Modern Warfare 2 Looks Like the Most Ambitious Call of Duty Game in Years

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 looks awesome. That's the simplest way I can convey what I've seen of the highly-anticipated shooter after getting an extended look at the game in a recent trip to Infinity Ward. In a lot of ways, it might be easy to write off Modern Warfare 2 as just another entry in the ever-expanding world of Call of Duty. And while there might be some truth to that, it seems clear that Infinity Ward is really trying to use this reboot of MW2 as a launching pad for what Call of Duty will become in the future while still keeping intact elements of the original 2009 installment.

Much of what Infinity Ward showed me of Modern Warfare 2 in my visit to the studio centered around the game's campaign, which seems to be taking a drastic leap forward compared to the 2019 Modern Warfare. The story picks up three years after the last installment with Task Force 141 taking on a number of different covert operations around the globe. Captain Price, Ghost, Soap, Gaz, and a number of other new and returning faces are front and center in Modern Warfare 2, although the entirety of Task Force 141 isn't always focusing on the same mission. 

This is the aspect of this new version of Modern Warfare 2 that reminded me the most of the original 2009 release. That game was constantly changing up landscapes, gameplay mechanics, and mission objectives from one level to the next, which led to it being a thrill ride from start to finish. Based on the handful of missions that I've already seen from the rebooted Modern Warfare 2, it very much seems like the game is looking to emulate a big-budget summer blockbuster.  

To better paint the picture of what I have seen of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 already, the first mission I was shown centered around a crashed helicopter that took place entirely at night, which meant night vision goggles were used throughout. The next level then shook things up drastically and saw Gaz and Price swimming in a harbor looking to stealthily take down enemies by either dragging them underwater to drown or shooting them from underneath the water's surface. 

While these two aforementioned missions were the ones that I saw the most of, Infinity Ward then gave me a better idea of some of the bigger setpiece moments that will be seen throughout Modern Warfare 2. Without trying to spoil too much, one of these levels saw Task Force 141 scaling the side of a skyscraper and doing battle with enemies that stood inside the building, while another featured a somewhat-on-rails driving sequence that allowed players to jump from one car to another as part of a massive convoy. This latter level looked more like something that you'd see out of an Uncharted game rather than Call of Duty, but it also looked like a ton of fun to play. 

Again, it's this diversity from one mission to the next in Modern Warfare 2 that excited me the most out of everything I saw in relation to the campaign. Even though I enjoyed 2019's Modern Warfare, that game was largely pretty isolated to a couple of different regions, which led to it feeling a bit samey as it went on. Modern Warfare 2 seems like it's going to launch you into some wildly different parts of the world as often as it can, which has me that much more interested in seeing how it develops. 

Throughout all of the different levels that I was shown, one thing that greatly stood out to me about Modern Warfare 2 is just how good it looks. Even though Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard both appeared on current-gen platforms, neither felt like they had really taken that "next-gen" leap. That doesn't seem to be the case here with Modern Warfare 2 at all. The game's lighting, in particular, looks extremely realistic, especially during some of the underwater swimming portions that I mentioned previously. Despite being pleased to see this visual leap that Modern Warfare 2 is undergoing, it makes me a bit concerned to see how the game might look on older platforms. 

Outside of the campaign and general engine upgrades that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be getting, Infinity Ward has a lot in store for multiplayer and Spec-Ops. Multiplayer is something that the developers at IW told me quite a bit about and highlighted some of the new gadgets and maps that will be in the game. It was also emphasized that anti-cheat software will be featured in MW2 right away at launch, which is great to hear given how polluted Warzone specifically has become.

Speaking of Warzone, Infinity Ward also briefly touched on what it's for now calling Warzone 2.0, which will be a completely new version of the battle royale shooter. There's still nothing that I know about Warzone 2.0 at this point in time because Infinity Ward didn't show me anything from it, but the thing that stood out to me the most is that this game is very much being planned to live alongside Modern Warfare 2. In fact, MW2 is essentially being used as the base for an entirely new generation of Call of Duty that Activision is about to usher in. Not only will Warzone 2.0 be launching alongside MW2 at some point later in 2022, but all Call of Duty developers are now going to be sharing the same engine and assets with one another moving forward. Even though this is technically a follow-up to another game, Modern Warfare 2 really seems like it's Activision's way of hitting the reset button and creating a new era for the series from this point onward. 

On a personal level, Modern Warfare 2 is the most excited I have been about a Call of Duty game in years. While I used to play these games constantly when I was younger, my enjoyment of Call of Duty has started to dwindle a bit in recent history. Based on what I have seen of Modern Warfare 2 to this point, though, it looks like Infinity Ward is rediscovering some of that special sauce that made the series so beloved in the first place well over a decade ago. Assuming that there aren't any major issues at launch, Modern Warfare 2 is poised to be really special and might be one of the best entries that the Call of Duty franchise has seen in a long time. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will release later this year on October 28, 2022, and will come to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC via both Battle.net and Steam.