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 with more freedom of approach, in which Task Force 141 once again clashes with Vladimir Makarov, who escapes captivity at the outset and sets off after a chemical weapon. The game shares weapons, operators, and a connection with the battle royale Warzone, and also brought back more than twenty fan-favorite maps from Modern Warfare 2 (2009), reworked for the new multiplayer engine, which was one of the main draws for longtime series fans.

On PlayStation 4, the game launched alongside the PS5 edition as part of cross-gen support, but with noticeably more limited technical presentation. The resolution is dynamic and lower, the game doesn't run with the same density of environmental detail or the ray-traced effects reserved for next-gen consoles, and the frame rate is consistently capped at 60 frames per second even in large multiplayer matches with high player counts. Loading missions and large maps took noticeably longer on PS4 due to the lack of an SSD than on PS5, and the DualShock 4 controller lacks the adaptive triggers and advanced haptics that the next-gen version uses to simulate the recoil of individual weapons.

Content-wise the PS4 version remained identical to other platforms - the same short campaign, the same multiplayer with reused maps, and the same connection to Warzone - the difference was purely in performance and visual quality. PS4 edition owners were, as standard, entitled to a free upgrade to the PS5 version if they got a new console, and saved progress and unlocked weapons carried over automatically between both versions through the same game account, so moving to a newer console meant no loss of progress and no need to buy the game again or start multiplayer progression from scratch. The choice between generations was thus purely a matter of available hardware, not game content.

Why play it: The short campaign and recycled maps are a weakness, but thanks to the free upgrade to PS5 and shared progress, the PS4 version is a reasonable choice for those still considering a move to a newer console.