Hello everyone. I recently completed the main campaign of CODMW3 2023 and I wanted to talk about it.
Let’s start with the gameplay. MW3 2023 has been heavily criticized and roasted for its level design and structure. With some calling it the worst COD campaign in history. Many people really hated the game’s “Open Combat missions” that drop players into part of the Warzone map and be told to go do some objectives however they feel like.
But bear with me on this next section:
I’m going to drop one of the hottest takes and pretty much ruin my reputation by saying “I actually kinda liked it and feel that with some tweaking and improvements, this has the potential to significantly raise the bar for future COD campaigns”.
Now that nobody is going to take this post seriously, it’s time to explain my reasoning.
To me, the main appeals of a COD campaign are its mix of levels that vary up the gameplay. You could have a level that’s more of an Uncharted style action set piece, followed by a scripted tense stealth level, followed by a more open ended level that gives you more freeform and improvisational gameplay. Followed by a straightforward shooter level with no gimmicks. But I still prefer it when COD levels lean more on giving the player multiple options rather than be 100% scripted and linear.
There is one Open Combat mission in MW3 2023 that I feel really highlights the potential of open combat missions. Highrise. In this mission, you play as Gaz as he’s tasked with capturing Konni operative Nolan on the top of an apartment complex. The gameplay involves navigating through through the various rooms of the apartment complex as you climb higher and higher. But you have a fair amount of options for how you want to progress and fight enemies. You aren't just going through linear hallways (not entirely). For example, you can jump out a window onto a balcony and use that to flank enemies or even bypass them altogether. There are often multiple ways to go up floors such as using the stairs, using the makeshift walkways outside or jumping on certain hanging crates. Gaz even comments that he's using these shortcuts. The mission even rewards your exploration by giving you high quality gear, armour pieces and tools like the Ascender to help you access more areas or shortcut back up if you fall. My favourite part was getting Ascender, using it to enter a side room a couple floors up, and finding a Dragon Breath Shotgun that fires explosive rounds that tore through many of the armoured enemies in my path. I really enjoyed this more freeform level design and progression despite the overall structure of the mission being quite linear.
Another Open Combat Mission, Oligarch has Soap infiltrating the mansion of the Russian Oligarch funding Makarov. This mission is fun because you can either choose to play it stealthily or go loud. The stealth is rather basic but the open ended design of the map makes combat quite engaging. I found I was enjoying it as I was chased and directed around, going into buildings and looting supplies as I fought armoured enemies. The mansion and its grounds offer a lot of variety and interesting spaces to fight in. COD's mechanics and weapons sandbox at this point are quite deep. There's a lot to play around with weapons and their attachments, killstreaks, gadgets and perks. And past COD games didn't really incorporate that into the campaign as much as MW3 2023 is.
The other Open Combat Missions, I feel, are fine. Their gameplay isn't any worse than prior CODs and their missions. The gunplay is snappy, you get quite a lot of rewards for exploring. Them being Warzone Maps means the environments are better designed for combat encounters with more avenues to approach objectives. I'm reminded a bit of the Singleplayer Spec Ops modes from prior CODs. MW3 2023's campaign kinda feels like it's incorporating some of the design of those old modes. Like, I don't feel these missions would be automatically better if they were much more linear and scripted like the older CODs like many of the reviews and posts I've read claim.
I will argue that many of these Open Combat Missions lack a lot of the spectacle and forward momentum. The missions also don't take more advantage of their format to introduce more interactive elements. So rather than feeling like "campaign missions that just happen to be set in Warzone's map", they feel more like "Warzone contracts that happen to be in the Campaign".
As an example, in the mission "Precious Cargo", Farah just needs to plant trackers on the missile containers. Even though the mission is open ended in how you approach it and we get a sense of her and Grave's relationship, once you plant the trackers, the mission just ends. Or the mission Payload. Here Price is tasked with destroying 3 Konni Helicopters and then entering the base's nuclear reactor. Your primary objective is just to destroy the helicopters and there happen to be a lot of Konni guards in your way.
Imagine, in a hypothetical version of Payload, what if it worked a bit more like Metal Gear Solid 4 where Konni forces were engaged in skirmishes with some local militia and Price's objective was to sneak through the battlefield while the 2 sides were distracted to destroy those helicopters (or some other target as the Helicopters would probably be in use now)? You already have the approach the game already has where you can slowly stealth through, ride past or shoot your pay past Konni enemies (and also the local militia). But now the mission could introduce secondary objectives or interactions the player could do. For example, they could take a detour to free some local militia prisoners so they have a larger force to attack a Konni base. And then they could either join in the attack or use the commotion to sneak around and plant explosives on the Helicopters/Target? Could make the mission stand out a lot more than just being a Warzone contract.
This is something prior COD games have toyed around with. CODWW2 had a mission where you infiltrate a German Embassy and could optionally rescue prisoners you found along the way. And they would then help you out later depending on how many you rescued.
-The Story.
While I have been pretty positive on MW3 2023's Singleplayer gameplay (more than what people think it should deserve), I will be a lot more negative on the story. I have heard CODMW3 2023 was originally intended to be a DLC for MW2 2022 (the game even shows up as a DLC for MW2 2022 on PS5) and nowhere is that more apparent than in the game's story. MW3 2023's story feels like its spinning its wheels, stalling for time and stretching out events in order to buy time for the real MW3. It's even half the length of a typical COD story, clocking in at around 2-3 hours as opposed to the usual 5-6.
The game starts out strong. Rescuing Prisoner 627, learning its Makarov, seeing him go to work and seeing Price immediately abort a mission to go after him really establishes Makarov as a threat. But the game doesn't really progress this dynamic. A major focus on the plot is how Makarov intends to frame the ULF for launching chemical weapons......the same plot point from MW2 2022. And Task Force 141 are able to thwart it so Farah's wishes are fulfilled. Price is poisoned from exposure to chemical weapons......but is fine barely a cutscene later. The world as a whole doesn't feel like it's on the brink of war so there's no sense of forward progression despite what Lazwell says.
Something MW2019 and MW2 2022 did better than the OG MW trilogy was develop the main cast of characters. What can you tell me about OG Ghost's character? Those games didn't really show much of his character and personality aside from him "being a competent soldier" and wearing a mask (and also being a hit of a hacker). Like, you could swap him out with Ozone or Scarecrow and little would change. You had to read the tie-in comics in order to get some actual character out of OG Ghost. But MW2022 goes out of its way to give Soap and Ghost a bromance in "Abandoned". Their banter and relationship were charming and endearing. You also had Aleandro in MW2 2022 with a very charming personality and Farah in MW2019 who acted as something of a "moral compass" for the cast. Gaz has his bit in MW2019 where he showed off his feelings in Piccadilly.
MW3 2023 portrays these characters in a far more generic way. Gaz feels much more like a generic and replaceable soldier character. Soap and Ghost's bromance only briefly gets shown in a single cutscene. Farah has this very interesting relationship where she trusts and sides with Graves (the villain of the last game) who every other character hates but that tension never goes anywhere. This hurts because I feel this trilogy was on track to at least make Soap and Ghost's deaths hit harder since we got more character development out of them. But MW3 2023, the way it currently is, makes Soap's death feel way less impactful than it could have. Like, you could have had Soap die in the final mission of MW2 2022 the same way he does in MW3 2023 and that would have felt more impactful because of the build up and relationship he had with Ghost.
MW3 2023, because of its rushed pace and lack of any significant story or character beats, also suffers with regards to Shepard. Price kills him in the post credits scene. But unlike his OG counterpart, this version of Shepard didn't do as much wrong for Price to want to personally kill him. I guess he may have been responsible for delivering chemical weapons but it lacks the more personal antagonism of OG Shepard. It feels more like Price went AWOL to go after Shepard here rather than a more organic sequence.
Adding to the issue are Graves and Alex' characters. Alex died back in MW2019. Graves (supposedly) died in MW2 2022 (but we didn't see a body so he almost certainly was alive). Not only does MW3 2023 bring them back after several years (significantly undermining the threat of death in this series) but the reveal and details of their re-appearance wasn't even shown in MW3 2023. The cutscenes re-introducing them came from Warzone and its seasonal storytelling approach. Being charitable, I suppose Activision noticed that the Singleplayer story was only being updated a couple years apart while Warzone needed a concurrent story to keep players engaged and so decided to kill 2 birds with one stone by having the singleplayer story continue in Warzone. This isn't even an entirely new idea as CODMW2019's Spec Ops Mode was described as being a sequel to the base game's story as it followed up on some plot points from the base game.
But still, I don't think this is a great idea. I haven't played Warzone since 2022 but I don't imagine Warzone players were that invested in the Singleplayer campaign's story? I figured the Warzone playerbase were kinda like the Zombies Playerbase in that the story was this alternate universe "isolated to the mode" type affair. Kinda like Operation Monarch Event where Kong and Godzilla showed up in Warzone. Conversely, are fans of COD Singleplayer really going to play Warzone just to get more story out of the game? Especially when the story is now limited to the location and structure of Warzone. I imagine there are quite a few players like me that don't play much Warzone and primarily get their COD story from the singleplayer campaigns who were quite confused. A major aspect of modern COD is that there are like 3-5 modes per game and some players are exclusively fans of 1 of them.
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But on a more broad note, I feel the core story issues in MW3 2023 aren't entirely new. They kinda were always present with this trilogy of games. MW3 2023 is just where they caught up to their consequences as its seemingly rushed development really pushed them out on the open. MW2019 had this weird approach where it wanted to be this far more "realistic" and "grounded" game rather than something closer to a Hollywood Blockbuster. Something more morally ambiguous with Price saying "We get dirty so the world stays clean". But the game doesn't commit to either approach. See how MW2019 rewrites the Highway of Death to blame the Russians or how the Russian Occupation of Urzikstan's inspired suicide bombings in the UK rather than Russia. Jacob Geller has a really good video on MW2019 wants to look controversial and serious but fails to actually explore any of its topics and falls back to its preconceived conventions.
MW3 2023 inherits that same wishy-washy approach but has less to
distract from it. It can't seriously explore Makarov's points or explore its characters in
any depth because it can't commit to being serious or having characters
reflect on their questionable actions. But at the same time, it can't
let Makarov kickstart WW3 or have America be affected like in the OG MW2
and MW3 because its supposed to be "grounded and realistic". So all it can do is spin
its wheels. This results in a story that doesn't really progress its
overall plot or its characters. The new MW trilogy really feels like the kind of Games Spec Ops: The Line was designed to critique. It also doesn't help that the story now needs to be handed off and received from entirely separate modes like Warzone that don't complement a more serious story.
I suspect MW4 2025 will continue this trend. You may have Task Force 141 pursuing revenge against Makarov in some small isolated section of Russia and/or the Middle East that is completely isolated from the rest of the world. They may even kill him but there won't even be a proper WW3 in the story. Or if there is, it will probably just be US troops vs the local army or something all while the game claims this is WW3.
Regardless, If I could suggest how to improve MW3 2023's story while making as few changes as possible, here's how I would do it:
Operation 627: Honestly, I think this mission is fine the way it is. The shake up that you're rescuing Makarov, getting a sense of how he operates and the final cutscene showing Price abandoning a mission as soon as he learns Makarov is free is good stuff. It establishes Makarov as a credible threat. Honestly, I don't think there's much wrong here that needs to be changed.
If I had to change anything, I am not a huge fan of this version of Makarov's design and appearance. OG Makarov's design and voice was more iconic and intimidating. Reboot Makarov kinda looks and sounds younger and less threatening. Other rebooted characters like Price, Soap, Ghost and Shepard due at least look and sound on par with their OG Counterparts. I wouldn't have been opposed to Makarov here being a copy and paste of his OG self.
Precious Cargo: The first open combat mission. I kinda like what this mission is going for here. You play as Farah, her friend Dina gets killed and you have to scavenge for supplies in a dock while Graves is the voice on the radio. Farah's primary objective is to plant tracking devices on shipping containers that hold the chemical weapons Makarov wants. I feel the banter with Graves here as this "fake angel/help" is quite interesting and I wish there was more of that.
If I had to add something, I feel there could have been a linear section after the trackers have been planted where Farah wants to seek revenge against the Konni commander that shot Dina. So you could have a section where Farah disrupts a small Konni command centre, gets into a scuffle with a commander, and learns more of Makarov's plans before the mission ends. But idk, seems a bit overboard for the first Open Combat Mission. Plus it would just be padding anyway. So I'm not too big on this idea.
Reactor: This mission is ok. Price infiltrates a nuclear power plant in an Open Combat mission. Destroys some helicopters, and goes into the reactor where he gets hit with a dose from the chemical weapons.
Not much to add here. I do feel the mission would be improved by my MGS4 inspired idea.
Payload: This is where I start getting more drastic with my changes. The opening missions of MW3 2023, if a little bland, do at least something and follow on from prior missions. Payload is the first mission that really falters here. Price gets exposed to chemical weapons in the last mission but recovers in like a couple seconds of screentime. The consequences of his exposure never show up in the game whatsoever.
So here's my suggestions: Price gets benched for this mission because of his injuries. The player takes control of Gaz while Soap provides recon and assistance via his drone. Kinda like an inversion of "Abandoned from MW2 2022" where it's now Soap who is helping out the player character. I want this mission to have a lot of optional dialogue and bonding moments between Soap and Gaz. We need to milk as much of Soap as we can before he dies. But the story should present it as like Soap and Gaz being worried about Price potentially dying. Flag up Price potentially dying as the red herring to distract from Soap's death.
In the current version of MW3 2023, the chemical weapons are marked with Urzikstan's flags so they get blamed for the attack. Aside from being a repeat from MW2 2022, this plot point doesn't matter much because Urzikstan's name gets cleared anyway by the end. If we have to reuse this plot point again, I feel it would be better if the consequences of this are something that are more drastic and can't be as easily undone. Like, in the original MW2 2009, the events of the "No Russian" Mission weren't easily swept under the rug. So I would have it such that the missiles are branded with American Flags or set up in a way to blame the Americans. This strains global tensions and pushes the world towards war. Which at least feels higher stakes than the current version. It also mirrors the OG MW2 2009 which is what MW3 2023 is going for.
This also accomplishes several other things. Firstly, it gives Makarov an actual win that Task Force 141 can't easily undo. It also puts more pressure on Price as the story could frame it as him being out of commission is what allowed the missile launch to actually happen. That if it were Price in Gaz' place, this wouldn't have happened.
Deep Cover: This mission is really brief so there's not much to talk about. Laswell sneaks into a Russian military base, steals a keycard and meets with Yuri but then has to evacuate when the chemical weapons launched in the last mission hit the base.
This one is weird because it introduces Yuri but doesn't do anything with him. If I had to suggest a more drastic change, maybe have this be MW3 2023's version of MW3 2011's chemical weapon attack and have Laswell die in the base (assuming she doesn't have a large role in MW4 2025 or something). That way, Makarov gets another win and Task Force 141 loses a valuable source of intel and support.
For gameplay, maybe this mission could have more ways of sneaking into the base as a way to improve it. CODWW2 showed that is possible in COD.
Passenger: This mission seems to be MW2023's main attempt at a "No Russian" style mission. And in isolation, it's really good. The mission is tense and there are some "choices" the player can make such as "choosing" to fire on the other passengers only to find the gun wasn't loaded.
But in the context of MW3 2023's story, this mission has no consequences as Farah wipes the data in the next mission and Urzikstan is cleared by the end of the game anyway.
I say, if this game is going to take some notes from MW2 2009, why not go all the way? I would change it such that this a framed Russian act of revenge on an American Plane. Really get both countries ready to go to war. If we want to include Samara and the ULF into it, we can still have her be the unwilling scapegoat Makarov uses. This could allow a plot point where Urzikstan is also willing to go to war now and is trying to drag its allies like the US into it and Farah is torn between her loyalty to her country or having to go behind it.
Crash Site: First change: I want this mission's opening cutscene to be a montage of various news broadcasts talking about how WW3 is imminent from both the US, Europe, Russia and Urzikstan's sides. Really play up the idea that this is serious. In the current version of the story, Laswell says the world is on the brink of war but we don't really feel it. These changes really bring that out into the forefront.
I also want there to be a brief cutscene of Price seeing the rising stakes and choosing to return to the field before fully recovering. Citing that the threat is too serious for him to sit out. That they can't take the risk of Makarov doing more damage and that they need Price now even if he's not at 100%. It's Shepard, funnily, who gives Price the OK here to return to active duty. I want to have it that Shepard has somewhat similar motives to his OG counterpart in that he wants to push America into a war and is hoping that he can use Price as the catalyst to launch it given how easy it is to goad Price into going into a mission by just suggesting Makarov might be there.
As for the mission itself, it can play out mostly the same as it does in the current game. Farah investigates the crash site to figure out what really happened. But the change is that even though she learns the truth of what happened. she doesn't find any hard evidence to exonerate anyone or convince Urzikstan's to not go to war. Farah's internal conflict here where she's torn between supporting Urzikstan's decision to go to war or abstain is really introduced here and gives her character something to do.
Flashpoint: No major changes here. It's a solid flashback mission. And it really sells Makarov as a threat and chessmaster as even though Task Force 141 capture him, because they focused all their attention on Makarov, they missed the Stadium getting blown up. The framing of this mission is that Price feels he needs to get after Makarov as he's too dangerous and Price is the only one that knows how Makarov operates.
One change I would add is that partway through the level, there is a single bomb that Soap and Price have to disarm. The game presents this as supposedly being Makarov's plan and it involves responding to a series of faint coloured lights. This is for the Chekhov's gun my story is going for.
Oligarch: No major changes here. The mission is solid and has what little engaging dialogue between Soap and Ghost that there is in the game. And this is a victory that Task Force 141 gets over Makarov as they cut him off his money in Milena.
A change I would make is have Price on comms offer help like "this is where an ambush would be" or something to show that he does know Makarov well enough to counter (or at least get Soap to counter) his traps.
Highrise: No major Changes here. This mission is great the way it is. We could have this be Price's return where he's mostly fine but still suffering from some issues like faded colours or having difficulty seeing some things (this is the important Chekhov's Gun for my version of the story). But to be safe, we could also have Soap accompany us. Both as a way to help Price and to have some more bonding between him and Gaz. And again, we could have some instances of Price recognizing traps or ambushes from Makarov before they happen and warning Gaz and Soap of them.
Frozen Tundra: To be honest, I still don't understand why Shepard is here or why he's Makarov's captive. The story doesn't do much with it being Shepard specifically. The easy change would be to remove him and have Task Force 141 actually have a prisoner they carry the entire time. Maybe Yuri in this case?
But if we have to keep Shepard because of that tension of "is this the mission where he betrays us?" then I suppose we could. We'd then have to have a setup where he kills Gaz and then escapes otherwise what's the point of having Shepard along? This would somewhat mirror the fate of OG Gaz and be something of a callback to MW2 2009. To be honest, this is what I thought was going to happen when I first played the mission and Gaz offered to watch Shepard. That this is what gets Gaz killed and what motivates Price killing him. I'm not exactly sure how present it in a way that makes sense and doesn't make Shepard look bad in front of his forced that he killed Gaz.
So here's a version of how this could go down. Graves' Shadow Company had also been tracking the captured Shepard independently of Task Force 141. So most of the mission plays out as normally but Gaz and Shepard get separated from the rest of the squad. Gaz finds out about Shepard's plans to goad the US, Russia, Europe and Urzikstan into a war, and goad Price into starting it when Shepard tries to convert Gaz to his side. At this point, Shadow Company come in for the evacuation and Shepard shoots Gaz before he can spill the details to Task Force 141. Shepard "covers" up Gaz' death but Price is not convinced and vows to kill Shepard for it. However, Soap and Ghost have to talk him out of it. Citing that the mission to stop Makarov and the upcoming War is more important.
Gora Dam: This mission is kinda filler in the story. It's another "stop Makarov from launching a false flag attack" mission. I guess we could have that but also have Ghost figure out what exactly Makarov is planning next. If so, we need the tone to be more dour as well as have Ghost and Price discuss their feelings and thoughts. If we have open combat missions that encourage stealth and traveling over long distances, then we need this dialogue to fill the time between and develop these characters as much as they can.
Danger Close: an AC130 mission and one to hit against Makarov. The only novelty here is that you're controlling one of Graves' operatives . But otherwise filler. Maybe not have Makarov "seemingly die" and have Task Force 141 get intel that Makarov plans to hit the Chunnel next.
Trojan Horse: The last mission of the game. I suggest the mission plays mostly the same until the very end where Price needs to help Soap disarm the bomb. Now this is where the Chekhov's gun of Price's condition and the bomb disarming minigame finally come into play. Price's ability to distinguish differences in colour fades so he cannot rely accurate information to Soap which results in Soap's death. We can have it that Soap sacrifices himself to prevent the entire chunnel from being destroyed and Price is broken by what happens. I want the final stretch of gameplay to be Price just hunting down Makarov and fighting through his guards in a blind rage before being snapped into senses by Ghost (maybe Ghost disarms some bombs and needs Price to provide him cover at least). Price is torn between going after Makarov or helping Ghost. He chooses to help Ghost and Makarov escapes as a result. Task Force 141 manages to save the chunnel but the threat of the looming WW3 is still there.
We can still have the end credits scene with now just Ghost, Price and Farah holding a memorial for Gaz, Soap and Laswell. But I would rather the post credits scene where Price shoots Shepard be saved until the next game. Or if it needs to be there, be an extremely brief section of gameplay so it at least has some catharsis.
So yeah, that's my proposed changes to improve MW3 2023's story? I feel it's a bit of an improvement as it gives characters more to do and creates much higher stakes so it feels like progression and sets the stage for MW4 2025 to go more into a WW3 focused storyline and mirror MW3 2011. But the character deaths' value are limited given that we have Graves and Alex come back. If at least Alex remains dead, maybe we could salvage some more tension? I imagine players will still hate the fact I kept most of the Open Combat missions intact and just added more dialogue to them. There also isn't much room to give these characters more development.
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