Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023) continued the previous entry in the rebooted trilogy and delivered a controversially short campaign built around so-called Open Combat Missions - larger missions with greater 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 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 Xbox One, the game launched together with the Xbox Series X|S edition as part of cross-gen support, with noticeably more limited technical presentation. The resolution is dynamic and lower, the game lacks the ray-traced effects reserved for next-gen consoles, and the frame rate remains steadily capped at 60 frames per second even in hectic firefights with high player counts. Loading times were longer on the older Xbox One hardware than on Series X|S, environmental textures and detail density were simplified due to the console's limited memory, and the weaker base Xbox One model (without the X suffix) additionally ran at an even lower resolution than the more powerful Xbox One X, which performed somewhat better thanks to its higher power.

Thanks to Smart Delivery, owners of the Xbox One edition were entitled to a free upgrade to the Xbox Series X|S version without needing to buy the game again, and saved progress carried over automatically between generations. In terms of content - the short campaign, multiplayer with reused maps, and the connection to Warzone - the Xbox One version remained identical to the other platforms; the difference was purely technical, in performance and visual quality, not in the range of weapons, operators, or game modes, which players had exactly the same on both console generations. The choice of platform thus depended mainly on which console a player owned, not on any content they would be missing out on.

Why play it: Due to the short campaign and recycled maps, this is more of a choice for multiplayer fans, who will appreciate the free upgrade to Xbox Series X|S via Smart Delivery without needing to buy the game again.