After establishing the Call of Duty brand in the home console market with 2005’s Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward was given the ability to take the series in a new direction. The team had expressed an interest in taking the series forward into the modern day for the second game, however publisher Activision was firmly against the idea because modern military shooters weren’t popular, mainly because they relied on more tactical gameplay (akin to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six) in comparison to the WWII shooters which favoured a more run & gun style approach. But with Activision’s blessing to do whatever they wanted with their next entry; Infinity Ward firmly set their sights on modern conflicts in the middle east.
The end result was not only a massive leap forward for Call of Duty as a franchise, but it set a new standard for the FPS genre, was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2007, and is widely considered among the best games of the seventh console generation. This is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
In 2011 Russia enters a civil war with a group that call themselves the Ultranationalists. The Ultranationalists believe that the western world has stripped them of their cultural values, and profits from their hardships. Meanwhile a separatist group located in the Middle East led by terrorist Khaled Al-Asad stages a coup in their home country, executing their president on live television.
As the British SAS and the United States Marine Corps investigate the Ultranationalists and Separatists respectively, they discover that the two are working together and are planning nuclear attacks on various western superpowers.
With the worlds politicians at each other throats, it is down to you as SAS member Sgt. ‘Soap’ MacTavish and USMC soldier Sgt. Paul Jackson to stop World War III before it even begins.
The end result was not only a massive leap forward for Call of Duty as a franchise, but it set a new standard for the FPS genre, was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2007, and is widely considered among the best games of the seventh console generation. This is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
In 2011 Russia enters a civil war with a group that call themselves the Ultranationalists. The Ultranationalists believe that the western world has stripped them of their cultural values, and profits from their hardships. Meanwhile a separatist group located in the Middle East led by terrorist Khaled Al-Asad stages a coup in their home country, executing their president on live television.
As the British SAS and the United States Marine Corps investigate the Ultranationalists and Separatists respectively, they discover that the two are working together and are planning nuclear attacks on various western superpowers.
With the worlds politicians at each other throats, it is down to you as SAS member Sgt. ‘Soap’ MacTavish and USMC soldier Sgt. Paul Jackson to stop World War III before it even begins.
Where Call of Duty stories had previously concerned themselves with relaying the facts about real world battles, and with Treyarch’s Call of Duty 3 laying a basic framework for a story of fictional characters, Call of Duty 4’s story is on a completely different level in comparison. Not only does it feature a fully fleshed out story, but the characters are diverse, well written, and engaging enough for the player to be able to form emotional attachments to them over the course of the game.
This is the first Call of Duty that presents a fully fictional story, but so not to stray too far from its predecessors’ roots in facts, the game draws from multiple real-world conflicts, particularly the Iraq War. The result feels heavily inspired by Hollywood blockbusters such as Black Hawk Down, but also incredibly grounded at the same time.
Everything takes place on a much larger scale than before, and you’ll be jumping around Eastern Europe to the Middle East and back again on a mission-by-mission basis. Where the previous three Call of Duty games would centre each mission around a particular historic battle, Call of Duty 4 presents each mission as something that will develop the story and its characters. Much like any other good story, characters react to information they find out over the course of the game, and that informs where they go next. This makes the game feel less like it’s funnelling you from one battle to another with a general disregard for time or place, and more like you’re piecing together a mystery on the battlefield.
It’s also one of the first videogames to directly tackle post-9/11 attitudes and fears around terrorism and (as our politicians put it) our enemies in the east that want nothing more than death to the west. It’s not subtle, but it was a significant shift at the time when nothing else had dared to approach the subject as directly as this.
This is the first Call of Duty that presents a fully fictional story, but so not to stray too far from its predecessors’ roots in facts, the game draws from multiple real-world conflicts, particularly the Iraq War. The result feels heavily inspired by Hollywood blockbusters such as Black Hawk Down, but also incredibly grounded at the same time.
Everything takes place on a much larger scale than before, and you’ll be jumping around Eastern Europe to the Middle East and back again on a mission-by-mission basis. Where the previous three Call of Duty games would centre each mission around a particular historic battle, Call of Duty 4 presents each mission as something that will develop the story and its characters. Much like any other good story, characters react to information they find out over the course of the game, and that informs where they go next. This makes the game feel less like it’s funnelling you from one battle to another with a general disregard for time or place, and more like you’re piecing together a mystery on the battlefield.
It’s also one of the first videogames to directly tackle post-9/11 attitudes and fears around terrorism and (as our politicians put it) our enemies in the east that want nothing more than death to the west. It’s not subtle, but it was a significant shift at the time when nothing else had dared to approach the subject as directly as this.
It’s not just the writing that got a much-needed overhaul for Call of Duty 4 though, as the gameplay has also undergone some significant changes. First up is the addition of sprinting; sprinting allows for much faster paced and frantic shootouts than ever before. No longer are you left slowly wandering from cover to cover whilst you get riddled with bullets, instead you can quickly zip from left to right and advance on your foes in a much more enjoyable way.
More tweaks come from the addition of weapon attachments, and of course modern weaponry. The vast majority of guns you come into contact with are semi-automatic, but many will also come with different variations of sights (including iron sights, red dot, holographic, and scoped), some will be silenced, others might have grenade launcher attachments, and more. These all add up to provide much greater gameplay variety, and more choices in the heat of combat. You’ll also frequently be given the opportunity to call in air support or utilise technologically advanced weaponry like Javelin missiles.
To account for the vastly increased combat options you’ll find that your enemies are now considerably more aggressive, always seeking to get the drop on you by way of force. As well as this, levels are now considerably more vertical, and due to most of them taking place in urban environments they have much tighter combat arenas than in the WWII games.
Environments are also littered with hazards like cars and barrels which can explode if too much damage is caused, plus your enemies aren’t afraid to call in vehicular reinforcements which often need to be dispatched with RPG’s or C4’s.
Combat is considerably more frantic than it ever was in the previous three games, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost Call of Duty’s original vision of making you feel like part of a squad and not a one-man army. In fact, it’s arguably never felt as though you needed to rely on your squad as much as you do in Call of Duty 4, without them you’re totally helpless.
Missions also present a great range in gameplay variety. The game opens up with a stealth infiltration on a boat that goes awry before growing into street battles with tanks in the Middle East. Come the midpoint of the game all bets are off and the action scales exponentially over the next few hours, adding in a couple of stealth only missions towards the end of the second act, and finishing things off with some large-scale mayhem.
There are two missions that make Call of Duty 4 as famous as it is and both are used as templates that every Call of Duty game has followed since to some degree because of how fresh and unique they were at the time. The first up is “Shock and Awe”, the midgame mission that changes everything. The reason why it’s so important is because for the first time in Call of Duty history, and for the first time ever for a lot of gamers, the character you play as is killed off at the end of the mission. In this game it happens in an unexpected nuclear explosion that changes the direction the story is heading in entirely. I’ve played the game roughly six or seven times now, and even all these times later, Shock and Awe still manages to pull the rug out from underneath me and leave my jaw on the floor.
The second mission is “All Ghillied Up”, a totally stealth based mission where getting discovered will often lead to instant death because you’re vastly outnumbered and outgunned. It’s extremely atmospheric and allows the tension to be balanced on a razors edge as you crawl through tall grass avoiding being spotted by enemy patrols.
More tweaks come from the addition of weapon attachments, and of course modern weaponry. The vast majority of guns you come into contact with are semi-automatic, but many will also come with different variations of sights (including iron sights, red dot, holographic, and scoped), some will be silenced, others might have grenade launcher attachments, and more. These all add up to provide much greater gameplay variety, and more choices in the heat of combat. You’ll also frequently be given the opportunity to call in air support or utilise technologically advanced weaponry like Javelin missiles.
To account for the vastly increased combat options you’ll find that your enemies are now considerably more aggressive, always seeking to get the drop on you by way of force. As well as this, levels are now considerably more vertical, and due to most of them taking place in urban environments they have much tighter combat arenas than in the WWII games.
Environments are also littered with hazards like cars and barrels which can explode if too much damage is caused, plus your enemies aren’t afraid to call in vehicular reinforcements which often need to be dispatched with RPG’s or C4’s.
Combat is considerably more frantic than it ever was in the previous three games, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost Call of Duty’s original vision of making you feel like part of a squad and not a one-man army. In fact, it’s arguably never felt as though you needed to rely on your squad as much as you do in Call of Duty 4, without them you’re totally helpless.
Missions also present a great range in gameplay variety. The game opens up with a stealth infiltration on a boat that goes awry before growing into street battles with tanks in the Middle East. Come the midpoint of the game all bets are off and the action scales exponentially over the next few hours, adding in a couple of stealth only missions towards the end of the second act, and finishing things off with some large-scale mayhem.
There are two missions that make Call of Duty 4 as famous as it is and both are used as templates that every Call of Duty game has followed since to some degree because of how fresh and unique they were at the time. The first up is “Shock and Awe”, the midgame mission that changes everything. The reason why it’s so important is because for the first time in Call of Duty history, and for the first time ever for a lot of gamers, the character you play as is killed off at the end of the mission. In this game it happens in an unexpected nuclear explosion that changes the direction the story is heading in entirely. I’ve played the game roughly six or seven times now, and even all these times later, Shock and Awe still manages to pull the rug out from underneath me and leave my jaw on the floor.
The second mission is “All Ghillied Up”, a totally stealth based mission where getting discovered will often lead to instant death because you’re vastly outnumbered and outgunned. It’s extremely atmospheric and allows the tension to be balanced on a razors edge as you crawl through tall grass avoiding being spotted by enemy patrols.
Call of Duty 4 is also responsible for reshaping the multiplayer landscape with its robust matchmaking and player progression system. The progression in particular was a concept almost entirely unique to Call of Duty 4 at the time, wherein each action you took in a multiplayer match had the opportunity to earn you experience points. The more points you earned the higher you would level up, and the higher your level the more combat options were available to you in the form of new weapons, attachments, and ‘perks’. Perks are modifiers that allow you to tailor your mode of play, with some working best with particular weapon types. This made Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer infinitely replayable, and extremely addictive as players were rewarded for playing the game for longer, and rewarded quicker for improving their skills.
But Call of Duty 4 isn't just fun to play, it also excels in its presentation. Both the graphical quality and score have been vastly improved over the previous three entries in the series. Call of Duty 4 utilises a new game engine created by Infinity Ward titled the IW engine, which for better or worse is still utilised in modern Call of Duty games nearly fifteen years later. This engine allowed for much more realistic animations, more advanced lighting, higher quality textures, better particle effects, and more. As a result, Call of Duty 4 looks leaps and bounds better than the previous entries in the series. Add to this the thumping score composed by Stephen Barton and you’ll truly feel like you’re playing an action movie at times.
But Call of Duty 4 isn't just fun to play, it also excels in its presentation. Both the graphical quality and score have been vastly improved over the previous three entries in the series. Call of Duty 4 utilises a new game engine created by Infinity Ward titled the IW engine, which for better or worse is still utilised in modern Call of Duty games nearly fifteen years later. This engine allowed for much more realistic animations, more advanced lighting, higher quality textures, better particle effects, and more. As a result, Call of Duty 4 looks leaps and bounds better than the previous entries in the series. Add to this the thumping score composed by Stephen Barton and you’ll truly feel like you’re playing an action movie at times.
Part of the reason I wanted to do this series of reviews on Call of Duty’s evolution over the years is because Call of Duty gets a lot of flak for not doing much to change up the formula. But Call of Duty 4 is one of the series’ earliest examples that such a statement is false. Infinity Ward took the framework for what worked in Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2, revamped and remixed it for a modern-day setting, then gave it a shot of adrenaline and a hefty dose of Hollywood inspiration to create one of the most influential action games ever made.
Even fifteen years after its release, Call of Duty 4 is still a phenomenal game and has truly stood the test of time. Alongside the likes of DOOM and Half-Life, Call of Duty 4 is one of the great champions of the FPS genre.
Even fifteen years after its release, Call of Duty 4 is still a phenomenal game and has truly stood the test of time. Alongside the likes of DOOM and Half-Life, Call of Duty 4 is one of the great champions of the FPS genre.