Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

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About

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is an video game in the Call of Duty series released on October 25th, 2019. It is considered a "soft reboot" of the Modern Warfare series of Call of Duty games, which started in 2007.

History

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was developed by Infinity Ward and employs a brand new engine for the series which allows for 4K with HDR and DirectX Raytracing on PC.^[5] The new engine promises that thermal vision and night vision will be more realistic than in previous entries in the series. The game will take place independent of the previous Modern Warfare games, with events in the new game happening as if the events of the previous games have not occurred.

On May 24th, 2019, Twitter user @LongSensationYT tweeted "Call of Duty 2019 is called… Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I'm not joking" (shown below, left). Kotaku editor Jason Schreier then tweeted confirming the story was true (shown below, right). He later went on to tweet that it would be considered a "soft reboot" of the Modern Warfare series. The news was confirmed by Eurogamer.^[1]

Writing in Kotaku^[2] that day, Schreier wrote the game would "be heavy on troubling, realistic emotional moments, very much inspired by the controversial No Russian campaign in Modern Warfare 2 that allowed the player to gun down civilians." On May 30th, Activision released the trailer for the game and announced an October 25th, 2019 release date (shown below).

Reception

Upon the game's October 25th release, the game received positive critical reviews. It opened to a score of 86/100 on Metacritic.^[6] The game was praised for its story for the most part, though some critics stated its ending and some story beats dragged it down. The Daily Star^[7] wrote "Ground War, Spec Ops and the few moments of the campaign when common sense gave way to a desire to shock needlessly… they're a bitter aftertaste to one of the best shooters I've played all year." Hardcore Gamer^[8] wrote "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare delivers a fantastic package of content that does the Modern Warfare name proud. Infinity Ward is back in action and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare delivers on nearly every front."

Online Presence

The day the name was leaked, Twitter users mocked it. For example, @Nibellion joked by saying that the next Call of Duty game would be called Modern Warfare: Call of Duty (shown below, left). User @GameOverGreggy tweeted he had no problem with the name, as reusing a name was a common practice in film (shown below, right).

The trailer itself began inspiring memes among video game fans, particularly on /r/dankmemes. On June 3rd, 2019, user itsgomezs^[3] tweeted a still from the trailer as a reaction image, gaining over 21,000 points (shown below, left). User pile158^[4] posted an Avengers: Endgame meme about the announcement, gaining over 2,800 points (shown below, right).