Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Is Out, and Critics Love the Campaign

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. Its official release date is today, October 23, but Infinity Ward "got the action started early," and the game went live worldwide on Thursday night (Call of Duty on X). Infinity Ward leads development, with Beenox on the PC version and Digital Legends co-developing the Switch 2 version (Call of Duty). The campaign follows a full-scale North Korean invasion of the Korean Peninsula. You play as Private Park, a young South Korean soldier, and as a vengeful Captain Price running his own off-book mission. The fight eventually spreads to New York, Paris and Mumbai.

Barry Sloane is back as Price, and María Elisa Camargo plays Valeria Garza, per the official Call of Duty podcast.

What are critics saying about Modern Warfare 4?

Campaign reviews landed during early access, which opened October 16 for digital pre-orders. IGN gave it an 8 and said "Modern Warfare 4 made me feel something for the series again." GameSpot gave it a 7 and called the campaign "the best we've seen since Modern Warfare 2019" (Pure Xbox). PC Gamer said it's the first time in too long that the campaign doesn't feel like an afterthought, which is high praise for a series that has leaned so hard on multiplayer for years.

On OpenCritic, it sat at an 84 Top Critic Average on launch morning, with 100% of critics recommending it (OpenCritic). Nintendo Life gave it a 9 and called it "a bold, bombastic shooter" that runs very well on Switch 2. GamesRadar+ praised the set pieces and performances while pointing to some rigid mission design.

Is Modern Warfare 4 the end of this Modern Warfare story?

A few critics read it that way. GameSpot says it "wraps up the series with several shocking moments," and Digital Chumps called it the closing of a chapter that ends on a series high (OpenCritic). Activision hasn't said what comes next for Price.

What else is in Modern Warfare 4 at launch?

Multiplayer launches with 12 core maps, plus dedicated Gunfight and Big War maps and a new mode called Kill Block. DMZ, the extraction mode, is back as well. Warzone picks up MW4 content starting with Season 1, and it won't be playable on PS4 or Xbox One after that.

It's also selling. Windows Central says it holds the top sales spot on both Xbox and PlayStation right now, ahead of GTA 6 pre-orders. Xbox is pushing it hard enough that it took over everyone's dashboard this morning (here's how to turn that off).

I'd argue this is the Call of Duty campaign a lot of us have wanted since 2019, and the reviews mostly back that up. Multiplayer reviews will take a few more days to settle (my backlog was not ready for this).

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Header image and the campaign screenshot are official Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 screenshots from Activision, via Steam.