Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered features the same core gameplay as the original version: it is a first-person shooter in which the player controls several characters. However, it includes a few modifications, encompassing improved controls and timing of existing animations while remaining nearly identical to their original counterparts.[1] For example, while in the prone position, the player character's arms and equipped weapon are now visible.[2] In the multiplayer mode, if a weapon is equipped, players have the ability to taunt their opponents, such as allowing the player to inspect the exterior of their gun.[3]

The single-player campaign is almost identical to the original. It keeps the same collectibles and cheats as before, with the addition of several new cheats, such as exaggerated physics that fling enemies backwards as they are killed, and replacing the heads of non-player characters (NPCs) with watermelons.[4] The game offers full PlayStation Network trophy and Xbox Live achievement support (trophies of which had been absent from Modern Warfare due to the game releasing before they were introduced),[5] with the inclusion of several new challenges.[6]

Remastered features an updated version of the multiplayer mode that shares similarities with those featured in later Call of Duty games. It includes the same weapons, killstreaks, perks, and game modes from Modern Warfare.[7][8][9] Existing modes present in other installments are included such as "Gun Game" and "Hardpoint",[10] as well as new modes like "Prop Hunt", in which players hide as inanimate objects from the opposing team.[11] The multiplayer mode offers a greater variety of customization options for profile personalization, guns, and characters.[12][13] A number of weapons not featured in Modern Warfare were added.[14][15][16] All new content can be unlocked through completing challenges, crafting by consuming "Parts" that the player can earn, or by opening supply drops; existing items from the original remain unlockable only through gaining in experience.[12][13] The online mode includes 20 Prestige levels. Entering each new Prestige level resets any unlockables previously made available, with the exception of those that have been permanently unlocked and customization items.[17][18] A firing range is present in the online lobby to allow players to try out different weapon loadouts.[19]

Modern Warfare Remastered features the same plot as the original game. The player acts as a member of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the Special Air Service (SAS), and takes on missions to fight against a separatist group in the Middle East and an ultranationalist group in Russia.

While the United States invades a small, oil-rich Middle Eastern country following a coup d'état by the extremist Khaled Al-Asad, a British SAS squad infiltrates a cargo ship found to be carrying a nuclear device. The ship is sunk by enemy jets, but the SAS team escapes with its manifest, and then heads to Russia to rescue their informant, codenamed "Nikolai", from the Ultranationalist party. The intelligence from these operations indicate Al-Asad has a Russian nuclear device. The U.S. military launches an assault on Al-Asad's palace, but the nuclear device is detonated, wiping out most of the city along with everyone in it.

The SAS team tracks down Al-Asad in Azerbaijan, and discovers that he was working with Imran Zakhaev, the leader of the Ultranationalist party. The mission then flashes back 15 years where Captain Price, who was a lieutenant at the time, is sent alongside his commanding officer, Captain MacMillan, on a failed assassination attempt on Zakhaev in Pripyat, Ukraine. After killing Al-Asad, the SAS team, with support from U.S. Marine Force Recon and Russian loyalists, attempt to capture Zakhaev's son and learn his whereabouts. They ambush him, but he commits suicide. In response, Zakhaev seizes control of a nuclear launch facility. A joint operation is launched to take back the site, but Zakhaev launches intercontinental ballistic missiles at the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. The joint teams are able to breach the facility and remotely destroy the missiles before fleeing the area.

Zakhaev's forces trap the escaping joint force on a bridge, and during the fight many are killed. Zakhaev arrives but is soon distracted by the arrival of a loyalist helicopter. The player shoots and kills Zakhaev with their pistol before being tended to by loyalist forces.

A comparison of Modern Warfare (top) and Remastered (bottom). The latter features higher-resolution textures, remodeled assets, and other graphical enhancements.

Activision became interested in a remaster of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare following the circulation of an online petition.[3] The publisher approached Raven Software, who had assisted on the development of previous Call of Duty titles, to be the primary developer, while Infinity Ward would act as executive producer.[20][21] Raven's studio director, David Pellas, recalled that every employee of Raven agreed to the undertaking of the remaster.[22] The developers had pledged to focus on four key areas throughout development: respecting the original game, modernizing the visuals and audio, improving the experience with new technology, and redefining the term remaster.[23] Much of Modern Warfare was consequently "rebuilt [...] from the ground up"[24] through the revitalisation of its source codes, materials, layouts, and effects that Raven were given access to from Infinity Ward.[20] The game runs in full 1080p resolution[25] (increased to 4K for the PlayStation 4 Pro version) at 60 frames per second,[26] and uses the latest iteration of the series' game engine at the time.[20]

Raven wanted the remaster to provide a nostalgic experience for fans of Modern Warfare,[23] while connecting newcomers to a world that they were used to in recent Call of Duty games, albeit one that mirrored reality.[22] To assist in their decision-making, Raven scoured various social media websites to find active players of Modern Warfare in order to understand what they would want from a re-release of the game. Pellas noted that the risk of negative fan reactions resulting from changes to the original and the desire to meet expectations was daunting for Raven, but were encouraged by their leading principle of keeping the gameplay unchanged. Subtle improvements were made to both the controls and timing of existing animations, such as the transition between aiming a sniper rifle and the scope overlay appearing, but were designed to be as close to identical as possible.[1]

To bring Modern Warfare's visuals up to modern standards, enhancements of the environments were achieved using a procedure called "paint-over", with more objects and effects being integrated into them. Raven also wanted to give the environments a sense of place and history to avoid feeling generic.[3] The vast majority of objects were remodeled, with the game using improved texture depth, physically-based rendering, and subsurface scattering; additional features such as realistic physics and joints were employed for moving objects like character models. The remaster became the first Call of Duty game to allow each gun to eject ammunition rounds accurate to that type, which was achieved through the inserted rounds remaining in the gun before ejection.[3][23] Raven faced some issues remastering the graphics, as the remaster used a heavily upgraded version of the series' engine. As a result, several of Modern Warfare's visual assets were not suited to the new technology, and the developers were required to improve or remake them. A number of new first-person animations were added to the single-player campaign for immersion during certain scenes and to improve how the camera made use of the player character's body.[1][27] The artificial intelligence of NPCs was improved to respond more realistically with the environment, and vice versa, such as grass reacting to the player character's presence.[23]

The remastering of the game's audio was complemented with reverberation, depth, and spatial effects;[27] one example a developer from Raven made note of is that "Layering out multiple sounds now makes a big difference".[3] A range of other examples of sound not present in Modern Warfare were used, including audio channels that had been created for the original game but had not been included during its development due to time and technical restraints. The original music and vocal performances were retained,[23][27] although Al-Asad's dialogue spoken in Arabic was amended and re-recorded to more accurately represent the game's English subtitles. Other minor dialogue alterations included the adjustment to the order of several lines and the inclusion of new ones within the game's training level.[28] Following negative player feedback at Call of Duty: XP 2016, the developers reverted changes to the multiplayer mode's announcers. Similarly, weapon audio was revised to more closely resemble those found in the original game.[8][29]

In addition to the remastering process, the game received an array of new features. A few new cheats were incorporated into the campaign, while the cheats and collectibles from the original were kept.[4] The multiplayer mode initially remained largely unchanged in terms of content. Ten of the original sixteen maps were featured at launch, while the remaining six were released as a free update several weeks later,[12][13] after the developers realized that they would be unable to remaster every map in time.[20] Raven began to support the multiplayer mode from December 2016 over the following months to retain player investment, which included the introduction of a loot box and crafting system, along with an array of customization items such as emblems, calling cards, character skins, reticles, weapon camouflage, and new melee weapons.[12][13] The game additionally published various playlists and seasonal events, which introduced new but similar customization content, multiplayer modes, and variants of existing maps.[11][30][31] Further guns and melee weapons were incorporated during these events[15][16] and other game updates.[14]

News of Modern Warfare Remastered was leaked on Reddit on April 27, 2016, prior to its announcement. The leak revealed a screenshot of a reservation card for the online store Target that included the Legacy Edition of Infinite Warfare and the bundled remaster.[32][33] Call of Duty's official Twitter account responded the same day with a tweet of emoji in reply to a fan's tweet from 2014 who had expressed excitement at the possibility of a Modern Warfare remaster, seemingly confirming its existence.[34] On April 29, 2016, a full retailer advertisement for Infinite Warfare was leaked, revealing that Remastered would include the single-player campaign and ten multiplayer maps from Modern Warfare.[35]

Remastered was officially announced at the 2016 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), showing an extended trailer for its campaign, following a gameplay reveal for Infinite Warfare. After the trailer, it was revealed that PlayStation 4 users who pre-purchased[lower-alpha 3] the bundle edition of Infinite Warfare would be able to play Remastered's campaign 30 days before its release date as part of Sony's exclusivity deal with Activision.[37][38] A gameplay video for Remastered's "Crew Expendable" mission was released online on July 14, 2016, displaying the improved graphics, lighting, sound, and animations.[39] The game's multiplayer mode was revealed during the Call of Duty: XP 2016 convention,[40][41] and attendees were able to play it first.[42] In September 2016, official trailers were released for both single-player and multiplayer modes.[43][44]

Modern Warfare Remastered was released worldwide on November 4, 2016, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows as part of the Legacy, Legacy Pro, and Digital Deluxe editions of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. At the time, the game was only available by purchasing one of these editions of Infinite Warfare; with physical versions, Remastered could only be played via Infinite Warfare's game disc.[45][46] Activision confirmed that Infinite Warfare must be permanently installed in order to use the included remaster.[47] Remastered was later released as a standalone game for PlayStation 4 on June 27, 2017, followed by Xbox One and Windows on July 27, 2017.[48]

On March 8, 2017, Activision announced that a remastered version of the Variety Map Pack originally released for Modern Warfare would be made available for Remastered. It includes the same four maps—"Killhouse", "Chinatown", "Creek", and "Broadcast"—as well as 10 rare supply drops. The map pack was released as a separate purchase on March 21, 2017, for PlayStation 4,[49] and on April 20, 2017, for Xbox One and Windows;[50] it was not included with any retail versions of Remastered.[51]

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic.[52][53][54] Push Square called it "a ridiculously faithful remake" that "celebrates this legacy with updated visuals and sound that really go above and beyond the call of duty, sprucing up an old care package for a more modern age to near-perfection."[57] The game was awarded the accolade of "Best Remaster" in 2016 from IGN.[58]

The revised graphics, sound, and other improvements of Remastered were acclaimed by critics. Push Square wrote that the game looked and sounded on par with a modern release, writing "It's nothing short of a profound feat".[57] Hardcore Gamer described it as "a stunning overhaul", and considered the remaster to be more akin to a remake in terms of the unparalleled upgrade.[7] The game's "subtle" differences were complimented by Destructoid, highlighting levels feeling more life-like and the enhancements to first-person cinematics.[55] Although praising its scope, some noted the graphics did not quite reach the quality of a brand-new title and exhibited minor shortcomings on occasion.[59][56]

The modern-day setting and core gameplay for the single-player campaign were praised. Push Square found how playing through the campaign from Modern Warfare reminded them how it had long endured with fans, while USgamer wrote its contemporary feel exhibited "forward-thinking storytelling" throughout a plot that felt sincere, and commended the level design, set pieces, and encouragement of squad members. The gameplay was considered by reviewers to feel pleasantly challenging and urgent,[57][59] with IGN noting it made them feel "relatively weighed down, encumbered, and more desperate in the fray."[56] Destructoid wrote that Remastered was at its core the original game from 2007, having felt the campaign had since been topped by its competition, but that it was still worth playing as a result of the mission variety and the relationship between Soap and Price.[55]

Similar praise was given for the multiplayer mode. Destructoid called it "timeless", writing it was welcoming to more casual players, and that the design of each map held up well and felt justified.[55] The mode was considered by Hardocre Gamer and IGN to be just as enjoyable as more recent Call of Duty games that had "crazy movement systems", with the latter writing that "its refreshingly old-school pace is fun and explosive in its own right."[7][56] Push Square praised the mode as being faithful to the original, regardless of its faults, and felt its simplicity compared with that of the newly released Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare showed that "less can be more."[57]

Certain aspects that were thought to have aged poorly or needed improvement received scrutiny. The multiplayer was criticized in particular for balancing issues; VG247 called it an "archaic" mode involving infamous perks and overpowered weapons, and attributed this to a desire of preserving Modern Warfare's authenticity for fans.[9] Similar complaints were echoed by Hardcore Gamer, who also reproached the single-player campaign for the decision to retain infinitely-spawning enemies, and how weapons found in levels were "barebones" compared to those the player starts with.[7] Many of the multiplayer maps and campaign levels were criticized by IGN for feeling dated and "designed for little more than to create areas to duck behind", with certain maps seen as being unnecessarily cluttered.[56] Both IGN and Push Square considered the narrative to suffer from pacing issues.[56][57] Some publications noted lingering problems with the artificial intelligence; USgamer wrote that enemy behaviour "isn't particularly sophisticated, relying on numbers, rather than cunning to bring you down."[57][59]

The multiplayer mode in the Windows version of Remastered was criticized by players for the available settings and from suffering from a number of technical issues. On Steam, it received mostly negative user reviews, with complaints citing poor performance, a lack of dedicated servers, a fixed frames per second cap, insufficient mouse support, numerous hackers, and a low player count. Players felt that Activision had failed to provide adequate support for PC in favor of the game's console versions, a trait which had been apparent with previous installments in the series.[60][61] The negative reactions towards the multiplayer port was in contrast to that expressed by Raven's studio director, David Pellas, who had stated before release that the game's PC version "play[ed] amazingly" and had a "fantastic" frame rate, although acknowledged he had playtested using a controller on a high-end gaming PC.[62]

• Official website

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Call of Duty 4