Posted by on November 25, 2023
“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” –Frank Herbert
Activision’s Modern Warfare III, a standalone sequel to Modern Warfare II, quickly became one of the most poorly-regarded instalments in the Call of Duty franchise. Originally starting out its life as a second year’s worth of content to Modern Warfare II, Activision made the controversial decision to release the new content as a standalone game instead. Between the lack of exciting new content (the multiplayer maps are all remakes of the original Modern Warfare 2 maps), an uninspired campaign that lacks the cinematic set-pieces of earlier titles and a zombies mode that does not possess the same urgency and fun as modes from older Call of Duty games, players found themselves immensely disappointed by the fact that despite these shortcomings, Activision chose to make this a full release with a price tag to match. Modern Warfare II, by comparison, was praised by players to be a refreshing experience – while the campaign might not have had the same iconic missions as 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, as a whole, it was a fun experience, and the weapon progression system made the game more engaging. Instead of forcing players to rank up weapons individually to gain access to their attachments, any compatible attachments could be used once one unlocked the slot for it. Excitement about Modern Warfare II a year earlier led me to pick the game up shortly after launch, and I found myself with a consistent experience in the game. For the first time, I played a Call of Duty game while the multiplayer was populated; previously, I bought Call of Duty titles on sales for the campaigns alone, and while I’ve never been disappointed, I’ve always been curious to play the game while it was actively being supported. A hundred and sixty hours later, I can say that I’ve had a satisfactory experience overall, and this is largely thanks to the Invasion mode that Modern Warfare II introduced. Invasion provided another way of playing Call of Duty, and a full year after having first bought the game, I’ve felt that I’ve gotten a satisfactory amount of value out of the multiplayer experience – since my last post back in May, I’ve gone on to only play a few more hours, but along the way, I’ve unlocked a few more blueprints from the seasonal content, and I’ve even had the chance to don the Juggernaut suit and score kills with the iconic M134 mini-gun, completing my Modern Warfare II experience: I never thought I’d have a chance to actually play as a juggernaut or get behind the AC-130’s devastating weaponry, but Modern Warfare II changed that.
While Modern Warfare II had been generally enjoyable on account of its mechanics, one element that I quickly became dissatisfied with was the game’s emphasis on player cosmetics. Traditionally, Call of Duty games have been characterised by their extremely serious aesthetics. In fact, the franchise had a reputation for producing games that took themselves too seriously. This atmospheric was a significant part of the charm in Call of Duty, and so, both campaign and multiplayer modes alike adhered to this style to ensure a consistent tone. The game’s menus were simple and clean, and when loading up matches, players were dumped into games which, arcade mechanics notwithstanding, did feel like a hectic close-quarters fight for buildings and rooms amongst members of the armed forces. Conversely, contemporary interpretations of Call of Duty have dispensed with this entirely. The main menu is plastered with in-game events and colourful panels enticing players to open their wallets and pick up the latest skins. In the multiplayer modes themselves, properly-kitted out operators fight alongside talentless rappers and anime characters. In a game that was built with some of the best weapon mechanics and customisations in the industry, entering a map and shooting at these characers feels completely jarring, immersion-breaking. In older games, which still allowed for a degree of customisation, generic skins gave players the sense that they were a nameless soldier in a much larger conflict, and this in turn spoke to the game’s overall messages about warfare and conflict. Players could still have a good time of landing amazing headshots or going on impressive killstreaks, but the consistency create a superior experience that made the games standout. The emphasis on customisation and cosmetics in the present speaks primarily to the predatory nature of microtransactions and corporate greed, but the fact that people do run around in Modern Warfare II with rat heads or as a superhero offers an interesting commentary on today’s multiplayer demographic – in my time, people prided themselves on doing well and getting things done without worrying about appearances. On the other hand, folks today care more about identity and appearances than they do about cultivating skill. In games, this manifests as making sure other players know who scored the kill on them, than they do about just exploring the game and improving over time. This could have dramatic ramifications on the workplace, but such a topic is outside the scope of discussion. Having now experienced Modern Warfare II to the fullest extent possible, I’m not terribly bothered by these trends, even if I disagree with them – reflecting on the time I’ve spent in Modern Warfare II, I’ve had a positive time overall.
Screenshots and Commentary
It’s been a shade over a year since I started my journey through Modern Warfare II, and while I’ve only been playing the game intermittently on account of there being only so much I can do with grinding out weapon levels on Shipment or playing Invasion, I’ve still managed to put in a hundred and sixty hours. This isn’t much, especially compared to the folks who play regularly, but the numbers do mean that I have gotten my money’s worth – my base metric for any Triple-A game is that, if I can get a dollar per hour, the game was worth picking up.
I had originally bought Modern Warfare II on the expectation that the game would be treated similarly to 2019’s Modern Warfare, which saw continued support for three straight years. While I never spent my lockdown days playing Warzone in Verdansk, which is something that made both the game, mode or map so iconic, a part of me had longed to explore the map and fight against AI bots. Modern Warfare II‘s DMZ mode would’ve offered something similar, but during its lifespan, Activision never did implement anything resembling a solo exploration mode.
Thus, my interest in Modern Warfare II‘s other modes began waning, and I focused primarily on Invasion, as well as playing “mosh pit” modes on Shipment. Invasion’s joy was that it gave players a much larger map than traditional six-versus-six modes, making sniper rifles and marksman rifles a viable choice, and thanks to different ADS times, sniper rifles can no longer be quick-scoped, taking away something that had been quite popular back in the day. Call of Duty games have long been plagued by the reputation of being populated by foul-mouth youth who’ve persuaded their parents to buy them a copy of the game for their consoles, and older titles were indeed unplayable because servers would be populated by screaming children.
By Modern Warfare II, the trend has not changed. My first move after installing the game was to immediately disable the voice chat. This had a profound experience on the game, making it significantly more peaceable. In conjunction with modernised movement and weapon mechanics, the age of 360º no-scopes and trickshots have all but evaporated, and the end result is that Modern Warfare II is a dramatically different experience than the Call of Duty games of a decade earlier.
Although Modern Warfare II did have its flaws, I felt that the core mechanics were fairly consistent, and with additional content (like maps and weapons), plus periodic improvements and bug fixes, the game could’ve had a long lifespan. Originally, Modern Warfare III had actually been intended to be the additional content to the game, and had this been the case, players would’ve been very pleased with the game for continuing to provide the players with updates.
As such, the decision to release the classic maps and an extension to the campaign as a standalone game, rather than content related to Modern Warfare II, has been met with hostility. This response is justified and reiterates the fact that decisions surrounding modern titles are made by bean counters and board members rather than developers and the players. In the past, games were built around player experience and enjoyment. Despite their simplicity and occasional janky mechanics, or limited options, they were released as complete products that encouraged players to go back and replay them. Conversely, games today are incomplete products, deliberately designed to encourage additional spending.
Microtransactions have been the single worst thing to happen to games – once publishers had data that suggested they could vastly increase revenue with in-game purchases to enhance player experiences, developers were forced to build their game around virtual stores, rather than something that was mechanically solid and engaging. With more developers tasked with building payment processing infrastructure and storefront UIs, this means there’s less eyes on the more important parts of the game, like the underlying server code and game functionality.
It is unlikely that game publishers will return to the business models of the late 2000s and early 2010s (ironically, this was the worst time to be an anime fan owing to the sheer quantity of elitist bloggers, but a great time to be a gamer for the fact that titles from the time were innovative and engaging), but whenever this topic comes up in discussion, my comment is that the proliferation of new games and microtransaction-heavy experiences does’t change the fact that old games exist. As a player, I have the choice to not play Fortnite or any other popular contemporary title, and return to titles of old for a more relaxing experience.
For Modern Warfare II, I remember picking up the Vault Edition upgrade purely out of curiosity: it gave me access to a few more operators and the Cinder weapons pack, as well as the first season’s premium content, but beyond this, it did not alter my experience too dramatically. The biggest change in spending another 40 CAD in the Vault Edition was that, by giving me access to premium awards in the first season, I had access to weapon blueprints that helped me to rank up a few weapons faster, and I also gained a few blueprints to weapons that I’ve not been able to otherwise use. The M13B remains something I’ve not been able to unlock because it’s tied to the DMZ mode, but thanks to Venom Strike variant, I was able to unlock all of the parts to the M13B.
These screenshots actually date back to July, and I found myself playing Invasion on a new map. During that time, I was farming kills to rank up the FJX Imperium , and during that match, I remember having a blast. The only real gripe I had about Invasion was how it was difficult to tell human players from the AI bots, and on multiple occasions, I would dump a magazine into a group of AI bots, only for a human player to finish me off. While this is a legitimate strategy, certain perks or tools (e.g. the UAV or spotting camera) should allow one to tell the difference, which in turn encourages players to make use of different field upgrades or perks.
Throughout my time in Modern Warfare II, I’ve only got a handful of weapons yet to unlock, and at the time of writing, I’ve reached Rank 437. The progression system in Modern Warfare II was actually quite manageable, and this was one thing I found myself pleasantly surprised by. Just by playing a half-hour every so often and focusing on completing the daily assignments, I was able to accumulate experience points very quickly. Reaching the higher ranks offers blueprints and some customisation options, but otherwise, this has no impact on gameplay.
One of the new additions to Invasion was an airport map, and I found the map superbly enjoyable – long sight lines make it a great place for sniping, but the terminal interior provides cover from long range weapons, and in here, a good assault rifle makes a major difference. The airport is a part of the larger Al Mazara map, which was the map replacing Verdansk for both Warzone and DMZ. I never did get into either mode – the battle royale and extraction royale approaches appeal to most players because of an uncertain outcome and the thrill of winning becomes larger of this uncertainty. These modes activate the same regions of the brain that fire when one wins at a casino.
For me, uncertain outcomes do not give me a thrill. I don’t gain a rush from gambling or from playing battle royale games, but in a game, I enjoy progression. What makes a given game fun, including Modern Warfare II, is the fact that after a match, I’ll make progress towards a weapon attachment I’m looking to unlock. This is a given, and so, whether I win or lose, I’ll aways have fun.
Getting a Juggernaut kill is something I’d always wished to try out in a Call of Duty multiplayer game. The wide open spaces of an invasion map don’t seem conducive for this kill-streak, but there are some places where there’s little space to hide from the Juggernaut’s M134 mini-gun. Normally, the Juggernaut is available after scoring 15 kills without dying or, if one prefers using score-streaks, 1875 points. In Invasion, players can also pick up streaks from packages that drop onto the battlefield. In my case, I managed to secure a Juggernaut through pure luck – an allied player called in a Juggernaut but died before picking it up, and this left me to grab it. In a close quarters six-on-six map, the Juggernaut would be a terror, but on a larger map, snipers could make short work of one.
Coming upon players with unusual names is part and parcel with playing online multiplayer games, and I remember a time when I took great pleasure in scoring kills on said players. During my Halo 2 Vista days, I became infamous for griefing players with anime-sounding names, and I became banned from all of the SmG Clan servers. After Halo 2 Vista shut down, I transitioned over to Battlefield and became a lower profile picture. In the present, the name “Infinite Zenith” won’t mean much to players, and I prefer to keep it this way.
I’ve not played Modern Warfare II since September – right after Starfield released, I’ve spent almost all of my spare time delving into the mystery behind the Artefacts that Constellation had been finding. Unlike Modern Warfare II, Starfield‘s loading times are significantly faster, I’m not stuck waiting for shaders to recompile, and the game isn’t displaying a popup indicating that “Update requires a restart”. In conjunction with the total absence of “E-Girls”, Starfield‘s been a remarkably cathartic experience (the Spacers and Ecliptic aren’t anywhere nearly as irksome to deal with, for one).
Back during September, the fifth season was on, and I unlocked blueprints for a pair of sniper rifles as a part of this. I returned to Invasion and gave the new rifles a whirl. I’ve never spent any money on cosmetics and packages, but just by playing Modern Warfare II normally, I’ve accumulated a small collection of blueprints that mix things up a little. However, with support for Modern Warfare II ending as Activision is made to focus on Modern Warfare III, my time in this game is coming to an end.
Modern Warfare II thus suffers from an even shorter support period than Battlefield V did; in June 2020, a year and seven months after launch, DICE released its final update for Battlefield V and announced that they were dropping support so they could focus on their next title. Battlefield V had just been turning around, and players were left disappointed that there would never be a chance to experience D-Day, Stalingrad or the Battle of Berlin. Modern Warfare II never suffered from the same problems that plagued Battlefield V at launch, but the dropping of support for a new game means that players who had hoped the game would receive post-launch support to the same extent that 2019’s Modern Warfare did.
Since circumstances have changed quite a bit since 2020, I’m not too bothered by the fact that Modern Warfare II has had the shortest post-launch support of any Call of Duty title: since this year began, I’ve spent most of my time outdoors in pursuit of landscape photos I can be proud of. As a result of my participation in the local photography association, I’ve also had a chance to turn my iPhone 14 Pro’s camera array towards portrait photography. In the past few months, I participated in photoshoots to celebrate Chinese and Indigenous culture, and earlier today, I swung by the Chinese Cultural Centre for the first photography exhibition I’ve participated in.
Such an experience was quite moving, and with this, I now join the likes of Tamayura‘s Fū Sawatari in having participated in a photography exhibition. Things have changed quite a bit since I picked up Modern Warfare II – a year ago, I never expected to be able to participate in photography in such a fashion, and admittedly, going out for photos, whether they be of people or landscapes, is a ways more enjoyable than spending a perfectly pleasant day indoors. I do not expect that I’ll be returning to look at Modern Warfare III, even with a significant discount, but if future iterations of Call of Duty are better-designed and possess a more engaging campaign (Black Ops: Cold War comes to mind), I would not object to giving it a whirl. In the meantime, Call of Duty: Ghosts has passed its tenth anniversary, and despite a decade having passed, I remain quite interest to finally experience it for myself.
Previously, Call of Duty games were characterised by their small maps, but with the introduction of Invasion, large-scale battles that take place in more expansive maps, players could finally use the Gunsmith to its fullest potential even if they weren’t interested in the Warzone or DMZ modes, both of which are highly unforgiving towards solo players. The interplay between the Gunsmith and Invasion is superb: Invasion is, at the end of the day, a glorified version of team death-match on a larger map with AI bots, but the simplicity in this approach is underlies its genius. By providing players with a large sandbox environment to run around, Invasion acts as the perfect place to test one’s loadout: most of the Invasion maps feature a range of engagement ranges. Beyond the usual close-quarters corridors and paths of standard multiplayer maps, players also have access to rooftops and cliffs that provide long sight lines, perfect for practising one’s marksmanship. Players more interested in close quarters combat similarly learn how to use their weapons and the map design to evade snipers. Dying is less of a concern in Invasion: respawns are available, and so, dying simply presents players with a crash course on tactical movement and utilisation of cover. The mode allows players to fully utilise score streaks, acting as an environment in which to get comfortable with the score streaks that best suit one’s play-style. In this sandbox space, players have a more controlled environment to learn their setups without being harshly punished. Thus, if one does desire to go into the more competitive modes, like Warzone and DMZ, with new weapons or setups, there is an environment to try things out in. Dying in Warzone costs teams their match, and losing in DMZ means giving up hours of accumulated items: if one wished to try out a new loadout in these modes, the penalties are steep. On the other hand, dying in Invasion simply means respawning. For players who wanted to rank up their sniper rifles or just experience combat in a larger map as a change of pace from the smaller multiplayer maps, Invasion was also perfect. In this way, the Invasion mode, seemingly irrelevant, ended up being a means of allowing players of all sorts to experience Modern Warfare II more wholly. With Modern Warfare III now out, the game’s probably going to become significantly quieter as Activision shifts their attention over to adding more content for their latest title. I imagine that die-hard players will probably linger in Modern Warfare II for a while longer, but for me, I’ve now spent less than a dollar per hour in Modern Warfare II, and this means that as a game, Modern Warfare II did deliver satisfactory value during the time that I spent playing it. With this end of the road for Modern Warfare II, and the fact I’ve not revisited the campaign in over a year, it’s probably time to uninstall the campaign and recoup 103 GB of disk space.