Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Review: Great Action, Weak Bosses

In the middle of a forced fistfight, I wanted the shooting back. The awkward melee had turned an action scene into an interruption, and all I could think about was how much better Modern Warfare 4 feels when it lets its guns lead.

Table of Contents (4)

Great shooting, tight reins

The gunplay is crisp, the big set pieces have force, and the campaign moves quickly between locations and viewpoints. There is real pleasure in a shooter that understands how to stage a battle and then gives you satisfying weapons with which to fight it. The cinematic direction earns its place when it sharpens that action rather than interrupting it.

The trouble is how often obedience becomes the overriding mission rule. Civilian casualties cause an instant game over in some missions, and objective scripting leaves limited room to deviate. Protecting civilians is a reasonable requirement; the frustration comes from a wider design that repeatedly insists on its prescribed approach. I can enjoy a narrow route through a spectacular battle, but the restrictions become harder to forgive when they dictate how to handle the action itself.

Forced melee exposes that problem most clearly. Taking control away from the shooting demands a replacement worth the interruption, and the clumsy close-quarters combat cannot carry that weight. These scenes tighten the leash precisely when the mechanics need more room.

The final boss fights are brief and offer little challenge. After all that buildup, those confrontations need more weight; instead, the ordinary firefights make the stronger impression. A campaign this committed to spectacle should make its climactic encounters feel like the payoff, rather than another obligation on the way to the ending.

Stranded makes preparation worth the effort

Stranded puts Park and her squad behind enemy lines in snowy, mountainous Korea, starting with little more than a pistol. It is a single, DMZ-inspired semi-open mission built around scavenging and preparation. That restricted starting point gives the freedom a purpose: getting better equipped becomes part of the mission’s appeal.

Supplies go back to a cabin base, equipment improves, and three main objectives give those preparations a purpose. Gathered supplies can repair suppressed weapons or call in a mortar strike, while combination-lock shipping containers reward exploration with loot. The area works because the things you find feed back into how you can tackle the task ahead. Searching has a tangible use beyond clearing markers from a map.

Stranded lets you fast-travel directly to each objective and bypass the scavenging. My advice is to give the supply-and-upgrade loop a chance before taking those shortcuts. Rushing straight to the objectives removes much of the preparation that makes this mission distinctive; use fast travel when you want to move the story along, rather than treating it as the default way through.

The campaign mostly keeps its open-ended and linear material separate. That makes Stranded an excellent change of pace, but a poor reason to buy Modern Warfare 4 expecting freedom throughout. Its success comes from a contained survival setup with useful progression. The rest of the campaign does not suddenly adopt that approach.

Korea gives the story its strongest perspective

A North Korean invasion of South Korea gives the campaign its larger conflict, while a new South Korean squad supplies its freshest perspective. Private Park is a young conscript experiencing combat for the first time. That is a compelling place to begin: a character confronting war without the accumulated baggage of the returning cast. Park gives the spectacle a human point of entry, and I wanted more of the campaign’s attention to stay there.

Captain Price goes rogue in pursuit of Makarov, with Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley and Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick hunting him. Mads Mikkelsen plays The Archer, a new villain connected to Makarov. There is plenty of dramatic material in those relationships, but Price’s pursuit is the weaker thread. Too much history is competing for the same stretch of story, and the urgency can become a substitute for giving a development enough space.

The interwoven stories reach a satisfying conclusion, but Price’s thread feels rushed where it most needs room to breathe. I welcome the closure more than the route taken to reach it. An ending can settle unfinished business without making every step towards it equally convincing, and that is where this campaign lands.

The Korean battles can also feel emotionally distant despite their scale. One mission puts you in the role of a North Korean soldier interrogating and executing villagers, yet meaningful moral choice remains limited within the fixed story. That gap matters. The campaign is willing to force the player into disturbing actions, but gives little room to engage with them beyond following the script. Its darkest material is less persuasive than its straightforward combat.

Platforms, release and the buying decision

Developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 releases on October 23, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. The campaign is available early to pre-order buyers ahead of that general launch.

The Nintendo Switch 2 port is serviceable and enjoyable despite its technical compromises. It remains a worthwhile way to experience the campaign, provided those concessions are acceptable to you.

This verdict covers the single-player campaign, not the complete release. For someone buying primarily for cinematic firefights and a conclusion to the Price-Makarov story, there is enough here to recommend a launch purchase. Stranded is the strongest reason to make that recommendation; it should not be mistaken for a promise that the whole campaign offers the same latitude.