After eight years in reserve, Modern Warfare is back. In 2007, Infinity Ward redefined the first-person shooter with Call of Duty 4, offering a dramatic, contemporary campaign and a multiplayer that set the standard for almost every shooter of the following decade. Now, the studio is returning to the modern theatre with the most authentic Call of Duty experience yet.
This doesn’t simply mean that the guns and uniforms look convincing. Rather, Infinity Ward want to communicate to the player what today’s conflicts are actually like. Over the course of development, the team has consulted with real-life special-operatives, war correspondents, and other experts to make its portrayed conflict as believable as possible.
In the fictional country of Urzikstan, a situation is brewing. In the midst of a protracted civil war, a brace of chemical weapons has been stolen, and nobody knows who took them or where they are. Meanwhile, a terrorist attack in London has set the entire world on edge. With the conflict in Urzikstan threatening to boil over, legendary S.A.S soldier Captain John Price assembles a crack team of special-ops soldiers to track down the missing chemical agents and uncover who’s responsible for the attacks in London.
Infinity Ward has designed Call of Duty’s campaign to reflect the moral and political complexities of operating in modern warzones. The mission Price and his team are tasked with is far from straightforward. The situation in Urzikstan is fraught grey areas, with no clear lines between good and evil. While officially a civil war, multiple large nations fight on the ground through proxy forces, creating a political minefield through which the soldiers must tread. Meanwhile, these same forces do not always wear uniforms and hide in civilian areas, meaning Price and his team must approach combat scenarios with extreme caution.
Because of this, players will need to fight not just fiercely, but with precision, utilising authentic weapons, gadgets and above all, tactics to identify and eliminate targets. Many missions will offer multiple possible approaches, such as using stealth and teamwork to clear occupied buildings, shooting out lights and using night-vision goggles to gain a tactical advantage.
Infinity Ward also strived to represent the many types of combatant who operate in today’s warzones. Across the course of the campaign, players will assume the role of three very different characters. These include Kyle Garrick is an SAS soldier on counterterrorism deployment in London, and the CIA operative simply known as “Alex”, who specialises in long-term, behind-enemy-lines operations. Finally, there is Farah Karim, Commander of the Urzikstan Liberation Force. Having grown up in a country under occupation, Karim fights according to a strict set of rules, and believes that fighting honourably is more important than victory at any cost.
In this way, Infinity Ward’s reimagining of Modern Warfare offers a complex, multifaceted portrayal of today’s conflicts, highlighting the difficult and unpredictable combat scenarios soldiers from all over the world must contend with. This is Modern Warfare like you’ve never experienced it before.
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