YMMV section for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
YMMV section for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
- Aluminum Christmas Trees: Some of the more ridiculous Aftermarket Parts do have some basis
in reality, such as lever-action lower receivers for AR-15s, double-barreled assault rifles, and under-barrel chainsaws, although the actual utility of these things is dubious at best. - Badass Decay: One of the game's most common complaints. Compared to their original incarnations, players widely believe that the main characters (including Makarov) aren't as committed to using violent means to accomplish their missions, leading them to believe that the single-player story's stakes aren't as high as the original trilogy. Makarov, in particular, is widely hated for losing his tendency to think of every scenario that can benefit him in the original trilogy and not being as menacing as his original incarnation. Instead, this Makarov relies more on the heroes' lack of good decision-making, making him not as gripping that much as the series' signature Big Bad.
- Bile Fascination: The game, especially the campaign, got a lot of attention due to how poorly received was. From the incredibly short player mode, the infamous Open Combat Missions, the constant Pandering to the Base, a few Narm inducing scenes, and in top of that, the Undignified Death of Soap himself. All to the price of 70$.
- Complete Monster: Vladimir Makarov is a Russian Ultranationalist whose claims of helping his country hide a wicked sadist. Viewing his father as weak for hanging himself following the Soviet Union's collapse, Makarov joined the army to help regain Russia's strength, starting by assisting General Roman Barkov in the oppression of Urzikstan and the gassing of its citizens. Following Barkov's defeat, Makarov turned to terrorism, joining forces with the Konni group to launch a massive attack on the Verdansk Stadium as a cover for his plan to blow up an airport. Heavily implied to have been behind the theft of three of the same missiles used to kill Ghorbrani from Shadow Company with intent to help Hassan Zyani destroy parts of America, Makarov, upon his rescue from the Zordaya Prison Complex, kills one of his own men for being sloppy and plots to kickstart a war between Russia and Urzikstan. Commencing a series of attacks meant to pin the blame on Urzikstan, Makarov has chemical warheads launched onto a Russian military base that kills hundreds; forces Farah's sister Samara to act as a suicide bomber onboard a Russian plane that sees everybody onboard die; attempts to blow up a dam to destroy an entire city; and tries to have an entire British train destroyed as a way to lure Task Force 141 into an ambush, even personally killing Soap when he tries to save John Price's life.
- Continuity Lockout: Unless one actively played the corresponding Warzone seasons and co-op missions revealing they are back, players will be very surprised to see Alex and Graves alive and well in this game, considering the first was last seen performing a Heroic Sacrifice by manually triggering explosives and collapsing the building he was in in the first game, and the second was Modern Warfare II's Final Boss and the player blew up the tank he was ostensibly in.
- Good Bad Bugs:
- A glitch in the beta made the Operators absolutely freak out upon seeing a grenade, calling it out multiple times, even overlapping themselves, and everyone nearby did so at the same time. It has to be seen to be believed.
- The released game can sometimes have the pre-match cutscenes bug out in some way. For instance, Afghan has TF141 players start by driving in with a pair of buggies and dismounting off to the side of the cave, but it's possible for at least one player to just spawn in place already, watching as the rest of the team has to drive in to catch up with them.
- The "JAK Beholder Rifle Kit" aftermarket part, which converts the TYR revolver into a full-length revolver rifle, was bugged on release, causing players who completed the requisite number of challenges to have nothing to show for it, which would have been an extremely minor bug if not for the fact that its release coincided with the devs leaving for the Christmas holiday, meaning it was left in the game but basically not available for weeks.
- The TAQ Evolvere uses 7.62mm ammo by default but can unlock magazine options to take 5.56mm for better mobility at the cost of damage. When first added, the options to do so came with completely empty belts.
- A glitch in the beta made the Operators absolutely freak out upon seeing a grenade, calling it out multiple times, even overlapping themselves, and everyone nearby did so at the same time. It has to be seen to be believed.
- It's Short, So It Sucks!: One of the leading criticisms of the single-player campaign is that it's extremely short, with experienced shooter players being able to beat the whole campaign within 3-4 hours (with around 1/3-1/4 of that runtime being cutscenes).
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The single-player story somehow rehashed the widely-used "US-missiles-gone-missing" trope from the previous game, leading to players blast the lack of this game's plot differences compared to its prequel.
- Memetic Mutation:
- Makarov, the Russian Ben Shapiro. note
- $70 DLC note
- AI-generated story note
- Narm: Quite aplenty due to this game's controversial single-player story, but some moments stand out:
- When it's revealed that Makarov successfully escaped his imprisonment in the first mission, Price immediately cancels his mission in the following cutscenes. Despite being set up as a dramatic reveal due to Makarov's much-feared status, this moment loses its suspense since the players don't know anything about Price's canceled mission and how Price casually canceled the operation despite knowing the potential ramifications of single-handedly canceling a potentially important operation.
- When trying to prevent Makarov from stealing poison gas, Price inhaled some of the gas from the leaking drums. Despite passing out for a moment after being evacuated (leading to his teammates being worried about his potential death), Price then woke up seemingly as if nothing happened before departing for another mission afterward, causing players to question the way the game treats life-threatening injuries in its story.
- Pandering to the Base: The game has been accused of this on multiple counts.
- When it was announced that the game's launch map pool would consist entirely of launch maps from the original MW2, this combined with the fact that the game is being sold as a full-priced product was met with accusations of farming nostalgia to tempt people into buying a glorified DLC, essentially selling what should've been free maps in MWII. To add insult to injury, many of these maps are POIs in Al-Mazrah, and most of the map pool of MWII are sectioned-off areas of Warzone maps, which means they could've been made free maps relatively easily.
- Vladimir Makarov's portrayal in the campaign and the story surrounding it has been received as an example of this. Makarov is seen as a significant downgrade compared to his original counterpart, operating on a much smaller scale and coming across as nowhere near as intimidating as a result. The campaign also follows up from the "No Russian" stinger from the last game, which inspired high expectations as the original terrorist attack was an iconic Establishing Character Moment for the original Makarov. The new attack is yet again on a much smaller scale than the original and you do not play as anyone directly involved in the attack, giving it much less weight than in the original when players were forced to at least engage with law enforcement. On top of all this, reports claim that Sledgehammer's original plan for this direct sequel developed on a much smaller timeframe was to continue the Mexico subplot of MWII, but Activision forced them to follow up on the Makarov teaser.
- Finally, the deaths of Soap and Shepherd were seen as desperate attempts to add stakes and consequences into the narrative, as a chief complaint of the reboot trilogy and modern CoD games, in general, is that no one seems to die permanently, and those who seem to just end up miraculously alive to sell them as Operators in multiplayer modes.
- Surprisingly Improved Sequel: In spite of the many grievances this game faces, most players agree that it is a marked improvement from MWII, both in content and mechanics. Gameplay-wise there has been new and returning perks added every season, the gameplay has been generally considered fast and frenetic compared to MWII and the wide selection of returning and new maps have received minimal complaints. SHG has been quick to balance most guns (even MWII legacy weapons) and there was no delay in seasons like with MWII to slow down content. The plethora of Aftermarket Kits, new weapons and some returning weapons from AW means that this Co D has the biggest arsenal of any Co D to date. While this game's existence has been in contention from the start, most players who have stuck around have found it worthwhile this time.
- Tainted by the Preview:
- While "firestorm" might be a bit over the top there has been a not-insignificant amount of backlash to the existence of Modern Warfare III as a standalone installment. Before 2023, there was a "mostly official" understanding that the series would skip a year and a continuation of the MW II story would be dropping as an expansion rather than a separate title. However, through 2023 increasing rumors inferred that Activision were converting the work they were doing on this expansion to a full release, which has made several fans leery that III was gearing up to be a full-priced Mission-Pack Sequel. The fact that unlockable content from II's multiplayer/Warzone 2.0 (paid or otherwise) made the jump to III only added fuel to this belief (as III would be built on top of II and thus able to easily reuse assets made for it). Combine this with the extra work going into Warzone 2.0 and it's hard to shake the feeling that they not only didn't skip a year, but they also doubled down.
- Likewise, the inclusion of Zombies has had some people incredibly concerned. Considering the last time Treyarch developed a Zombies mode for someone else's CODnote , some are getting the impression that development of either Modern Warfare III or Treyarch's own followup to Black Ops Cold War is going very wrong behind the scenes. In particular, the gameplay style of "MWZ" is heavily controversial in the Zombies community. The gameplay is best described as DMZ with the PvP elements removed and gameplay elements of Outbreak. As many Zombies fans prefer the round-based modes, many decry the mode as being nothing like Zombies, even drawing comparisons to Vanguard's infamous Zombies mode pre-Shi no Numa. There was also quite a bit of concern pre-reveal that the mode would have PvP elements, which would make the experience even more uncomfortable for Zombies fans who tend to prefer the strictly PvE gameplay. While some reception has warmed up upon the gameplay reveal, especially from fans who actually enjoyed Outbreak or even DMZ, with the added clarification that the mode is entirely PvE, it is still a heavily debated take on Zombies.
- "Aftermarket" parts, 3D-printed attachments that more dramatically alter some aspect of a weapon, like turning a belt-fed machine gun into a bullpup for better mobility or changing a submachine gun's caliber to hit harder, that can be used after fully leveling the weapon in question, didn't make too much of a splash, mostly because they're treating things which already exist in MWII as a brand-new feature, until it was announced that they are locked behind weekly challenges, whereupon many began complaining, mostly because of the implication it meant that if you didn't complete a week's challenges in time you were out of luck. This died down after it was clarified that these challenges would be added to the game on a weekly basis but not removed after that week - and even though Season 2 did remove the previous weekly challenges to make way for its new set, their requisite unlockable parts were moved to the armory unlock system where they can be unlocked by completing a set number of daily challenges - making it more like a steady release of new attachments that need a little extra work to unlock.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The new Open Combat Missions are described by reviewers and players as the weakest part of an already weak campaign, being effectively multiplayer DMZ missions using parts of the Warzone map, lacking proper cinematic moments with its sandbox approach, and coming off as slapdash filler. Made worse by the fact that of the fourteen missions in the campaign, six are OCMs; nearly half of what the campaign has to offer. This in effect makes most, if not all of the campaign, a glorified tutorial for Warzone and DMZ (both of which are free-to-play components while this game is a $70 release). Ironically enough, the series had long since been criticized for relying on linear, scripted scenes to move the campaign, which some reviewers noted while pointing out that the game's "solution" made things worse in every way.
- Believe it or not, Passenger, this game's equivalent of the all-time infamous classic No Russian from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. While it's understandable the developers can't afford to depict a literal massacre by Makarov and his lackeys (although the mission itself is entirely optional), players blasted Passenger for not being nearly as memorably bone-chilling as No Russian in any way. Made even worse is how No Russian was a significant plot point in the original trilogy (one that caused the Russo-American War and World War III in the original trilogy) and a perfect showcase of how villainous Makarov was, whereas Passenger only has very minor significance in Modern Warfare III since it does not cause the very global war Makarov wants all along and how Makarov is then off to do other terrorist attacks anyway.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite only appearing in Modern Warfare 3, Yuri instantly became a fan-favorite due to his previous history with Makarov and his determination to stop Makarov once and for all and how he was as much as a badass compared to Price and Soap in the series. Instead of becoming a protagonist in the game or a deuteragonist with ample screentime, this Yuri only appeared in one single-player mission in Modern Warfare III without any fanfare to his return or any storytelling relevance, causing his appearance to come off as poorly done fanservice. It's not helped that there's very little in common between Yuri Volkov and the original trilogy's Yuri aside from them sharing a first name.
- Took the Bad Film Seriously: While the game has proven nothing but controversial, the performances its VAs give remain praiseworthy and one of the few truly objectively good parts of the game, with all of the VAs (even Julian Kostov, regardless of the memes about Makarov looking like Ben Shapiro or debate over whether he was as intimidating as the original Makarov) fully encompassing and bringing life to their characters. TF-141’s VAs in particular keep their banter and friendship alive throughout the game, and their performances during the scattering of Soap’s ashes make it one of the most genuinely impactful moments in the game, regardless of the controversial handling of his death itself.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Despite being as committed as ever to fighting for her homeland's liberation, Farah unintentionally became subject to this trope due to her conscientious decision to work with Shadow Company and Graves despite Price telling her not to upon learning the fact. While it's understandable that Farah and the ULF need any weapon they can get to fight against Al-Qatala and Russian occupation forces, she instead coldly brushed Price's genuine concerns by saying that weapons she collected (albeit from dubious sources) are her own business. Considering the game's utterly controversial single-player story, the fandom bashed this writing for making Farah seemingly willingly betray Price's years-long trust for her by allying with the very-much-alive Graves.
