Call of Duty used to take up a big chunk of my gaming time. It was one of my go-to games. The Call of Duty franchise began over 20 years ago with historic World War II era games, before time jumping into Modern Warfare times. The modern war games were where I truly fell in love with these games, and started putting more and more time into them — both in campaign and online multiplayer modes.

Ever since the time jump the Call of Duty games have continued to explore modern combat with the Modern Warfare, Black Ops, and Ghosts series. At some point they even time jumped further into the future wars (Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare) which added future tech, exo-skeletons, and jetpacks. A few years ago they even revisited the historical times with Call of Duty: Vanguard.

My gameplay style for Call of Duty has always remained the same, play through the campaign and then focus on online multiplayer — mostly Team Deathmatch. The introduction of Call of Duty: Zombies (or horde mode) was a nice co-op addition to the series, letting four friends or strangers play together.

Years ago I fell off the Call of Duty wagon and most military first-person shooter games altogether. When my friends were more into EA Battlefield games, I got into some of those as well. I fell off of that one too, due to their extra large maps where I would get lost searching for tanks and airplanes to ride around.

In March of 2020, the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone arrived as an answer to popular Battle Royale games, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite. I’ve played so many versions of battle royale games, but they have never really been my favorite. I’ve even downloaded a few iterations of Call of Duty: Warzone, but none have really stuck with me.

I don’t remember my last full Call of Duty title, but I know it’s been well over ten years, until this past weekend.

Revisiting Call of Duty

After hopping back into the Call of Duty franchise this past weekend, I will say that this is the standard when it comes to FPS (first-person shooter) gameplay. Whenever I start any FPS I am comparing it to Call of Duty or any recent Bungie FPS (the Destiny series or Marathon). If it doesn’t feel as smooth as those games, then I won’t get into it.

After adding the monthly free PlayStation Plus games to my library last week, I downloaded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. I played one or two online matches while the campaign downloaded, but I didn’t plan to do much more online gameplay. I’m more of a solo player or couch co-op than an online multiplayer gamer these days.

Once the campaign was downloaded I jumped right in. It took a total of about six hours to complete the story missions, or a few nights. There’s still more to do in each mission, but I don’t care to go back and unlock every item or weapon. I will most likely delete the game from my PlayStation 5 this week, now that the campaign is over.

As someone who just got into this game for the campaign, and had a great time with the story, is it worth it to pay $70-100 just for six hours of gameplay? Should they be selling a discounted campaign-only version? I’d pay $20-30 for that.

Call of Duty games now feature up to four different gameplay modes. You have your short campaign story. There’s online multiplayer modes. They have their Zombies (team horde mode). And last is the free-to-play Warzone battle royale mode — which is available to everyone, even without owning the base game.

I do think the game is worth the price, when it comes to the entire package. Also, even though these are annual games, they are always polished and well-made. Paying the extra $30 for the “Vault” or “Ultimate” Mode usually adds some in-game currency, tokens, items, and allows players to get in on the action a day to a few days early. That’s a silly concept, our game comes out on Wednesday, but for just $20-30 extra bucks you can get in there 24 hours before everyone else!

Would it make sense for Activision to look into creating a campaign-only version of Call of Duty games? Would that even be profitable? I’m sure a huge chunk of their revenue comes from cosmetics, DLC packs, and whatever people are paying for in the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone.

Now that we’re about to get Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IV, maybe they should release the campaigns as a collection. The Modern Warfare I-IV collection or a Black Ops I-VII campaign collection. Why not remaster them all, like everyone else is doing? Let’s even release the historic Call of Duty story collection — from the first Call of Duty all the way up to Call of Duty: Vanguard.

Modern Warfare III • The Campaign

The campaign mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III felt like watching a big budget military action film. There was a nice variety of missions from stealth to run-and-gun to air strikes to flashbacks and more. The cinematic cutscenes also really complimented the story — they always include some nice effects to make it feel like you’re watching something classified that you shouldn’t be seeing.

Even though I missed out on a couple of years of Call of Duty, I did notice that they brought back some familiar characters from the series — Captain John Price, John “Soap” MacTavish, and “Ghost” and “Gaz.” This made me want to go back and replay past Modern Warfare games and get the full backstory.

When I heard the news that a Call of Duty film is currently in the works from Paramount I thought — What a silly idea! Playing this campaign and seeing these familiar characters made me want to see actors portray them on the big screen. I believe there’s enough in these campaigns to create a good military movie. They could also create a whole original story, but I do hope they use some of the known characters.

I wouldn’t mind some extra missions. I forgot how much I enjoy playing a nice, smooth FPS game. Sure, I can replay some missions, but I want new stuff. I may add some recent Call of Duty games to my wishlist and wait for a big sale just to purchase them and play through the stories.

The release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IV is just around the corner — this October. I will also add that one to my wishlist and hope for a sale, just to see what happens next in this story.

I’m glad that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III showed up as a monthly PS Plus game, and I’m happy that I gave it a chance. It has been a while since I’ve played a great FPS game.