Over a long beer and some (Ed: very crispy, hotel) cheeseburgers, Katharine and I tuned into this year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live having just arrived at our hotel. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3‘s campaign reveal happened to be on, and I predicted it would feature three things: darkness, rain, and goggles. I was right! Even though there was mention of more “open ended” COD missions, the one shown certainly seemed like any vintage, largely linear COD level.
To sum up the trailer for those of you who can’t be bothered to watch it all, here’s what happens. Some lads from the special forces swim up to a large prison in the middle of the sea. It’s very stormy and dark, as per COD’s micro-climate. The lads opt to be sneaky for a bit, as they snoop about corridors and fell baddies with silencers. Hands snap clips into assault rifles. Rappels are fired up and down. At one point there’s a slow descent down the centre of the prison – which is shaped like a bin – and there’s a bit more shooting.
What we were shown was the first level of Modern Warfare 3’s campaign, which, as you can probably tell, seemed extremely like any other level from any other Modern Warfare campaign. Perhaps the open-ended choices kick into gear later into the story, but man, the trailer didn’t exactly show it off? Like, could we have not rappelled down the prison? Could we break away from our mateys in the corridors and like, find a quieter way in? Who knows.
Still – and regrettably – I’m a COD-liker, so I bet I’ll have a similar level of fun with MW3 as I’ve had with any other COD, when it arrives on November 10th.
Gamescom 2023 has arrived, and you can find all the latest news and previews from the show floor in our Gamescom 2023 hub.