The Rebooted Series Reaches Its Thrilling Inclusion

“We get dirty, and the world stays clean. That’s the mission.” Seven years after Captain John Price first uttered those immortal words in 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot, they continue to echo through every explosive set piece and world-shaking crisis that defines the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign.

The stakes have never been higher. After he assassinated General Herschel Shepherd inside the Pentagon, Captain Price has become the target of a relentless cross-agency manhunt. Now forced to operate from the shadows, he sets out on a globe-spanning mission to exact revenge on Vladimir Makarov while working to expose and eliminate “The Archer,” a mysterious high-ranking figure within the Russian government believed to be the puppet master responsible for orchestrating a campaign of global instability.

The Archer’s meddling has resulted in North Korea launching a full-scale invasion of South Korea, creating a global crisis that Russia has exploited as a smokescreen to execute its own sweeping military campaign of coordinated invasions across the Middle East. This unexpected conflict is the overarching narrative thread woven throughout the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign, which we largely experience through the perspective of Private Park Hyun-Jun, a young South Korean conscript who finds himself confronting the brutal realities of war for the first time.

The pre-title screen opening mission, Mayhem, sets everything in motion. Taking a break from bopping to Wu-Tang Clan on their routine patrol, Private Park’s squad makes a pit stop at Goh Mart for supplies to prank their newbie. As you step out of the store, a sudden blackout plunges Hajin City into darkness. The North Korean invasion has begun. This immediate set piece thrusts you into a frantic scramble to regroup at a nearby stadium, all while artillery strikes pound the surrounding streets and North Korean paratroopers fill the skies overhead.

It will come as no surprise that the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign has been created with a storytelling approach that leans heavily into blockbuster spectacle. That’s what the long-running series has become known for, and Infinity Ward demonstrates a firm grasp of how to make those moments resonate, unravelling a story that places players at the heart of both the events leading up to the invasion and the fallout that follows in its wake.

From the bass-pounding, neon-lit Nox club in New York to a high-speed car chase around the streets of Paris, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 isn’t short on action sequences that get your heart racing. The Hired Gun mission was an early favourite. After Price makes a reluctant alliance with Las Almas Cartel leader Valeria Garza, Shadow Company pursues them to intercept the package that they are transporting. This leads to a trainyard firefight that demands patience and precision, forcing you to line up your shots and pull the trigger the moment your targets are exposed between the passing freight cars.

Partway through the campaign, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 revisits the Open Combat Mission freeform structure introduced in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Here, you are given complete freedom to tackle three primary objectives – disabling a jamming station, gathering explosives from an underground bunker, and neutralising a surface-to-air missile threat – in any order you choose across an open-world environment. You can simply fast travel directly to each objective if you want to push the story forward at pace, or, as I found myself doing, you can distract yourself scavenging for resources and supplies to upgrade your equipment to more easily neutralise enemy forces. It’s the campaign’s only excursion into this more freeform design, likely a response to the criticism levelled at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for leaning too heavily on the concept. For me, though, I welcomed the change of pace. By breaking up the campaign’s relentless momentum, Stranded offers a refreshing opportunity to approach the action on your own terms.

The campaign isn’t afraid to tackle some hard-hitting topics, either. It explores the human cost of mandatory military service, examining how ordinary people are forced into extraordinary circumstances and the lasting scars that conflict leaves behind. Moral ambiguity also permeates the experience. When does loyalty become complicity? You’re encouraged to consider whether following orders is always the correct course of action, or if there comes a point where duty must give way to conscience. The campaign is riddled with standout moments that range from emotionally charged character moments to genuinely shocking displays of brutality, which, rather than existing purely for shock value, give weight and consequence to the conflict unfolding around you.

Is there any criticism to be levelled? Sure. There is a three-minute recap video outlining the events of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare through to the impactful mid-credits scene of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. However, it functions more as a refresher than a comprehensive primer, meaning lapsed players may find themselves less informed about who’s who and what happened than the game assumes. That will be especially true, perhaps, for those playing on Nintendo Switch 2. While I would advocate that the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign is thrilling enough to stand on its own merits, veteran fans will undoubtedly gain the most from its story, as years of character arcs, rivalries, and comradeship reach their payoff. I would argue that’s to be expected, though.

How does the campaign hold up on Nintendo Switch 2, you ask? Thanks to a tremendous porting effort from Digital Legends Entertainment, I remained impressed from the start right through to watching the credits roll. We have come to understand Nintendo’s concept for a portable home console approaching over a decade now, and we know that sacrifices have to be made to play heftier games – especially current-gen ones such as this – on it.

The team has worked hard to prioritise delivering a stable framerate, and, while there were some noticeable dips in the campaign’s more intensive large-scale moments, it mostly succeeds in maintaining this to the point that I never felt like I had a detrimental experience. While it (understandably) lacks the visual flair and graphical fidelity of its counterparts, the important thing for me to point out is that the Nintendo Switch 2 port does not compromise Infinity Ward’s vision.

What Nintendo Switch 2 does offer is versatility. The chance to work through campaign missions from the comfort of your sofa, upside down on a garden swing, or when killing time at the airport when your plane is delayed. That versatility comes from the multiple control schemes, too. Those who have been enthusiastically inking their turf in Splatoon will enjoy the game’s gyro input, while I was encouraged by how fluid and responsive the mouse controls with the Joy-Con 2 were (although I continue to wish for an officially licensed third-party accessory that makes this more comfortable when playing for longer periods).

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign delivers exactly what fans expect from Infinity Ward at its best: a bombastic, globe-trotting military thriller packed with memorable set pieces, tense firefights, and cinematic spectacle, which still finds room to explore the human cost of the conflicts it depicts. The Nintendo Switch 2 port preserves the scale, intensity, and ambition of the experience, presenting you with the chance to now chip away at it mission by mission wherever life takes you.

Campaign Early Access starts today (Friday 16 October) for those who have pre-ordered Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 digitally on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo Switch 2.