Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023) continued the previous entry in the rebooted trilogy and brought a controversially short campaign built around so-called Open Combat Missions – larger missions offering more freedom of approach, in which Task Force 141 once again faces off against Vladimir Makarov, who escapes captivity at the outset and sets off on the trail of a chemical weapon. The game shares weapons, operators, and a connection with the battle royale Warzone, and also brought back more than twenty beloved maps from Modern Warfare 2 (2009), reworked for the new multiplayer engine, which was one of the main draws for longtime fans of the series.

The PC version launched via Battle.net and technically offered the highest ceiling of all the platforms – unlimited frame rate for powerful rigs, support for ultrawide and multi-monitor resolutions, a full range of graphics settings including ray tracing at the highest level, and DLSS and FSR technology for higher performance while keeping the image sharp. Keyboard-and-mouse controls were a given, along with support for cross-play and cross-progression with console players, and the option to configure controls and the user-interface layout in more detail than on consoles, including fine-tuning mouse sensitivity per weapon.

As with the previous entry, the PC community dealt with a higher occurrence of cheaters in the shared Warzone despite the Ricochet anti-cheat system running at the kernel level, a long-discussed issue tied more to the platform's openness than to the specific game. In terms of content, though, it was the same game as on PlayStation and Xbox – the same short campaign, the same multiplayer with reused maps, and the same connection to Warzone – the difference lay in technical performance and in the control comfort provided by mouse and keyboard, which remains a long-term favorite choice among competitive players over the controller used on consoles.

Why play it: For the same campaign and multiplayer as on consoles, just with better technical performance and the favored mouse-and-keyboard combo for competitive players – even at the cost of a higher occurrence of cheaters in the shared Warzone.