Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Campaign Was Reportedly Almost Completely Different

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 supposedly went through some massive changes during development. Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises on the planet and part of the reason for that is its reliability. You can consistently count on a new game every holiday season with new multiplayer content, co-op modes (like zombies), and almost always a new blockbuster campaign. It generates a ton of money as well, so much so that Activision likely can't afford to skip a year. With that said, that has created problems in recent years as game development and the nature of Call of Duty has grown to be increasingly complex. Games have been completely canceled, delayed, and had developers moved around in order to accommodate for production issues, resulting in a number of pretty messy releases.

Modern Warfare 3 seems to be next in a line of chaotic developments. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Modern Warfare 3 was made in about a year and a half and it endured a lot of changes. For starters, it was unclear during the early stages of development whether this was an expansion to Modern Warfare 2 or a new game. Some developers didn't have this clarity until much later into production. Modern Warfare 3 was also being built as more of a spin-off, it seems like, with developers planning a new, smaller campaign set in Mexico. In the summer of 2022, it was decided that the campaign would be rebooted and would serve as a direct sequel to Modern Warfare 2 and feature a globetrotting story in pursuit of Vladimir Makarov. This gave the team 16 months to start from scratch and build something new. 

Bloomberg also noted that Sledgehammer Games reportedly had troubles working with Infinity Ward, the team that typically helms Modern Warfare releases. Sledgehammer had to run their decisions past Infinity Ward before implementing them, resulting in friction. It was claimed that Infinity Ward did not provide timely feedback and sometimes made significant, unwanted changes about the direction of Modern Warfare 3. CharlieIntel corroborated this reporting and noted that the beloved Pick-10 system for the game's multiplayer mode was nixed by Infinity Ward. The system allows fans to only have 10 things in their loadout, allowing them to go overboard in certain areas like attachments while having to trade-off on things by utilizing less perks, throwables, or even a secondary weapon.

Sledgehammer Games head Aaron Halon pushed back against some of these claims in a statement, claiming that Modern Warfare 3 was a labor of love.

"We're incredibly proud of Modern Warfare III – both the full game experience at launch and the upcoming year of content we have planned for the community. On behalf of the extremely talented team across Sledgehammer Games and our partner studios with whom we've collaborated on development, this has been a labor of love to lead the first ever back-to-back sequel in Call of Duty. We cannot wait to see our community's reaction to all that the entire game has to offer, across Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies."

On top of all of this, it was also noted that Sledgehammer Games had plans to make a new Advanced Warfare game. This was reportedly scrapped in favor of making Modern Warfare 3, by Activision's orders. ComicBook.com gave the campaign a 2 out of 5, citing issues with its messy story, poorly implemented Open Combat Missions, and more. A full multiplayer review will go live in the coming days, but for now, here's an excerpt of the campaign review: "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 offers a hastily, haphazardly assembled, and often nonsensical story with no guts. It takes no new risks, has nothing to say, and most frustratingly, it abruptly ends right when the story starts gaining some traction. Any attempt to innovate comes across as clunky, misguided, and cheap. It may not quite be the worst Call of Duty campaign, but it comes pretty damn close."