In November 2023, Sledgehammer Games released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, a sequel that arrived carrying the weight of its own complicated origins — born as an expansion, reshaped into a full title, and launched into a franchise newly absorbed by Microsoft. Its fourteen-mission campaign, completable in roughly four hours, raises quiet questions about what players are owed when commercial ambition outpaces creative scope. The game nonetheless introduces Open Combat missions that gesture toward a more player-driven future for a series long defined by its linear spectacle.
Modern Warfare 3 Campaign: 14 Missions, 4-Hour Story
One of the shortest campaigns in franchise history
Mark
So this game was supposed to be smaller—an expansion—but they released it as a full game anyway. Did they just add more content, or did they ship it as-is?
Mimi
They shipped it as-is, essentially. The campaign stayed short—four hours—which is why it reads as one of the shortest in the franchise. The expansion origins are pretty visible in the final product.
Luke
That's worth flagging. We don't know exactly what changed between the expansion plan and the full release decision. Did they add multiplayer and Zombies after deciding to go full? Or were those always planned? The source doesn't say.
Mark
Fair point. But the Open Combat missions—those are new, right? That's something they added for this version?
Mimi
Yes, those are new to Modern Warfare 3. Six of the fourteen missions use that format. You get dropped into a space and have to figure out how to complete objectives. You can customize loadouts as you go, and you keep gear you find even if you die.
Luke
That's a meaningful design change. But the source doesn't tell us whether players actually prefer that format, or how it was received. We're just told what it is.
Mark
What about the Game Pass thing? Microsoft owns Activision now, but the game didn't launch into Game Pass. Why?
Mimi
Microsoft said they needed more time to integrate it. The process is taking longer than it did with Bethesda games.
Luke
That's the official explanation. We don't know the actual reasons—licensing complications, contractual obligations with other platforms, technical challenges. The source gives us what Microsoft said, not necessarily why it's actually slow.
Mark
And the ten-year PlayStation deal—that's a real commitment to keeping it multiplatform.
Mimi
It is. Microsoft made a public commitment that Call of Duty stays on PlayStation for at least a decade, and they're working to bring it to Nintendo too.
Luke
That's a business decision with real teeth. But we should note: this is what Microsoft agreed to do. Whether they stick to it depends on what happens next.
Il Polso
- A campaign clocking in at just four hours has players questioning whether a full-priced release was ever truly warranted, given the game's origins as a planned expansion.
- The new Open Combat missions disrupt Call of Duty's signature hand-holding structure, dropping players into open areas with freedom — and uncertainty — about how to proceed.
- Warzone's DNA runs visibly through these open missions, blurring the line between the franchise's premium campaign and its free-to-play battle royale ecosystem.
- Microsoft's October 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard looms over the launch, yet Modern Warfare 3 arrived without Game Pass inclusion, leaving the promise of integration frustratingly deferred.
- A ten-year multiplatform commitment to PlayStation — and outreach toward Nintendo — signals that even under new ownership, Call of Duty is being managed as a platform-agnostic institution rather than an Xbox exclusive.
In November 2023, Sledgehammer Games released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, a sequel that arrived carrying the weight of its own complicated origins — born as an expansion, reshaped into a full title, and launched into a franchise newly absorbed by Microsoft. Its fourteen-mission campaign, completable in roughly four hours, raises quiet questions about what players are owed when commercial ambition outpaces creative scope. The game nonetheless introduces Open Combat missions that gesture toward a more player-driven future for a series long defined by its linear spectacle.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 arrived in November 2023 as Sledgehammer Games' sequel to Modern Warfare 2, continuing Task Force 141's pursuit of the antagonist Makarov across fourteen missions. Eight follow the franchise's familiar linear structure, while six — including Precious Cargo, Reactor, and Highrise — belong to a new type called Open Combat, which drops players into open environments and lets them determine how to complete their objectives.
These Open Combat missions borrow heavily from Warzone's aesthetic and mechanics, allowing players to discover and customize loadouts as they explore. A forgiving death system lets players restart with whatever gear they've already collected, softening the difficulty curve while preserving a sense of stakes.
The campaign's most discussed quality is its brevity. Most players will finish it in around four hours on regular difficulty — a runtime that reflects the game's origins as a planned expansion to Modern Warfare 2, later repackaged as a standalone release. The transition happened too late in development for the campaign's scope to grow accordingly.
The game launched November 10, 2023, across all major platforms, just weeks after Microsoft finalized its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Despite becoming a first-party Xbox property, Modern Warfare 3 did not enter Game Pass at launch, with Microsoft indicating the franchise needed more time to integrate. The company nonetheless committed to a ten-year agreement keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation, and signaled intentions to expand to Nintendo platforms — treating the franchise less as an exclusivity weapon and more as a multiplatform institution. The full package also included remade maps from the original Modern Warfare 2 and a new Zombies mode developed by Treyarch.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 arrived in November 2023 as Sledgehammer Games' direct sequel to the previous year's Modern Warfare 2, continuing the story of Task Force 141 and the antagonist Makarov. The campaign spans fourteen missions, a mix of traditional linear levels and a new mission type called Open Combat that gives players more freedom in how they approach objectives.
The fourteen missions are Operation 627, Precious Cargo, Reactor, Payload, Deep Cover, Passenger, Crash Site, Flashpoint, Oligarch, Highrise, Frozen Tundra, Gora Dam, Danger Close, and Trojan Horse. Six of these are Open Combat missions—Precious Cargo, Reactor, Crash Site, Oligarch, Highrise, and Gora Dam—while the remaining eight follow the more familiar linear structure players have come to expect from the franchise.
Open Combat missions represent a departure from Call of Duty's traditional design. Rather than funneling players down a predetermined path, these levels drop you into an area and leave you to figure out how to complete your objectives. You might need to locate intelligence, scale a building, or take out specific targets. The missions also draw heavily from assets used in Call of Duty: Warzone, the free-to-play battle royale, and allow you to customize your loadout with weapons and gear you discover throughout the level. If you die, you can restart from the beginning but keep whatever equipment you've already found, reducing the penalty for failure.
The campaign is notably brief. On regular difficulty, most players will finish the story in around four hours, including cutscenes. Bump the difficulty up to Hardened or Veteran, and you might add a couple of hours as you retry challenging sections. This makes Modern Warfare 3 one of the shortest campaigns in the franchise's history. The brevity likely traces back to the game's origins: it was originally planned as an expansion to Modern Warfare 2 before Activision decided to release it as a full standalone title instead. That shift in scope happened late enough that the development timeline and campaign length never expanded to match a typical full release.
The full game launched on November 10, 2023, across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4. Microsoft had completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard on October 13, making Modern Warfare 3 technically a first-party Xbox title, though it did not launch into Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft cited the need for more time to integrate the franchise into the subscription service—a process that has moved more slowly than when the company acquired ZeniMax Media and brought Bethesda games into Game Pass.
Despite the acquisition, Microsoft committed to keeping Call of Duty multiplatform. The company signed a ten-year agreement to maintain the franchise on PlayStation and began work to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms as well. The full Modern Warfare 3 experience included remade maps from the original Modern Warfare 2 and a new Zombies mode developed by Treyarch, the studio behind the Black Ops subseries.
Citazioni salienti
The shorter development length and shorter campaign length would possibly have been explained by being a smaller purchase, as an add-on or standalone.— Windows Central analysis of the game's expansion origins
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