but it was still a little jarring or frustrating when they happened, depending on what the error was.
This review is pretty short because there’s only so many different ways I can say that the Modern Warfare 2 campaign is a relatively short, relatively samey, relatively forgettable experience. Everything it has to say has either been said better elsewhere or overstays its welcome and becomes a chore to push through by the end. It’s not even very “modern” either, as outside of the missile technology and some remote control bombs there isn’t much here that comments on or presents that state of modern or near-future combat like the other games have. Obviously no one buys the Call of Duty franchise just for the campaign, but if it’s a big part of your consideration then you might want to rethink where you’re spending your seventy dollars.
