In the modern video game industry, only a few franchises are as popular as the Call of Duty series. The recent attractions of the series are the Modern Warfare titles. These titles bring a good campaign story, new multiplayer modes, and many new skins.
The latest title in the Call of Duty series is Modern Warfare 3, which even failed to deliver a better campaign story than its predecessor MW2. Despite having double the development time, MW3 could not deliver on its promise of epic storytelling and engaging content.
The Disappointing Narrative of Modern Warfare 3
Sledgehammer Games had the golden opportunity to correct some of the mistakes of MW2 and deliver a more polished and engaging story with MW3. However, they didn’t come close to the previous title’s story or even craft a more immersive world.
The biggest letdown of MW3 was its campaign, the story was so short that it only took around 5 hours to complete. Even the MW2 campaign offered gameplay of 6.5 hours. For completionist players, who like to find everything on the map, it only took them 19.5-20 hours to find everything. (the same progress in MW2 can take up to 31 hours).
In an interview, Sledgehammer Games’ creative director Dave Swenson talked about how they came up with the story of Modern Warfare 3 and how Infinity Ward partnered with them to make the story of MW2 and MW3 combine together. He said:
We partnered with Infinity Ward and spent a lot of time coordinating. We set everything up in Modern Warfare II to be able to pay things off in Modern Warfare III. It was all very purposeful.
This made fans very angry as when a team is given double time, they should deliver more content than before if not double. But Sledgehammer Games had other plans it seems. This miscalculation raised some serious questions about what the decision-making process is like within the studio.
Modern Warfare 3’s Missed Opportunities
Modern Warfare 3 was released in 2011 and had the opportunity to become the biggest title under the Call of Duty franchise. But Sledgehammer Games failed to capitalize and could not even work out the narrative of the game.
Then many questions arise: why did they fail to seize the moment? how was making the decisions? the answers to these questions are simple: bad choices and wrong focus. They rushed the story and even failed to properly deliver on the major cliffhanger that MW2 left them with.
These decisions reflect the troubling trend within the modern video game industry, where deadlines are always close and commercial pressures to score big often take more consideration than player satisfaction. Modern Warfare 3 will forever serve as a lesson of missed opportunity for developers and will highlight the importance of prioritizing quality.
