Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 brings the original Modern Warfare trilogy to its close. Picking up in the hours after Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games carry the war from the streets of New York to the capitals of Europe, as the survivors of Task Force 141 hunt Vladimir Makarov through a world that is coming apart.
A World War Campaign
Russia's invasion of the United States has spread to Europe, and the campaign follows it from one front to the next. As Sgt. Derek "Frost" Westbrook of Delta Force, you fight through a burning Manhattan, from Wall Street to a submarine raid in New York Harbor, before the fighting moves on to Hamburg, Paris and Berlin. Running alongside, Captain Price, Soap MacTavish and a new ally, the ex-Spetsnaz soldier Yuri, work off the grid from Africa to Prague, chasing the man who started it all.
The set pieces show the series at full scale: an SAS pursuit through the London Underground, a zero-gravity firefight aboard a crippled aircraft, and a push through a gas-choked Paris as landmarks fall around you. Switching between Delta Force, the SAS and Task Force 141 keeps the pace relentless and the perspective shifting, right up to a final reckoning that closes the story Call of Duty 4 began in 2007.
Multiplayer Built on Strike Packages
The multiplayer rethinks how you earn your rewards, giving objective players and slayers alike a route to the big payoffs across 16 launch maps.
- Strike Packages
- Choose Assault, Support or Specialist before you spawn. Assault rewards unbroken streaks with lethal air support, Support streaks carry through your deaths and lean on UAVs, ammo drops and ballistic vests, while Specialist hands you extra perks as you chain kills.
- Pointstreaks
- Kills are only part of the equation. Capturing flags, planting bombs and securing objectives all count toward your streak, so the player holding the point is rewarded as surely as the one topping the scoreboard.
- Weapon Proficiency
- Every gun levels up as you use it, unlocking attachments, camos and Proficiencies such as Kick, Focus and Stability that shape how that weapon handles. Your favorite rifle grows with you over hundreds of matches.
- Kill Confirmed and Team Defender
- Kill Confirmed makes you collect the dog tags of fallen enemies to score, and deny the other team theirs, while Team Defender turns a single dropped flag into a moving objective. Both sit alongside the classic Team Deathmatch, Domination and Search and Destroy rotation.
Spec Ops: Missions and Survival
Spec Ops is the co-op heart of Modern Warfare 3, built for a partner but just as playable alone, and it runs on two distinct tracks.
- Missions are self-contained operations with their own objectives and twists, each rated by stars and ranked on leaderboards. They reward coordination, clean execution and the willingness to replay a run until every star is earned.
- Survival Mode drops one or two players onto the multiplayer maps against escalating waves of enemy soldiers, attack dogs and Juggernauts. Cash earned between waves buys weapons, equipment and air support at the armories, and your Survival rank unlocks more of the arsenal as you climb.
Why It Still Matters
Modern Warfare 3 was one of the biggest entertainment launches of its era and the last chapter of the trilogy that redefined the military shooter. Its campaign ties off years of story around Price, Soap and Makarov, and its multiplayer ideas, from Pointstreaks to weapon leveling, left a mark on the Call of Duty games that followed.
If you have followed Price since Call of Duty 4, this is where the story ends. Gear up, find Makarov and see the Modern Warfare trilogy through to its final shot.
