Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 review-in-progress: "Spectacular set pieces that deliver on almost a decade of storytelling makes this campaign hard to put down"

Wu-Tang Clan's C.R.E.A.M. is playing as you wander through the streets of Seoul. People are going about their day, the convenience stores are stocked, and the city feels alive. Then North Korean forces attack, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 gets down to business.

It's the start to a campaign that feels authentic in the way that few franchises really manage to pull off. Call of Duty is one of them, when it's on form, and I'm happy to report that Modern Warfare 4 is one of The Good Ones: it looks superb, moves at a relentless pace, and manages to bring years worth of Modern Warfare storytelling to a satisfying conclusion.

Taking to Task Force

Right now, we're only allowed to give you our thoughts on the game's campaign, and the primary way I'd describe that campaign is that it's confident. This opening level with its everyday Seoul life reminds me of the portrayal of small town America seen in 2009's Modern Warfare 2. There's a real sense of place even if in classic Call of Duty fashion it's still incongruous, letting you stroll around the convenience store swinging haymakers at the crisps as everyone chatters around you.

That confidence extends to its narrative. Somehow, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 manages to take almost a decade of storylines and characters and tie it into a consistent ending to the narrative arc set out in 2019's Modern Warfare – when special forces soldiers are free to draw the line, who's to decide what's right or wrong?

It manages to do this while simultaneously cleaning the decks of most of the lingering threads from the disappointing Modern Warfare 3 (which we called "underwhelming" in our Modern Warfare 3 review). A lot of this is achieved by killing off a whole bunch of beloved characters, often brutally and without warning. Several times after a shocking death the camera lingers on dead characters to show you they're really dead and won't be returning in some of the post-launch content or a much maligned sequel Infinity Ward isn't responsible for.

Filling the void left by these deaths are a heap of new characters that I quickly gel with. Big bad Mads Mikkelsen is a lot of fun, but the standout is Lanny Joon as Ko who gives a stellar performance. Elsewhere, I squeak with delight when I recognize the voice of Luke Tennie from Apple TV's Shrinking. Most of these characters are lightly sketched out, but you're moving at such a quick pace you won't notice. Exposition is delivered breathlessly as you push from firefight to firefight, whispered in the quiet moments as you scurry around hoovering up ammo and armor plates from vanquished foes.

It's one of the most morally challenging Call of Duty campaigns in recent years, as the game pushes you gleefully to do things that don't fit with the usually narrow worldview of the series. One level has you playing as a North Korean soldier terrorizing a small village as you look for a dissident. How brutal you want to be is up to you but it's an unflinching level, let down slightly by the fact you're scuffling around the place looking for collectibles.

Price to see you

John Price, now on the run after assassinating General Shepherd in Modern Warfare 3, has grown a full beard instead of his ridiculous moustache and has to reckon with his own morality. There a few tough moments here: beating someone to death in an alleyway, facing off against "good guys" during fights through the Parisian streets, and even shooting-to-kill at former squadmates. After years of Price being the most recognizable good guy in the Call of Duty series, he's kind of a dick here, but trying to square that is part of the point.

Modern Warfare 4 has made me struggle with my own morality too, because I really wish it would relax its stance against civilian casualties. It's not a late heel turn for me, but the fact that innocents are in the middle of most of the gunfights and just clipping one results in an instant game over while enemies are unbothered has my ghillies in a twist. Have you ever tried to fire an assault rifle in fully automatic while hanging from the passenger seat of a speeding car without hitting civilians? I have, and it's pretty difficult.

These moments are rare frustrations in Modern Warfare 4's campaign, which is otherwise packed full of some of the series' most bombastic sequences to date. Several of the game's most impressive moments come early, with one highlight seeing you stalk a target through a club before you end up having to blast your way out.

One bouncer strolls towards you with the confident arms reloading motion Henry Cavill uses in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and it feels like a smart nod. Minutes later you'll move into some rooms full of floor to ceiling screens that would feel silly in a real club but are perfect if you want to put people into a shootout from John Wick 2. It feels less like wholesale cribbing and more like the team at Infinity Ward spend a lot of time inspired by action cinema.

The highlight for a lot of players will be Stranded. The mission is an expansive playground that has you dropping in with nothing but a pistol and slowly gathering gear as you roll around the North Korean countryside. You can skip this if you want and just fast travel to the different objectives but you really, really shouldn't. You explore points of interest on foot and slowly gather yourself an arsenal, before attacking the objectives as you wish.

This is followed up by an amphibious assault on Seoul that feels like a full circle moment for Call of Duty, looking back to its D-Day origins. It works as a fantasy. Call of Duty's campaigns have always been at their best when you're pushing against something impossibly well-defended, whether that's the beaches of Normandy or the cityscape of Seoul. Unfortunately, the execution here is a little shaky and emblematic of some of Modern Warfare 4's biggest problems: if you stray too far from your commander, you're instantly killed with a tooltip popping up to tell you to follow your squad leader to exit the beach safely.

After the freeform exploration of Stranded, being strapped back into the rollercoaster ride feels almost forceful, and it's clear Infinity Ward would rather you take it slow and watch everything they've planned than let you actually play the thing.

It's something that happens again and again. The campaign is absolutely rigid in terms of following objectives. On one mission, staggering around after a plane crash with near-zero visibility, I get a game over for abandoning my team while I'm rotating on the spot trying to find them. One time I vault over a low fence to get out of incoming fire and am told to get back to the mission area. By the time my health regenerated I was looking at a game over screen again.

It's a shame, as, when Modern Warfare 4's missions hit, I'm reminded why the series' campaigns remain so important in a genre increasingly measured by online success and hours streamed. It might still be junk food – even if this is a higher quality than limp-burger-like Black Ops 7 or Modern Warfare 3's attempts – but there are glimpses here of how Infinity Ward's modern approach to a military thriller can still push further. If only they'd let me off the leash a little.

Answer the call by checking out our best Call of Duty games and best FPS games rankings for more to play next!