We have reached a cut-off date the place one may be nostalgic for the PS3 technology, and Activision is banking on that with all its may to promote Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare 3. Slightly than a brand new line-up of multiplayer maps, this 12 months’s entry is a wierd amalgamation of the previous, as all the weapons and playable characters from 2022’s Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare 2 have been ported over for play on traditional areas from, properly, 2009’s Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare 2. The same old single participant marketing campaign and an open-world spin on Zombies are what Fashionable Warfare 3 can name its personal, however when remastered maps from a 14-year-old recreation is the very best you have to provide, perhaps it truly is finest to only take a 12 months off.
Closely alleged to have began life as a DLC pack for final 12 months’s instalment, by no means has a standalone Name of Responsibility recreation felt extra like a contractual settlement all events remorse signing. The marketing campaign stitches collectively Open Fight Missions that really feel like adverts for Warzone, the multiplayer is bloated past perception with little in the way in which of unique content material, and Zombies comes throughout as a drained trick failing to justify its existence.
Whereas it is tough to model it the worst Name of Responsibility recreation ever, Fashionable Warfare 3 is actually within the working. The disappointing marketing campaign does a lot of the heavy lifting to incomes that undesirable accolade, with ranges largely devoid of the bombastic set-pieces you anticipate from the collection. Of their place are Open Fight Missions: situations that play out extra like a typical Warzone match the place you procure a lot of your gear on web site. You may must supply higher gear, weapons, and routes via the extent, and take a look at over once more should you fail — and that is a possible risk since checkpoints are at a irritating premium.
These missions work pretty properly after they’re clearly geared in the direction of a selected playstyle (corresponding to stealth), permitting you to fine-tune your strategy and discover higher weapons to your subsequent try. Nevertheless, they largely really feel like inferior stand-ins for the kind of ranges you’d anticipate out of a Name of Responsibility marketing campaign. There are not any dramatic set-pieces or hand-crafted shoot-outs, simply docile encounters and goals that really feel like Contracts from the franchise’s Battle Royale providing.
Not less than when the marketing campaign does flash the absurd finances backing it in-between these Open Fight Missions, it begins to really feel like the only participant ranges of previous. The trademark sniper and AC-130 encounters return, they usually’re set between different considerably first rate situations that spell out Makarov’s return within the story. All of it quantities to a marketing campaign that is perhaps not fairly as dangerous as what you’ve got been listening to, however it’s nonetheless the worst it has been for a while.
On some stage, you can say the identical concerning the multiplayer. Virtually utterly devoid of recent content material, Fashionable Warfare 3 is made up of 16 remastered maps from Fashionable Warfare 2 of the PS3 period and all the weapons and skins from final 12 months’s recreation. In addition to some new weapons and community-pleasing gameplay updates, the title’s on-line battles are all made up of recycled content material. On the gunplay facet, this has led to a preposterous quantity of bloat.
Relating to getting ready a loadout, you’ve gotten an totally ridiculous 114 weapons to select from — 77 weapons introduced over from Fashionable Warfare 2 (2022) and 35 new ones together with a bonus two melee choices. Then, while you lastly discover a weapon you may like, you could scroll via enormous lists of attachments to equipment it out with probably the most minuscule advantages and negatives. This course of is frequent in all Name of Responsibility video games these days, however while you’ve successfully acquired two video games’ value of content material bundled collectively together with a full 12 months of post-launch assist, it is so overwhelming that you just’d want a web-based information to know the place to even start.
The identical goes for the quantity of characters (recognized in-game as Operators) you possibly can play as, although lots of them require buying with actual cash. Once more, the whole lot has been introduced ahead from final 12 months’s instalment, so we have already acquired Lilith from Diablo 4 and real-life rapper 21 Savage gunning down troops from the marketing campaign. As an alternative of introducing the extra unrealistic skins just a few months down the road, Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare 3 already appears like a pantomime on day one.
Really partaking in multiplayer matches performs out precisely as you’d anticipate, with the standard modes to select from and numerous ranks to progress via into the Status choices. The enduring maps of Fashionable Warfare 2 (2009) are the principle promoting level, they usually no less than maintain up almost 15 years later.
Revisiting the likes of Terminal, Highrise, and Afghan continues to be a pleasure two generations of techniques on, particularly while you’ve a lot nostalgia for one of many titles that outlined on-line gaming because it grew to become half and parcel of the console expertise. A number of the maps aren’t fairly as acquainted — notably people who have been added afterward in map packs — however you may shortly floor your self as their common layouts come flooding again after rounding a selected nook or stumbling upon a sure a part of the map.
Nevertheless, what’s the recreation’s spotlight can be seen as its greatest weak point: there’s not a shred of recent content material. Whereas completely new maps will arrive as a part of seasonal updates post-launch, it is manifestly apparent how Fashionable Warfare 3 was initially pitched as DLC on this regard. A full suite of remastered maps would have labored properly as an enlargement, however as a standalone launch, it fails to offer the breadth of recent content material you’d anticipate out of a Name of Responsibility expertise.
Zombies hardly fares significantly better, this time set in an open world that lacks the depth of the cramped, smaller-scale situations seen in years previous. A number of groups of three work to finish goals, accrue foreign money, and ultimately extract from the big map. Primarily an undead twist on modes from earlier instalments, it feels tacked on and undercooked. And if the marketing campaign felt like an advert for Warzone, the Zombies mode fairly actually is one: the map is the idea for the subsequent Battle Royale setting launching subsequent month. A very cynical admission that demonstrates simply how cobbled collectively Fashionable Warfare 3 actually is.
Conclusion
“We want a brand new Name of Responsibility recreation each single 12 months,” the Activision executives bellowed, and out popped Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare 3 after the event instances caught up with them. A very anaemic launch, there’s by no means been a surer signal to press pause on the collection. 14-year-old content material is the very best factor about this 12 months’s entry and if that is not sufficient of an indictment of the place Name of Responsibility is at in 2023, we do not know what’s. A franchise in severe want of an entire reboot, Fashionable Warfare 3 must be the straw that breaks the camel’s again.