I've been playing Call of Duty on Xbox since COD 4 – the original Modern Warfare. I was only 12 when it came out (make of that what you will), and it still remains one of the best games I've ever played.
Then Modern Warfare 2 came along, right around the time my parents had started paying for Xbox Live, and I can say with some confidence that it’s one of those games that I’ve willingly forfeited weeks of my life.
I still remember playing through the infamous “No Russian” mission for the first time, wondering if they’ll ever make a campaign like it.
What came after was a slightly messier trajectory in the Call of Duty franchise, swinging hard through exoskeletons, time-travel, intergalactic warfare, and Cold War conspiracies, losing some of its identity with each detour, even as individual entries had their moments.
I still play Black Ops 7 whenever I can grab an hour or three, but it's Treyarch’s take on Call of Duty – faster, more arcade – and it scratches a different itch than the game I originally loved. And after watching the first-look trailer for Modern Warfare 4, Infinity Ward could be back with another winner.
The campaign follows Private Park, a young South Korean soldier thrown into a full-scale North Korean invasion, with war spreading far beyond the Korean Peninsula, through to New York, Paris, Mumbai, and occupied cities that need to be retaken street by street.
It looks like a return to the gritty realism that made the early games so compelling, with the return of arguably the series’ most famous character, Captain Price, now off the books, pursuing a weapon capable of shifting global power while being hunted by the people he used to serve.
Across multiplayer, Infinity Ward has overhauled how weapons actually behave. Bloom is gone entirely, meaning hipfire shots go where the gun is pointed. If you've ever lost a gunfight you should have won (or at least felt like you should have), this is aimed directly at you.
Call of Duty has also announced 12 core launch maps, each with its own visual identity. And Kill Block, a training facility that physically reconfigures its layout between rounds across more than 500 possible combinations – it’s the kind of idea that could keep multiplayer genuinely interesting months into the game's life.
Modern Warfare 4 will also see the return of DMZ, the free-to-play PvP battle royale mode where you combat both AI and real players, looting, killing, betraying, and surviving in the open world format. More to come on that on June 7.
It's always felt like Treyarch and Infinity Ward have made fundamentally different games under the same brand. Treyarch has Black Ops and Zombies, which were cult favourites among the Call of Duty faithful.
But Infinity Ward founded this franchise, and their DNA has always been one grounded in real-world situations, precise gunplay, cinematic campaigns, and stunning graphics. After years of studios and shifting priorities, MW4 looks to be the franchise’s most realistic yet.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 releases October 23, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.
