The Call of Duty series by Activision has been one of the most played online games since the original game was released in 2003. It has been going strong ever since, has built a loyal following and won various awards over the decades.

Later this year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, developed by Infinity Ward, will be coming out on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC, and MKAU Gaming had the privilege of being invited to an early preview event to get an early sneak peek of what we can look forward to. COD fans will no doubt be eager to gear up and get back into the war zone.

The preview event begins with representatives of Infinity Ward expressing their passion for the franchise and their excitement to share where the series is heading. Like past Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 4 will be taking from real-world events, most notably the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which has been going on since 1950, even long after the war ended and the one country split into two.

They explain the influences of South Korean culture around the world from their food, movies, TV shows and music, and how much they’ve been growing around the world. The Korean conflict between the North and South has been well documented over the years, but it hasn’t been explored in a Call of Duty game until now. They showed a map of mainly North Korea to give an idea of the layout of what one of the new stages will look like. Other returning maps include Paris, New York and Russia, plus Mumbai, which is another first for the series.

Both sides of Korea have powerful militaries that shouldn’t be underestimated. In the single-player campaign, we will be able to play as the South Korean army, and of course, North Korea will be the main antagonist.

An actual war between the North and South hasn’t actually happened yet (and we hope it never does), but this game creates a scenario of what that might look like. Private Park, a young Korean grunt soldier during his first time in combat, see’s he and his squad forced to overcome impossible odds in a gripping zero-to-hero journey. Captain Price also returns, and the story continues where the last game left off.

We got to see the missions we’ll take part in for Act 1, which are titled Cold Open, NYC and Escalation, with small snippets of the cutscenes. In the Cold Open, South Korea is hit with a missile strike and many citizens are killed.

In the NYC mission, Captain Price is on the run from governmental forces, hunts down Makarov and kills him, finally getting his revenge, but also finds a way to possibly track down Makarov’s boss. The Escalation mission takes place in North Korea, with a leader of the military trying to track down a defector, and this mission also gives some insight into what life is like in this dictator-ruled country.

Act 2 missions include Smuggler, Retreat, Paris, Mumbai and Assassination. In Smuggler, Captain Price makes it into France, and he and Valeria must make their way through a train yard, which has many moving platforms, forcing you to adapt to your surroundings.

Retreat takes the story back to South Korea with the military dealing with the aftermath of the bombing, trying to save as many people as they can and trying to figure out where the attack came from.

Players will take control of Captain Price again in the Paris mission during a car chase through the city and have to shoot enemies from the car window. In Mumbai, Captain Price and Valeria believe that’s where their target has gone and are trying to locate him. Assassination takes the story back to North Korea, with players controlling a family hoping to escape a building and not be killed.

The missions in Act 3 include Defection, Counterattack, Escape, Meltdown and Palace. They didn’t go into much detail to prevent spoilers and let players experience them for themselves, but explained that all the different story elements taking place in different countries eventually come together, and COD fans are in for a treat.

A brand new trailer was shown with samples of the overall story taking place across the different locations in the single player campaign. Each location represented looks and feels like the real thing, and the graphics look fantastic, showing the gritty and violent consequences of war. The little bit we see of the story in North Korea makes us glad we don’t live there, but also empathise with the people living there who can’t leave.

As epic as the single player campaign is looking, the multiplayer has always been where it’s at and has contributed a huge part to the Call of Duty franchise. They also go into detail about the updates they made to the gameplay to further immerse you in feeling like you’re in a real war zone. As bullets fly and explosives go off, the environment around you reacts to it as well, with items, books, papers and more getting thrashed around. They aim to make players feel like badasses with smooth animations that allow them to move around, hide, climb through windows, and even reload their guns.

We got to see some gameplay footage in what looks to be South Korea, with some new features and upgraded features being shown. The footage showed the player character being able to hang off an edge, and shimmy left or right, look over and see what’s ahead and aim your gun while looking over. While sprinting, you’re able to slide along the ground on your back with your feet in front and aim your gun while in that position.

Players can also slide over parked cars while sprinting and do some basic parkour moves to traverse through the environments fast and smoothly, while feeling realistic and feeling like you’re scoring some style points. The video demonstrated all of this during a stage in the rain and didn’t state whether the weather had any effect on the actions performed, but we’re excited to try these out and experiment with what’s possible when the game releases.

Oni-movement has been removed, but new additions to the players’ movements have received a bit of an upgrade, too. Players will have more control over their maneuvers than ever before, now more grounded and built for fluid transitions and greater control to give them a variety of ways to push forward, change angles, and adapt under pressure.

Other quality of life updates were shown, such as the position of your gun so you get a better view of what’s in front, the smoke from the gun’s barrel no longer obscuring your view and improved aiming even if your character isn’t perfectly steady. When getting close to walls, your character will pull the gun closer to themself just like in real life, and different guns are handled differently.

They acknowledged that in past games and even in other first-person shooters, that sometimes, even with perfect aim, your shot sometimes misses because of the recoil and this often frustrated players. They acknowledged that in past games and even in other first-person shooters, that sometimes, even with perfect aim, your shot sometimes misses because of the recoil and this often frustrated players.

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, the recoil element has been greatly improved, and bloom has been removed from hipfire, to make shots feel more connected to where the weapon is pointed while delivering consistent, predictable, and fair gunplay, so there’ll be fewer disputes about whether the shot should’ve landed.

The game introduces an all-new Gunny system, bringing a Gunnery Sergeant’s eye weapon customisation to help players quickly assemble effective builds based on their preferred playstyle and unlocked attachments to give them an edge over their enemies in battle. Also new are Apex attachments. These unlock when weapon progression has reached its max, evolving each weapon with new behaviours, opening up additional tactical playstyles. This puts more control in players’ hands, with a unified loadout system, robust Gunsmith, and more weapons, equipment, and killstreaks when the game releases later this year.

Over 12 new game modes will be available at launch, with categories being Respawn, Round-Based, Big War and Party. Respawn has the most modes with Team Deathmatch, Domination, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed and Free for All returning from previous games, while Counter Attack, Inflation and Hijack are brand new.

Round-Based has Search and Destroy, Gunfight and now a 10v10 version of Gunfight. Big War has another two new modes with Combat Outpost and Frontal Assault, and Party has Gun Game and Drop Zone returning from past games.

12 multiplayer maps are confirmed for launch. Many of them will take place in familiar locations from the single-player campaign, plus a few new places as well. The images, the multiplayer matches will take place in city streets, industrial areas, a bus yard, in snow, on a cruise and more. Another video was shown, giving us a little sample of what these will look like in real time, and the battles are going to look incredible.

Modern Warfare 4 also introduces greater player choice through two Prestige paths: Classic Prestige and Regular Prestige. Classic Prestige delivers the traditional reset experience, relocking Create-a-Class progression in exchange for increased XP earn rates and access to exclusive Prestige rewards. Regular Prestige allows you to progress your military ranks without losing your unlocked loadouts and attachments.

Another big feature is DMZ, which stands for Demilitarised Zone and is set to be the definitive extraction experience, a living combat sandbox where every deployment is a new story. It takes place in a large-scale conflict zone, built both for structured missions and emergent gameplay, where players can loot, fight, negotiate, betray and extract with as much as they can physically carry.

Players can deploy solo or with a squad into a volatile living combat zone as off-the-books assets having to recover advanced military technology left in the wake of war. Infinity Ward has taken on player feedback to help DMZ deliver a deeper, more complete extraction experience. Weather conditions will also affect the game and force players to adapt and alter their tactics.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is shaping up to be one of its best yet. The plot thickens in the single-player campaign, with the story continuing and taking place across various locations around the world, especially mixing in the real-world conflict between South Korea and North Korea. The quality of life updates further immerse you into the game’s world and make you feel like you’re in the middle of the action.

We can expect to see big, epic and explosive action in all the multiplayer modes, and DMZ looks to be the extraction experience we’ve been waiting for. Only five months to go until we once again respond to the call of duty on October 23rd in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.

Written by: Sammy Hanson