It's fair to say that Call of Duty, as a brand, is the weakest it has ever been. The 2020s for the franchise have been met with ups and downs, and after last year's Black Ops 7 failed to maintain any kind of momentum past the initial weeks, a lot of pressure has been put on Infinity Ward's latest title, Modern Warfare 4, to bring the franchise back to its glory days.

For the most part, Infinity Ward has done an incredible job with Modern Warfare 4. No Call of Duty game has looked or felt this crisp, and the studio has delivered the best Call of Duty campaign of the decade and, personally, my favourite since 2016's Infinite Warfare.

The proper version of DMZ here, after a beta of it appeared in Modern Warfare II (2022), could be its own standalone game. But unfortunately, the multiplayer stops this year's game from being one of the best, with a frustrating laundry list of issues that Infinity Ward is well-known for at this point.

Set directly after the events of Modern Warfare III (2023), Modern Warfare 4's campaign tells the story of a squad of South Korean soldiers embroiled in an invasion of their country by North Korea, which has just elected a new Supreme Leader. Running in parallel to that story is the continuation of the Modern Warfare narrative with Price, Makarov, Ghost and the rest of the crew.

Throughout the campaign, you hop between each storyline, with both halves offering a plethora of engaging gunfights, incredible spectacles, and memorable missions that feel fresh and exciting for a series that is more than 20 years old.

It's a bloody and brutal narrative, oftentimes feeling like it is finally achieving the "dark and dirty realities of war" vision that Infinity Ward emphasised when they rebooted the Modern Warfare series back in 2019. This campaign never lets up, and it is all the better for it, surprisingly never feeling formulaic as you run and gun through each mission.

This game even experiments with a semi-open world structure for one mission — indeed, one of the most engaging, exciting, and creative levels we have seen in the series. It really allows you to explore and drive the narrative by completing as much or as little in the region as you like.

All of it is realised by an incredible showcase of technical proficiency. Modern Warfare 4 is a shooter drenched in jewels and oozing regality in every pixel, whether it be sound, graphics, models, environmental weather effects, lighting, explosions, or character performances. This is by far the best-looking and best-sounding Call of Duty game we have ever seen.

Adding to the impressive campaign is a full realisation of what Infinity Ward wanted to do with DMZ in 2022. DMZ is a PvPvE extraction shooter, like Arc Raiders or Marathon. But this brings across the Call of Duty weapon feel, and the impressive world-building of the campaign, to create a rich, expansive map to explore, with targets to hunt down, unique loot to find, and multiple secrets and hidden caches to build out your loot collection.

One of my biggest concerns with DMZ was whether it would be deep enough to pull in hardcore players, but also be approachable enough to allow traditional Call of Duty players to enjoy the mode.

Infinity Ward has struck that balance really well. Story missions and contracts, and a well-designed set of progression talent trees, weapon upgrades, crafting options, and more help streamline the experience enough for anyone to jump in without feeling lost. But each of these aspects has so much depth to it that you won't get bored with build-crafting and loot-hunting, even after a few hours.

We were not kidding when we said that DMZ could be its own game. There is that much to enjoy here and dozens and dozens of hours of rich progression and Operator growth that can be gained if you really start exploring its different talent trees and gameplay options.

The only letdown this year is multiplayer, and most of my beta issues remain. In short, Infinity Ward has struggled to craft an enjoyable multiplayer experience in recent years. The studio's design decisions often clash with how people play Call of Duty multiplayer, and that is no different here.

Gunplay is great, but the time to kill (TTK) enemies is wildly inconsistent across the weapon categories, and due to persistent network issues and server inconsistency, you will often die in a few shots but feel like it takes a dozen to kill someone. Maps are incredibly poor. Most are unmemorable, but their designs are almost always dreadful.

Significantly, they are too small and break away from the classic three-lane structure with maps that have far too many crossing paths and angles to get shot from, making strategic play feel almost impossible. That is, unless you are running around like you have drunk five white Monster Energy drinks, sliding and drop-shotting every few seconds.

The maps is just the start of it too. Also making the cut of grievances are: the removal of Scorestreaks, ill-thought attachment options, awful spawn logic, placeable equipment and grenade spam — to name just a few.

It all just makes the experience miserable, and if you play Call of Duty exclusively for the multiplayer, you can go back to Black Ops 6 or Modern Warfare III (2023) to have an enjoyable time.

So while the multiplayer of Modern Warfare 4 sucks the spotlessness out of the game slightly, the campaign and DMZ come out as the stars of the show this year. Infinity Ward has done a good job wrapping up the story they set out to tell and have crafted an extraction shooter that can go up against the biggest titles in the genre.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is out now. We reviewed on Steam.

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